Abraham Lincoln

Tennessean Andrew Johnson, who became president himself in 1865, remarked that if Sam Houston had run in 1860 he would have become the President of the United States instead of Abraham Lincoln. That being said, Lincoln was well aware of Houston’s strong Unionist stance and kept an eye on events in Texas. Near the end of March 1861, after Houston had been deposed as governor but before vacating the Governor’s Mansion, he was being driven by Jeff Hamilton to Belton to give a speech when they were overtaken by a courier waving a letter with a wax seal. It was a letter from Abraham Lincoln offering 50,000 troops and a major general’s commission if Houston would try to keep Texas in the Union. Jeff turned the buggy around and headed back to Austin where Houston gathered some of his closest friends to consider the matter: Ben Epperson, David Culberson, James Throckmorton and William Rogers. Only Epperson counseled Houston to accept the offer. In the late night mansion library Houston dropped the letter into the fireplace saying, "Gentlemen, I have resolved to act in this matter on your advice, but if I was ten years younger I would not." At times the existence of the Lincoln letter has been questioned (there were actually two of them), but both George Giddings and David Culberson left accounts of the meeting, and Jeff Hamilton said that he "saw with my own eyes" the letter Lincoln sent and that the offer was for 50,000 troops.

Andrew Jackson

Houston came to Jackson’s attention for his bravery under fire at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend during the War of 1812. Jackson took the severely wounded Houston under his wing, helping him to study the law and rise in Tennessee political circles from Adjutant General, to Congressman, to Governor of Tennessee. Jackson wrote a letter of introduction for Houston to Thomas Jefferson in 1823, and it was widely believed that Houston would be Jackson’s heir to the White House. The specifics of their purposes concerning Houston’s travels in Texas are not known, but Jackson had been trying to buy Texas for some time and it is believed that Houston was investigating the possibilities of its future relationship with the United States. In 1845, Houston, racing to The Hermitage, arrived just one or two hours too late to see Jackson before he passed away, and he subsequently served as one of Jackson’s pallbearers.

Ashbel Smith

Born in Connecticut, Smith earned an M.D. from Yale in 1828 and was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He came to the new Republic of Texas in 1837 and roomed with Sam Houston. Houston immediately recognized his abilities, cultivated his friendship, and in 1842 sent him as Texas’ Chargé d’Affaires to England and France. Smith served as a legislator, one of the founders of the University of Texas, a founder of the Democratic Party in Texas, and greatly advanced medicine in Texas by leading efforts to spread scientific knowledge. He served with General Zachary Taylor during the Mexican War and was named the commanding colonel of the Second Texas Infantry after serving at Shiloh during the Civil War. Sam and Margaret Houston were comforted by the knowledge that their son, Sam Jr., was serving with Smith’s unit. A true renaissance man, his accomplishments were substantial and his distinctions numerous. After the war he championed public education for blacks and women and was one of three commissioners appointed by Gov. Richard Coke to establish an “Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas for the benefit of Colored Youths.” This school is now Prairie View A&M University, just outside of Hempstead.

Charles S. Taylor

This signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence was born in London, England, in 1808. Orphaned at a young age and raised by an uncle, he came to the United States in 1828 and to Nacogdoches in 1830. A holder of many offices and positions of responsibility, including the Alcalde of Nacogdoches Territory, Taylor took the tax money that was supposed to go to Mexico and gave it to Thomas Rusk to buy arms for the Texas Army. Taylor’s first four children died during the horrific evacuation of Texas known as the Runaway Scrape when Texas settlers were fleeing the advancing Mexican Army. After the Battle of San Jacinto, Taylor occasionally wrote his friend Sam Houston with news of Anna Raguet, the Nacogdoches beauty Sam had his eye on and the one he dedicated the battle of San Jacinto to. U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is a direct descendant of this Texas patriot.

