Sam Houston was a Tennessee-born lawyer, soldier, and politician who gained lasting fame as the leader of the Texas Revolution. After commanding Texan troops to victory over Mexican forces at the Battle of San Jacinto, he became the first president of the Lone Star Republic and one of the first two U.S. Senators to represent Texas after joining the ‘Union in 1845.
Youth
Born in Virginia on March 2, 1793, Houston moved to Tennessee with his mother and eight siblings after his father died at the age of 13. He fled his home in 1809 and spent nearly three years living among the Cherokees in eastern Tennessee. Adopted by a clan led by Chief Oolooteka, Houston learned to speak the Cherokee language and adopted many of their customs; they gave it the Indian name Colonneh, or “the crow”.
Houston joined the US Army to fight against Great Britain in the War of 1812. While serving under Andrew Jackson in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on March 26, 1814, Houston suffered three injuries. almost fatal and would carry fragments of the musket ball that lodged in his right shoulder until his death. His wounds slowly heal, and by the time he returns to service, Jackson’s forces have won a decisive victory in the Battle of New Orleans.
Relationship with Andrew Jackson
Impressed by Houston’s bravery, Jackson became a protector and father figure, personally arranging for Houston to be part of his team in Nashville. Houston resigned from the military in 1818 to launch his legal career, but Jackson helped him become a general of the Tennessee Militia, a position Old Hickory himself once held.
After serving as Attorney General in Nashville, Houston won the United States House of Representatives election and traveled to Washington, DC in 1823 alongside Jackson, a new United States Senator. Houston won a second term in Congress in 1825 and two years later became governor of Tennessee at the age of 34.
In 1829, Jackson was in the White House and his protégé seemed well placed for a future presidential race. That year, Houston married Eliza Allen, who left him three months later to return to live in her father’s house. Details of what happened are scarce, but the scandal has irreparably damaged Houston’s reputation. He resigned his governorship in April 1829 and left Tennessee to seek refuge with the Cherokee in the territory of Arkansas.
Life with Cherokee and return to politics
Houston played an active role in Native American affairs, helping to negotiate peace between various tribes in Indian Territory. In 1830 he married a Cherokee woman, Tiana Rogers, and together they opened a trading post. He also began traveling to Washington, DC as a member of the Cherokee delegation to the US government, and fought for fair treatment by government officials of his adopted people.
In March 1832, during a congressional debate on Jackson’s Indian policy, Ohio Congressman William Stanbery suggested that Houston was part of an effort to defraud the government. Two weeks later, an enraged Houston ran into Stanbery on Pennsylvania Avenue and beat him to the teeth with a hickory cane. Houston was arrested and tried in the US House of Representatives; Washington attorney Francis Scott Key (who later rose to fame as the author of “The Star Spangled Banner”) defended it. While the incident earned Houston an official reprimand and a fine, it brought him back into the political arena and energized him for a new challenge.
Arrival in Texas and role in the Texas revolution
With Jackson’s blessing, Houston quickly left Tiana and her life with the Cherokees and headed across the Sabine River to Texas, which at the time was part of Mexico. He arrived in late 1832 and settled in Nacogdoches, where he was baptized into the Catholic Church (a requirement under Mexican law), opened a law firm and formally obtained a divorce. of his wife Eliza.
Houston represented Nacogdoches at the 1833 Convention, during which Anglo-Texan settlers, led by Stephen Austin, decided to ask the Mexican government to grant Texas independent state status. When Austin traveled to Mexico City to deliver the petition, the government of General Antonio López de Santa Anna arrested and detained him until mid-1835.
In October 1835, Texan (or Texan) and Mexican forces clashed in the Battle of Gonzales, triggering the Texas Revolution. Houston was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Texas Army and helped negotiate a treaty with the Cherokees living in east Texas. Even as Mexican forces besieged the Alamo in March 1836, Houston attended the Washington-on-the-Brazos convention that voted for Texas independence.
With news of the Alamo’s downfall, Houston ordered his army to withdraw from Gonzales eastward as Santa Anna’s forces advanced. The strategic retreat allowed Houston to better prepare its troops for combat, and on April 21, the Texans caught Santa Anna’s troops in a surprise attack along the San Jacinto River. The resounding victory led to the capture and surrender of Santa Anna, and the battle for Texas independence was won.
President, Senator and Governor of Texas
Houston’s heroic reputation as “Old San Jacinto” helped him win two non-consecutive terms as President of the Republic of Texas (1836-38 and 1841-44). In the meantime, he served in the Texas House of Representatives. The city of Houston, incorporated during its first presidential administration, was the first capital of Texas.
In 1840 Houston married 21-year-old Margaret Moffette Lea. They went on to have eight children, and her devout Baptist faith helped control her husband’s weirder side (and his drinking). After Texas joined the Union at the end of 1845, Houston returned to Washington as one of the two US senators from the new state. In the Senate from 1846 to 1859, he made a name for himself as a staunch Unionist at a time of growing cross-sectoral tensions over the issue of slavery. Houston was himself a slaveholder and defended slavery in the South, but he repeatedly voted against its expansion into the territories.
Opposition in the Texas legislature to Houston’s position on the Kansas-Nebraska law (he was one of only two southern senators to vote against) marked the end of his Senate career. In 1857 he lost an offer for governor of Texas and the state legislature voted not to return him to the Senate. Houston defied calls for immediate resignation and served until the end of his term in 1859, using his final year in the Senate to advocate for the establishment of a protectorate over Mexico and Central America, which, according to him, would bring unity to the United States.
Opposition to secession and the later years
Houston ran for governor again in 1859 and won. In the months leading up to the Civil War, he became the only governor of a southern state to oppose secession. When Texas voted to secede, Houston accepted the decision, but refused to pledge allegiance to the New Confederate States of America. In response, the Texas convention removed him from office and replaced him with Lieutenant Governor Edward Clark.
Houston nominally supported the Southern cause during the war; his son, Sam Jr., fought for Confederacy and was wounded at the Battle of Shiloh. After being ousted from the governor’s office, Houston and his family moved to Huntsville, Texas, where on July 28, 1863, Houston died of pneumonia at the age of 70.
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Brian Kilmeade, Sam Houston and the Avengers of Alamo (Penguin, 2019)
Timeline of the Texas Revolution. The Alamo.
Thomas A. Kreneck, Sam Houston (1793-1863). Texas Handbook: Texas State Historical Association.
