Gordon With Sam Houston in Texas

1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-3-98826-049-9
Verlag: OTB eBook publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 287 Seiten

Excerpt: ?Sam Houston should justly be regarded as a great American. He laid his course and steered by it utterly regardless of the opposition. Strong characters are known as much by the enemies that they make as by the friends that they retain. When they launch into a course that they deem is right, they do not depend upon fair winds. They go ahead, if they have real faith. Threats, ridicule and dangers do not daunt them. Sometimes they may pause, to renew their courage; but they proceed again on the same line Such a character was Sam Houston. To his friends he was loyal; to his enemies he was unyielding; his ideals were high; and he loved his country. Whatever he undertook, he undertook with his whole might, in spite of censure and discouragements. This book deals with him chiefly as the six-months? general who, out of seeming defeat, achieved the triumph of Texas arms, and at one stroke established Texas independence. But we ought to admire him as a patriot statesman, rather than as a military commander. Some other commander could have won the victory for Texas. Freedom, well or poorly led, cannot be conquered by oppression. Justice cannot be combatted, forever, by injustice. But few other men have had Sam Houston?s rugged courage.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gordon, Elizabeth

Leseproben

SAM HOUSTON
THE BUILDER OF TEXAS
March 2, 1793, born at Timber Ridge Church, near Lexington, Rockbridge County, Virginia, of Scotch-Irish ancestry. Father: Major Samuel Houston, soldier of the Revolution and Assistant Inspector-General of the frontier troops. Mother: Elizabeth Paxton Houston, a large woman of fine physique and strong character. At eight years of age young Sam attends country school in the “Field School,” which occupied the old building out of which Washington University had removed to Lexington. In 1807 his father dies, and his brave-spirited mother, now left with six sons and three daughters, crosses the Allegheny Mountains and resettles eight miles east of the Tennessee River in Blount County, Tennessee, here to build a cabin and clear the land. Sam hunts, traps, works on the farm, is fascinated by the battles and adventures in the Iliad as translated by Alexander Pope, and intermittently attends the Maryville Academy, where his especial pleasure is to drill his mates in military tactics. Apprenticed to a blacksmith, and later hired out as a clerk in a general store, he runs away and joins the Cherokee Indians, across the Tennessee River. Is adopted by the sub-chief Oolootekah or John Jolly. Refuses to return when found by his brothers, and spends his time living as an Indian. Is now almost six feet tall, and of large frame. In 1811, when aged eighteen, returns to white civilization. Wearing a calico hunting-shirt, and his hair in a pigtail, he teaches country school, in Eastern Tennessee, to pay off debts contracted while he played Indian. In 1813 enlists at Maryville, with the approval of his mother, as a private soldier in the war against Great Britain. He is promoted to sergeant, in the 39th Regiment, Tennessee Volunteers, serves as drill-master in Tennessee and Alabama, and soon is appointed to ensign, by President Madison. March 27, 1814, under General Andrew Jackson and General John Coffee, engages in the desperate battle with the Creek Indians at To-ho-pe-ka, or Horseshoe Bend, at the Tallapoosa River, in Alabama; is badly wounded by an arrow while leading his men over the breastworks, and again by two bullets. Slowly recovers from his wounds, and, December 31, 1813, is promoted and commissioned third lieutenant. May 20, 1814, commissioned second lieutenant. May 17, 1815, transferred to the First Infantry of the regular army. May 1, 1817, commissioned first lieutenant. Serves in the adjutant-general’s office at Nashville, Tennessee. November, 1817, being still incapacitated by his wounds, is appointed sub-agent for the Cherokee Indians, whose language he speaks. Conducts for them the negotiations by which they sell to the government their lands in Eastern Tennessee. In Washington is rebuked by John C. Calhoun, secretary of war, for appearing in Cherokee Indian costume; is acquitted of misconduct in office. March 1, 1818, resigns from the army. June, 1818, studies law in the office of the Honorable James Trimble, at Nashville. Admitted to the bar in six months. Practises law for about three years at Lebanon and Nashville, Tennessee. Gains a reputation for his high-sounding phrases, his self-esteem, and his honesty. In 1819 appointed, through the influence of his patron, General Jackson, adjutant-general of Tennessee, and is elected prosecuting attorney with office at Nashville. Resigns this office because of insufficient income from it, and resumes general practice. In 1821 elected major-general of the Tennessee militia. In 1823 elected as representative in Congress from the ninth district of Tennessee. Serves here four years, and is thrown in contact with Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, John Randolph, Nathaniel Macon, and other distinguished American statesmen. September 23, 1826, severely wounds General William White in a duel fought in Simpson County, Kentucky, just across the Tennessee line. Thereafter declines to engage in duels, although