Houston, Sam, 1793-1863

Texas politician, soldier, and frontier hero. He was the first president of the Republic of Texas and served as a United States Senator for that state.

Sam Houston's colorful public life began with his heroic action during the war of 1812. He served as congressman and governor of Tennessee, spent years among the Indians, was commander-in-chief of the Texas army in the Texas Revolution, then president of Texas, and later Texas senator and governor.

President of Texas, U.S. senator and governor of Texas, U.S. representative and governor of Tennessee, and army officer.

Sam Houston's colorful public life began with his heroic action during the War of 1812. He served as congressman and governor of Tennessee, spent years among the Indians, was commander-in-chief of the Texas army in the Texas Revolution, then president of the Republic of Texas, and later Texas senator and governor.

Sam Houston arrived in Texas December 2, 1832 and quickly became a central figure in the politics of the rebellion against Mexico. Under Houston's leadership, the Texas Army was victorious at the Battle of San Jacinto April 21, 1836. Sam Houston served two terms as President of the Republic of Texas, 1836-1838 and 1841-1844. After the United States accession of Texas, Sam Houston served as United States Senator and was elected Texas governor in 1859. He would not take a loyalty oath to the Confederate States of America, and was removed from office by the Texas Convention on March 16. He died July 26, 1863.

U.S. Congressman from Tennessee (1823-1827), U. S. Senator from Texas (1846-1859), governor of Tennessee (1827-1829) and Texas (1859-1861), and president of the Republic of Texas (1836-1838).

American soldier and political leader.

U.S. representative and governor of Tennessee, president of the Republic of Texas, and U.S. senator and governor of Texas.

Houston was President and Governor of Texas.

Sam Houston's colorful public life began with his heroic action during the War of 1812. He served as congressman and governor of Tennessee, spent years among the Indians, was commander-in-chief of the Texas army in the Texas Revolution, then president of the Republic of Texas, and later Texas senator and governor.

Chronology of Houston's life:

Sam Houston (1793-1863) was the first President of the Republic of Texas from 1836-1838.

Anna Raguet (1819-1883) was the daughter of Henry Raguet, businessman from Cincinnati, Ohio, who Sam Houston persuaded to move to Texas in 1833.

Sam Houston sought for some time to marry Anna Raguet, who eventually (in 1840) married Robert Anderson Irion (1806-1861), Houston's Secretary of State for the Republic of Texas.

One of the most influential men of Texas history, Sam Houston (1793-1863) was born March 2, 1793, in Virginia and when he was a boy, moved with his family to eastern Tennessee. Houston's performance at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, March 26, 1814, won him the lifelong admiration of Andrew Jackson, commander of the United States Army. Jackson's political patronage served Houston well over the next several years and helped him to attain several political and military offices of influence: Attorney General of the District of Nashville, two terms in the United States House of Representatives, colonel and adjutant general of the state militia of Tennessee, and eventually governor of Tennessee in 1827. On April 16, 1829, Houston separated from his wife, Eliza Allen, resigned the governorship and moved west to Indian Territory. For three years he lived with the Cherokees and took an Indian wife, Diana Rogers Gentry.

Houston arrived in Texas on December 2, 1832. A central figure in the politics of the rebellion against Mexico, he represented Nacogdoches at the San Felipe Convention in 1833 and was appointed major-general of the Texas Army at the Consultation of November 12, 1835. Sam Houston helped to secure a treaty with the Cherokee in February 1836. He also participated in the convention that declared the Independence of Texas March 2, 1836, at Washington on the Brazos. On March 4, 1836 he was granted command of the Republic's military forces. From Gonzalez he began a long controversial retreat from the advancing Mexican army. Under Houston's leadership, the Texas Army defeated the forces of Antonio López de Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto April 21, 1836.

Sam Houston served two non-consecutive terms as President of the Republic of Texas, 1836-1838 and 1841-1844. He married again on May 9, 1840 to Margaret Moffette Lea and fathered eight children. After the United States' accession of Texas, Sam Houston served as United States Senator from February 21, 1846, to March 4, 1859. Elected Texas governor in 1859, Houston would not swear a loyalty oath to the Confederate States of America and was removed from office by the Texas Convention on March 16, 1860. However, he refused Abraham Lincoln's offer of federal troops to maintain his office. Out of office, Sam Houston remained supportive of Texans who fought in the Civil War. He succumbed to pneumonia after several weeks of illness and died July 26, 1863.

Sam Houston was born in Virginia on 2 March 1793, to Samuel and Elizabeth Paxton Houston. After migrating from Virginia to Tennessee and then to Texas, Houston became a key figure in helping Texas win its independence from Mexico in 1836, and then in the annexation of Texas into the United Stated in 1845. He was the first and third president of the Republic of Texas (the Texas constitution did not allow a president to serve consecutive terms), and between terms served as a representative in the Texas House of Representatives for San Augustine.