Chief Bowl

The principal chief of the Cherokees in Texas, Chief Bowl was a person whose friendship Sam Houston carefully cultivated. Chief Bowl had helped the Mexican government put down the Fredonian Rebellion in East Texas but his efforts to secure title to his tribe’s land was interrupted by the Texas Revolution. In 1836 Chief Bowl and Sam Houston negotiated a treaty over these lands, with Houston promising to get them clear title if they would stay out of the fight with Mexico. After the Texas Revolution the Texas Senate invalidated the treaty, and when Lamar became president he prosecuted a war against the Cherokees to drive them out of Texas. Most of the tribe was killed in the fighting, along with Chief Bowl, on July 16, 1839. The remnant was driven into the Indian Territory of today’s Oklahoma. Houston’s rage was volcanic, and in December he ranted in the House for two days over what had been done to the Cherokees, whose only sin was receiving “a pledge [of land] from the government of Texas” and being “dupes enough to believe it.” His rage was fueled even more when one of the leaders of the Cherokee War, Hugh McLeod, sent Houston The Bowl’s cocked hat as an insulting present.

Chief Oo-loo-tek-a

Oolooteka had a friendly personality and was known to the whites as “John Jolly.” When Houston ran away as a teenager to Hiwassee Island, Oolooteka was the chief of the Cherokee tribe with whom Houston lived for three years, and he became Houston’s adopted father. After returning to the white world and working his way up to the office of Governor of Tennessee, then resigning that office, Houston returned to live with John Jolly’s band of Cherokees, now in today’s Oklahoma, for another three years. Houston, at the lowest time in his life, was given the name “Big Drunk” by the Cherokees and at one point actually struck his adopted father. However, he eventually climbed out of his stupor, went on to perform services as a liaison for the Cherokees to powerbrokers in Washington, and was awarded Cherokee citizenship.

David Crockett

Crockett, like Houston, was a protégé of Jackson’s and fought under him. Also like Houston, Crockett was elected to congress from the State of Tennessee in the 1820s and they worked together in Washington. On the day Houston resigned as Governor of Tennessee, Crockett visited him and asked what he intended to do. As an Indian Agent and lieutenant in the infantry, Houston had exiled his Hiwassee Cherokees to the Arkansas Territory, and now, he said, he intended to share their exile with them. Crockett became disenchanted with politics after losing his 1835 congressional race and, at a farewell drinking party in the bar of the Union Hotel in Memphis, exclaimed to friends, "…you may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas." Much lore was built up around Crockett even during his own day, and much contemporary controversy surrounds the manner of his death during the defense of the Alamo. A recent book by Dr. James Crisp titled Sleuthing the Alamo sheds light on the circumstances surrounding Crockett’s death at the Alamo.

David G. Burnet

Burnet was orphaned at a young age and raised by his older half-brothers. His father served in the Continental Congress, his brother Jacob nominated William Henry Harrison for president and was a U.S. Senator, and another brother was the mayor of Cincinnati. David Burnet served as the provisional president of Texas during the revolution and wrenched from the captured Santa Anna the treaties of Velasco, recognizing the independent Republic of Texas. Burnet was the nemesis of Sam Houston and harshly criticized him during the San Jacinto campaign. Burnet went so far as to deny Houston passage to New Orleans for medical treatment of his wounds after the battle, which was a delay that potentially put his life in jeopardy. Houston sometimes referred to Burnet as “watumka” which was a Native American word for “hog thief” and Burnet once challenged Houston to a duel. When Burnet’s second came for Houston’s response, the six-foot two Houston replied, “I never fight downhill.” Burnet and Lamar once planned to publish a narrative to discredit Sam Houston but they were unable to find a publisher. Burnet destroyed his manuscript shortly before he died.

Eliza Allen

Eliza Allen destroyed all of the pictures of herself that she was in possession of, however, this photo is believed by the family to be an authentic picture of her. She was nineteen when she married Sam Houston and he was thirty-five; one year younger than her mother. Her uncle, Robert, had served in congress with Sam Houston and it is probably through this connection that they became acquainted. Eliza’s father, John Allen, had thirty-nine slaves in 1833, which would make him one of the wealthier citizens of Sumner County, and at the time of the marriage Sam was the powerful Governor of Tennessee. Eliza Allen and Sam Houston were together for only 11 weeks, and although rumors and stories abound they both considered the circumstances of their breakup an intensely private matter and neither one ever talked about it. In Mexican Texas divorce was simply not an option, but after the Texas Revolution Sam had the matter heard by one of his own judges and the divorce was granted. Until that time, Eliza Allen was technically the First Lady of the new Republic of Texas, a country that she never saw.

