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.

We see him opposed by virtually all the people whom he was seeking to benefit, while he played the humble waiting game, and gave the foe false advantages until in his own good time he struck and roundly defeated them. He endured being called a coward—although he well knew that he, with an arrow wound and two bullet wounds in his body, was no coward. We see him generous in victory, and always looking beyond the present. We also see him, as president and as governor of Texas, stanchly insisting upon the right as he viewed it, and which time has proved to be the right. And as United States senator he continued to fight for his principles of honor and wisdom. That he was unpopular among his people, and was marked for punishment, made no difference to Sam Houston. The welfare of Texas, and of the American Republic with which it united, was more to him than his own welfare.

It is a wonderful thing to know that one is right, and then to stick to the compass.

Sam Houston had his weaknesses. All men have weaknesses. The greatest men rise above them. The strength of Sam Houston was his faith in himself; his weakness was his pride in himself. When his pride was injured, by accusations and by home troubles, he went to the other extreme, apparently tried to see how low he could sink, and as if in revenge set out to throw away his career. This was no revenge. It never is. It benefits mainly one’s enemies, and harms mainly oneself and one’s friends.

Weak natures do not accept that verdict, or they take more pleasure in pitying themselves than in aiding themselves. Sam Houston sank; the world, disappointed, said that he was a failure, after all—he could not hold his course, and had abandoned the helm. But he could, and he did. He rose, he grasped the wheel again, he retrimmed his sails, and he forged on, with faith and will, to fulfil the capabilities with which he had been entrusted.

Of the boys in this book, James Monroe Hill, Leo Roark, and Sion Bostick appear in Texas history under these very names. Without doubt they had a friend and comrade like Ernest Merrill; many boys marched and fought beside the men in the Texas struggle for independence from Mexico. Names amount to very little, anyway; they simply are convenient. It is deeds that count.

Edwin L. Sabin

California, June 1, 1916