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 threatened with assassination, for “inciting” the Indians against the whites, but he makes his speech, just the same.

May 9, 1840, he marries, at Marion, Alabama, Miss Margaret Moffette Lea. She is a girl of twenty-one, he a man of forty-seven, and her gentle influence over him is his guiding star until his death; he soon ceases drinking and swearing, and now allows his better nature to have full sway.

1840–1841, Houston is representative from Nacogdoches, in the Texas congress.

1841, elected, for the second time, president of the Texas Republic; inaugurated, December 16, at the new capital of Austin.

Serves as president until December, 1844. Does not like Austin, and removes the seat of government to Houston, and thence to Washington on the Brazos; but the indignant citizens of Austin retain, by force, the government archives. As president, Houston opposes invasion of Mexico by Texas, vetoes other war measures, and again is threatened with assassination, but treats the threats with contempt.

By correspondence with General Jackson, President Tyler, and other statesmen, and by his public addresses, he successfully engineers the annexation of Texas to the United States, although the act was not consummated while he was at the head of the Texas government.

In the fall of 1845 he is elected United States senator from the state of Texas. Arrives at Washington to take his seat, March, 1846. While in Congress wears his well-known broad-brimmed white wool hat, and Mexican blanket, whittles industriously at cedar shingles while listening to the debates, and bears prominent part in national affairs. He opposes the extension of slavery in new territories, and is denounced, by the South, as a traitor. He remains a firm advocate of the rights of the Indians.

January, 1853, re-elected to congress, from Texas.

Attends the Baptist church regularly, in Washington. In 1854 is received into the Baptist faith, at Independence, Texas.

March 3, 1854, delivers a great speech against Senator Stephen A. Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska bill, which repealed the Missouri Compromise bill, prohibiting slavery north of latitude 36° 30´, and opened Kansas and Nebraska territories to the extension of slavery into the North.

In 1856 is candidate for the Presidency, but at the nominating convention of the “American” party receives only three votes, his opposition to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise bill having aroused bitter enmity toward him.

In 1857 defeated for the United States senate.

In the fall of 1857 defeated for the governorship of Texas.

February, 1859, concludes his term in the United States senate and returns to Texas.

Fall of 1859 triumphantly elected, for a third time, governor of Texas. Is inaugurated on December 21.

In the troublous days of 1860 he stands stoutly for the preservation of the Union, and is threatened by the Southern sympathizers by whom he is surrounded. He advises appeal to the constitution rather than to arms.

March 14, 1861, Texas having seceded, he refuses to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy; is deposed from the governorship, and retires to Huntsville, his home.

Although opposing secession, he firmly advocates the defense of the South against invasion by the Federal troops, and says that he is willing to enter the Texas ranks. In his San Jacinto suit he reviews, at Galveston, the Texas regiment in which his son, Sam Houston, Jr., has enlisted, and is cheered.

Lives at Cedar Point, Texas; becomes very feeble, from his old wounds and other disabilities, and walks with the aid of a crutch and a cane.

January, 1863, congratulates Texas for having driven the Northern forces from her soil.

March 18, 1863, makes his last public speech, at Houston, Texas, and bids Texas keep up its courage and its hopes of success of the Southern cause.

July 26, 1863, Sam Houston dies in his bed at the family home, in Huntsville, Texas, aged 70 years. His last words are: “Texas! Texas!” and “Margaret,” the name of his wife. He died beloved and respected by state and country. To his eldest son, Lieutenant Sam Houston, Jr., he bequeathed the “sword of San Jacinto.”

WITH SAM HOUSTON IN TEXAS