Francis Scott Key

Houston’s rooting out of corruption in the department of Indian Affairs created powerful enemies in Washington, and he was accused of graft from the floor of the House by Ohio Representative William Stanberry. Houston caught Stanberry on Pennsylvania Avenue and beat him severely, prompting Stanberry to file formal charges. Houston was put on trial in the House and hired the now famous composer of the “Star Spangled Banner” as his defense counsel. Key’s opening statement had been mediocre and he was too ill (some say hung over) to do the summations, so Houston (also hung over) decided to do them himself. He spoke to a packed gallery and received a standing ovation, after which time letters of support poured in from all over the country. However, Houston was found guilty and reprimanded, but the incident served the purpose of giving him a national platform on which to reemerge after the collapse of his career in Tennessee.

James Fannin

Born in Georgia, James Fannin entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1819 but left in 1821. He came to Texas in 1834 and began agitating for Texas Independence. Sam Houston commissioned him as a colonel in the regular Texas Army on December 7, 1835, and he was elected colonel of the volunteers at Goliad on February 7, 1836. On March 14, Fannin received orders from Houston to retreat to Victoria, but he delayed until March 19 and his 400 men were surrounded by the Mexican army in an open field, forced to surrender, and held captive in the mission at Goliad. On March 27, Palm Sunday, they were marched out in three separate directions and shot in cold blood. Fannin and some forty others who were unable to march due to their wounds were shot separately at the mission on the same day. Meanwhile, the hot-headed men under Houston’s command, who were nearly mutinous from their seemingly endless retreating, were stunned into silence when Houston informed them of the massacre and they realized they were now alone in the defense of Texas.

Jeff Hamilton

In October of 1853, Senator Sam Houston bought a thirteen year-old crying child who was being sold off by a cruel slave master to pay a whiskey debt. The child, Jeff Hamilton, became a playmate to the Houston children and enjoyed a loving relationship with the family. He worked as Houston’s personal assistant and was his driver during both of his campaigns for governor, traveling thousands of miles with him and meeting many of the era’s important figures. Hamilton was with Houston when he refused to swear allegiance to the Confederacy and was with him when he died in Huntsville. After Houston’s death, Hamilton moved with Margaret to Independence, Texas, and worked at Baylor College, eventually moving to Belton when the college relocated there. He was always present at Houston family reunions and was a popular guest speaker at historical gatherings for his close association with General Houston. He is the author of an important book on Sam Houston’s life and lived until 1941.

Jim Bowie

Bowie was a slave trader and land speculator who became an instant legend when he and his ferocious butcher knife emerged victorious from a fight in 1827. Sam Houston met Bowie on Christmas Eve of 1832 when they had dinner in San Felipe and then rode together to San Antonio. Bowie had maneuvered his way into the connected circles of San Antonio and married the daughter of the Vice-Governor of the State of Coahuila y Texas. Several years later when Houston was the Commander-In-Chief of the Texas Army, he ordered Bowie to ride to San Antonio, destroy the Alamo, and return with its military hardware. However, he gave Bowie the latitude to use his own discretion when he got there, and Bowie died in the desperate battle defending the outpost.