many times challenged. August, 1827, elected governor of Tennessee; appears at the polls mounted on a fine dapple-gray horse, and wearing a tall black beaver hat, high patent-leather stock, ruffled white shirt, black silk trousers with legs cut straight and full, embroidered silk stockings, pumps with silver buckles, and a long Indian hunting-shirt of red figured calico belted about with a beaded red sash. In January, 1829, marries Miss Eliza Allen, of Sumner County, Tennessee; after three months separates from her, for cause unknown to the world; resigns his governorship, and joins the Cherokee Indians again on their new reservation in Arkansas, near Fort Gibson of the Indian Territory. Is welcomed as a son, by Chief Oolootekah, resumes his Indian life and receives the title of Col-lon-neh, or the Raven. By his dissolute habits earns also the name “Drunken Sam,” from the whites, and “Big Drunk,” from the Cherokees. During 1830–1831, while attempting to protect the Cherokees against frauds from traders and contractors, is falsely accused of the same improper practices, himself. April 13, 1832, while in Washington assaults and beats with a cane Representative William Stanberry, of Ohio, as retaliation for an insulting public speech. Is arraigned before the House of Representatives, and employs as counsel Francis Scott Key, author of the “Star Spangled Banner”; is reprimanded by the House, but is commended by President Jackson, who remits his fine. In the Indian nation he has taken to wife the stately Tyania Rodgers, a half-breed woman of unusual qualities; he establishes a small farm and trading-post on the west bank of the Grand River, opposite Fort Gibson, and spends much of his time hunting, trading and drinking. In December, 1832, proceeds alone to Texas, under commission from President Jackson to conclude a treaty of peace with the Comanche Indians, for the protection of the United States borders; and under instructions, also, to investigate the feasibility of the annexation of Texas to the United States. April, 1833, is a delegate from Nacogdoches, Texas, to the Texas convention held for the purpose of demanding a separation from the province of Coahuila. Through 1833, 1834 and 1835, while residing at Nacogdoches, San Augustine and Washington, of East Texas, he takes prominent part in meetings which discuss freedom for Texas under the Mexican constitution of 1824. October, 1835, is elected at Nacogdoches commander-in-chief of the army of Eastern Texas. November, 1835, by the convention which meets at San Felipe to form a temporary state government is elected, with only one opposing vote, commander-in-chief of the armies of Texas. At the close of January, 1836, by reason of a quarrel between Governor Henry Smith and the council, finding himself without the means of enforcing his authority among the Texas troops, Houston virtually retires from his office of major-general. February, 1836, as one of three commissioners from Texas to the Cherokees and other Indians, he so reassures the uneasy tribes that they remain quiet throughout the war of Texas and Mexico. March, 1836, is a delegate from Refugio of Southern Texas to the Texas general convention which at Washington on the Brazos declares for a Texas independent republic; by practically a unanimous vote is re-elected commander-in-chief. March and April, 1836, conducts his little army in a long retreat eastward across Texas. Handicapped by the rains, and by soldiers and settlers accused of cowardice and of leaving the country needlessly exposed to the Mexican forces, he labors hard amidst tremendous discouragements. April 20, 1836, suddenly cuts off President Santa Anna’s column of Mexican troops, at the head of San Jacinto Bay, on the coast of East Texas. April 21, 1836, with his 743 Texans, mainly rough and ready volunteers, from his camp on Buffalo Bayou, near its juncture with the San Jacinto River, charges the breastworks of the Santa Anna 1350 regulars, and in fifteen minutes of fighting wins the battle of San Jacinto. Eight Texans were killed, twenty-three wounded; Houston’s ankle was shattered while he was leading his men. Of the Mexicans 630 were killed, 730 wounded and captured, or both. Santa Anna was made prisoner on the next day. The independence of the Republic of Texas having thus been achieved at one stroke, in May Houston leaves for New Orleans to have his wound treated. July, 1836, Houston returns to Texas, and protests against the proposed trial and execution of Santa Anna, who had been promised his liberty. September, 1836, Sam Houston elected by a vast majority; first permanent president of the new Republic of Texas. October 22, 1836, he is inaugurated president, at Columbia. November, 1836, he vetoes the resolution passed by the Texas senate to retain Santa Anna as prisoner, and dispatches him to Washington of the United States, for an audience with President Jackson, in the interests of recognition by Mexico of Texas independence. December, 1836, removes to the town of Houston, on the battle-field of San Jacinto—the new capital. December, 1838, Houston ends his first term as president; he has conducted the affairs of the new republic with great firmness and wisdom; and living in a two-room log cabin has attired himself in bizarre costume and been a curious mixture of statesman and backwoodsman. In the summer of 1839 he protests vehemently against violations, by Texas, of the treaty with the Cherokees; he is...