John C. Calhoun

Calhoun was one of the most influential politicians during the first half of the nineteenth century and was part of the “Immortal Trio” alongside Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. In addition to his service in the House and his dominant role in the Senate, he served as Vice President under both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, Secretary of War under James Monroe, and Secretary of State under John Tyler. Calhoun was a staunch supporter of slavery who saw the institution as in the interest of the common good rather than a “necessary evil” and also believed that states should have the right to nullify any federal laws that they disagreed with. He ran afoul of Sam Houston when Houston, still a U.S. Army officer, arrived dressed in Indian attire with a delegation of Indian chiefs to meet with President Monroe. Calhoun gave him a verbal lashing like he had never had and created an enemy for life. His refusal to reimburse Houston for his official travel expenses was resolved when Houston was elected to Congress in 1823 and placed on the Military Affairs Committee that oversaw Calhoun’s budget.

Joshua Houston

Born in Alabama and belonging to Margaret Lea, Joshua came to Texas with her in 1840 when she married Sam Houston. Joshua became a skilled blacksmith and wheelwright and did very well for himself. He lived with the Houstons in the Governor’s Mansion and, after Sam Houston died, moved to Independence with Margaret. He reportedly offered her his life savings, which she refused, instructing him instead to educate his children with the money. Joshua Houston became a leader in Huntsville’s civic and religious circles and was elected to the office of county commissioner. Sam Houston Elementary School in Huntsville is named for his son, Samuel Walker Houston, who grew up to be a distinguished educator and leader in both state and national civic endeavors.

Juan Seguín

Juan Nepomuceno Seguín was born in San Antonio on October 27, 1806. He married into an important San Antonio ranching family and had ten children. In October of 1835 Stephen F. Austin commissioned him a captain after he raised a company of thirty-seven men and helped chase the Mexican Army under General Cos out of San Antonio. Seguín entered the Alamo to join the other assembled men but was sent to Gonzales as a courier. He was not allowed to go back, and instead organized a rear guard for Houston’s army. At San Jacinto, Houston was afraid Seguín’s men would be mistaken for the enemy and fall victim to friendly fire so he ordered them to guard the camp. Seguín protested strongly and his Tejano unit was allowed to join the battle. He subsequently accepted the Mexican surrender of San Antonio on June 4, 1836 and served as the city’s military commander. Seguín went on to serve in the Texas Senate and as San Antonio’s mayor. A mixture of politics and racism forced him to flee to Mexico with his family in 1842, and when Santa Anna learned of his proximity he gave him the choice of service or prison. Thus, a very unhappy Juan Seguín was in General Adrián Woll’s invasion of Texas in September of 1842. In order to return and be accepted back in Texas, he asked Sam Houston to write him a letter of support, which he did, and Seguín settled near today’s Wilson County on land adjacent to his father’s ranch. He retired in Nuevo Laredo near his son, and died on August 27, 1890. The city of Seguín is named in his honor, and his remains were re-interred there on July 4, 1976.

Margaret Moffette Lea

The third wife of Sam Houston first saw him when she happened to be in the crowd at New Orleans watching his arrival by boat for medical care after the Battle of San Jacinto. Years later, he was in Mobile, Alabama promoting a Texas land deal and was introduced to her at a party held by her sister, Antoinette. He was forty-six and she was twenty. They were married on May 9, 1840 and the very devout Margaret began her campaign to win the General to her Baptist ways. One of Houston’s friends did not give the marriage a month, saying that he had never known anyone “more intrinsically unsuited to domestic happiness.” However, Margaret influenced him greatly and his friends had misjudged how badly he wanted to settle down. She never traveled on the campaign trail, nor to Washington, but instead focused on creating a nest for him at home which he greatly longed for. The letters between them reveal a deep and affectionate love for one another. Margaret is credited with Houston’s victory over alcohol and with the tempering of his volcanic temper, and her climactic glory was realized on November 19, 1854 when Sam Houston submitted to baptism in Rocky Creek at Independence, TX.

Mirabeau B. Lamar

Lamar was a newspaper editor from Georgia. A voracious reader, he also wrote poetry and became an excellent horseman as an adolescent. In 1835 he followed James Fannin to Texas and decided to settle there, immediately becoming an advocate for independence. He joined the Texas Army as a private and his quick action on April 20, 1836 saved the lives of several men before the Battle of San Jacinto. Houston promoted him on the spot to colonel and assigned him to command the cavalry. Ten days after the battle, Lamar was the Secretary of War in David G. Burnet’s cabinet and went on to become a life-long political enemy of Sam Houston. As Houston’s successor to the presidency of Texas, Lamar prosecuted wars against the East Texas Cherokees and the western Comanches to drive them out of the country, and he was fiercely opposed to annexation, preferring Texas to expand to the Pacific Ocean and become the continental rival of the United States. He proposed a system of public education which set aside lands for two state universities which earned him the nickname “Father of Texas Education.”

Rev. George Washington Baines

Rev. Baines moved to Texas in 1850 and became a prominent Baptist pastor in the state. He was the first editor of the newspaper, Texas Baptist, the President of Baylor University from 1861-1862, and a good friend of Sam Houston. It was Baines who greatly helped Houston with some theological struggles he was having, which once satisfied cleared the way for him to join the church and focus his attention on political battles. Rev. Baines was the great-grandfather of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the thirty-sixth President of the United States.

Rev. Rufus C. Burleson

Burleson was a prominent Baptist pastor in Texas, the second president of Baylor University, and a friend of Sam and Margaret Houston. He served as the pastor of the church in Independence and baptized Sam Houston on November 19, 1854. It was Burleson who allegedly said, upon raising Houston up out of the cold waters of Rocky Creek, “Congratulations General Houston, the Lord has washed away all of your sins.” Houston is said to have replied, “If that be the case God help the fish down below.” (Houston said his wallet had been baptized too because he paid the pastor’s fee for performing the ceremony.) As the angry fires of secession ripped across the political landscape in Texas, Burleson, a devout Unionist like Sam, organized a spirited debate on the town square in Independence with the American Flag flying high on a fifty-foot pole. Other similar meetings that were supposed to take place around the state, a last-ditch effort by Houston to talk some sense into the populace, never materialized. Within a few days the mayor of Independence, Task Clay, chopped down Burleson’s liberty pole and the Stars and Stripes were left to bleach in the dirt.

Robert E. Lee

As was the case with so many of the Civil War’s officers, Robert E. Lee spent a lot of time in Texas while fighting the Mexican War. Afterwards, he returned as commander of the Second Cavalry in present Shackelford County, twenty-five miles north of Albany to protect the frontier from Comanche raiding parties. As a young congressman from Tennessee Sam Houston once sought the hand of Mary Parke Custis, but she had already pledged her affections to the shy cadet from West Point who would become her husband. Sam Houston met Robert E. Lee on several occasions, including at the Governor’s Mansion in Austin. Lee and Houston were both Southern Unionists who had declared their loyalties to their respective states. Houston told Lee that he had sworn an oath to defend the constitution and would not go back on his word. Lee’s position was delicate. He felt the issue was premature but declared that his ultimate duty was to Virginia. On Lee’s final trip back to Virginia from Texas before the Civil War he carried a letter from Sam Houston to John Letcher, Houston’s cousin, who was then the Governor of Virginia.

Santa Anna

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was a military and political leader in Mexico for 40 years. When he declared himself dictator in 1833 and did away with the Mexican Constitution, he allowed his troops to ransack the rebellious Mexican city of Zacatecas which resulted in thousands of deaths and civil war breaking out in five other Mexican states. After Santa Anna killed all of the defenders of the Alamo and ordered all 400 of Fannin’s men being held prisoner at Goliad to be shot, Sam Houston cornered and defeated him at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. Santa Anna, the self-described “Napoleon of the West”, was brought before the wounded Houston to beg for his life. Houston spared him in a remarkable display of emotional discipline, sending him instead to Provisional President David G. Burnet where he signed the Treaty of Velasco recognizing Texas’ independence. He was then sent to Washington D.C. under heavy guard to meet with U.S. President Andrew Jackson before being paroled back to Mexico. Houston joked that sending him back home instead of killing him would “keep Texas safe by keeping Mexico in turmoil for years.” Santa Anna went on to be wounded in action against the French in Veracruz in 1838, necessitating the amputation of his leg. His cork prosthetic leg was captured by U.S. troops during the Mexican War and is now on display at the Illinois National Guard Museum in Springfield. Santa Anna re-invaded Texas in 1842 with no effect other than to reinforce the justification for Texas’ annexation by the U.S. He was exiled to Cuba in 1845, but managed to return to the Presidency of Mexico in 1848, only to be exiled again (1851), and return again (1853), re-taking the government and giving himself the title “Most Serene Highness.” Overthrown from power for the final time in 1855, Santa Anna’s ego and corruption ultimately led to the loss of nearly 1 million square miles of Mexican territory; roughly half the country. Santa Anna died both penniless and powerless in Mexico City on June 21, 1876.

Stephen F. Austin

Austin was born in Virginia, moved to Missouri with his father to mine lead, was sent to Connecticut for schooling, and returned to Missouri to run the lead smelting business and general store. His father, Moses Austin, had a deal with the Spanish government to settle Texas with 300 families but died before it could be carried out. Mexico subsequently gained its independence from Spain in 1821 and Stephen F. Austin resurrected the deal with the new government. His offer of land, autonomy, and little or no taxes flooded East Texas with Anglo immigrants. Sam Houston was one of the many who received a land grant from Austin, and he chaired a committee that proposed that Texas be its own state within Mexico, separate from the state of Coahuila. Stephen F. Austin was sent to Mexico City to gain approval of the idea but met stiff resistance, and a rash letter home was intercepted, landing him in Mexican jails for the next year. Bitter and in poor health from his time in prison, Austin returned to Texas convinced that independence was the only alternative to the chaos reigning in Mexico. After the Texas Revolution, it was assumed that Stephen F. Austin would be the first President of Texas, but Sam Houston decided to run and won the election in a landslide. Austin himself did not seem to take it personally, and actually served in the Houston administration as Secretary of State, but his family deeply resented it and the rumors of a rift between Houston and Austin have thrived since that time. Austin caught a chill on Christmas Eve of 1836 and quickly sank into a feverish delirium. When he died, Sam Houston announced to the country that, “The Father of Texas is no more.” Additionally, Houston ordered a thirty-day period of mourning across the country and every post and garrison to fire a twenty-three gun salute, one for each Texas county.

Thomas J. Rusk

Thomas Jefferson Rusk was a great friend of Houston’s who studied law in South Carolina. Ironically, he was admitted to the bar through the influence of a lifelong enemy of Houston’s, John C. Calhoun. Rusk came to Texas in search of some men who had cheated him in business but decided to stay upon his arrival in Nacogdoches. In 1835 he organized a company of soldiers for the Texas Army, and as a delegate elected to the 1836 Convention became a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. It was Rusk who delivered a letter from Provisional President David Burnet to Houston during the Texas Army’s long retreat from Santa Anna’s advance, ordering Houston to turn and fight. Rusk was actually given the authority to relieve Houston of command if he did not obey the order, but emerged from Houston’s tent as a supporter of the general’s strategy when nearly everyone else was against him. Rusk fought with Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto and served alongside him ten years later as he and Sam Houston were elected the first Senators to represent the new State of Texas in Washington, D.C. Following his wife’s death in 1856, Rusk became despondent, and took his own life on July 29, 1857. He is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Nacogdoches.

William B. Travis

The flamboyant commander of the Alamo grew up in South Carolina and had ancestors who landed at Jamestown in 1627. He arrived in Texas in early 1831, obtained a land grant from Stephen F. Austin, and established a legal practice in Anahuac where he was drawn deep into the political conflict between the government of Mexico and the settlers in Texas. Sam Houston may have met Travis in mid-December of 1833 at the colonial capitol of San Felipe. Travis noted in his diary that, “Genl Houston is in town.” In 1836, when Travis’ desperate plea for aid arrived at Washington-On-The-Brazos from the besieged Alamo, Houston convinced the gathered convention delegates to stay and complete their work of forming a government while he rode to Gonzales to gather troops and reinforce Travis. While in Gonzales, Houston received word that the Alamo had fallen.

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