After the annexation of Texas in 1845, Houston was elected to the United States Senate, where he served for 13 years, when in 1859, he was elected governor as a Unionist. Upon election, he became the only person in U.S. history to serve as governor of two states (he'd served as governor of Tennessee from 1827-1829, as well as the only governor to have been a foreign head of state. Although he was a slave owner and opposed abolition, he even moreso opposed the secession of Texas from the Union.

When, on 1 February 1861, an elected convention voted to secede from the Union, and Texas joined the Confederate States of America on 2 March 1861 (Houston's 68th birthday), Houston refused to recognize the legality of the rights of the convention. However, the Texas legislature upheld the legitimacy of the secession. The political forces that brought about secession were also powerful enough to have the Unionist governor replaced as well. Houston chose not to resist, and on 16 March 1861, he was evicted from office for refusing to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy. He returned to Huntsville, Texas, where he remained with his third wife, Margaret Moffette Lea (of Marion, Alabama), until his death from pneumonia on 26 July 1863.

Samuel Houston, known as the Father of Texas, was born on March 2, 1793, in Virginia. His father, Samuel Houston, was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Following his father's death in 1807, his mother, Elizabeth (Paxton) Houston moved the family to Tennessee. Sam Houston did not have a formal education, instead attending school when possible. Sam Houston had an active political life. Trained in law, he was elected as district attorney for Nashville at the age of 25. Soon after, he was appointed adjutant general of Tennessee. He was elected to Congress from Tennessee in 1823 and again in 1825. In 1827 he was elected governor of Tennessee. He resigned from this position in 1829 and began working in Indian territory for the Cherokees. He was made a member of the Cherokee Nation.

Houston first traveled in Texas in 1832. He attended the Convention of 1833 as a delegate from Nacogdoches, although he does not appear to have been a long-term resident of the area until 1835. In November 1835 he was elected major general of the Texas Army. He signed the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836. On April 21, 1836, he led the Texas Army to victory over the forces of General Santa Anna in the Battle of San Jacinto. On September 5, 1836, Houston was elected President of the Republic of Texas. September 6, 1841, he was elected again to that position, having served as a representative to the Texas Congress during Mirabeau Lamar's presidency. On February 21, 1846, Houston was elected to the U. S. Senate where he served almost 14 years. In 1859 he was elected as governor of Texas. Because he did not support the dissolution of the Union, he was removed from office in 1861. Sam Houston died on July 26, 1863, on his farm near Huntsville, Texas.

Samuel Houston was born in 1793 March 2 in Rockbridge County, Virginia. After his father died when Sam was only thirteen, the Houston family moved to a smaller farm in Tennessee. Rejecting the agrarian lifestyle, Sam ran away from home and lived with a Cherokee Indian family where he was renamed "The Raven." He left his Cherokee village at age 18.

Sam's entrance into the military proved to be the start of an impressive political career as well. When war broke out between the United States and Great Britain in 1812, Houston enlisted with the United States Army in hopes of making some extra money. He gradually rose through the ranks and found favor with General Andrew Jackson. In 1818, after struggling to teach himself law, Houston opened a law practice in Lebanon, Tennessee, and was later appointed the attorney general for the Nashville District. After gaining some experience in legal matters, he served two terms in the United States Congress as a Representative from Tennessee. Upon completion of these two terms, Houston was elected governor of the state.

Houston's power and reputation in the state of Tennessee eventually came to an end. In 1829 January Houston married Eliza Allen. The marriage ended in divorce and Houston resigned as governor. Houston once again returned to the Cherokees in Oklahoma where he married an Indian named Diana Rogers Gentry. Houston eventually left his native wife and moved to Texas where he quickly became involved in Texas politics. When war broke out between Texas and Mexico, Sam Houston was appointed the commander of the Texas army. He won great renown in his victory over General Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto on 1836 April 21. When the war was resolved, Houston was elected the first president of the Republic of Texas for a two-year term. From 1839 to 1841, he served as a legislator in the Texas House of Representatives. In May 1840, Sam wed his third wife Margaret Moffette Lea of Alabama. Sam and Margaret had eight children.

From 1841 to 1844, Houston served a second term as president of Texas. He struggled to stimulate Texas' economy while maintaining peace with the neighboring Indian tribes. When Texas was annexed to the United States, Houston became a United States Senator from 1858 to 1859. In 1859, Houston once again became a governor, this time of Texas. When civil war seemed inevitable, Houston warned his fellow southerners that the North would triumph in the end. He refused to swear loyalty to the Confederate States of America and was removed from office. On 1863 July 26, after battling illness for weeks, Houston passed away.

Sam Houston, one of the most illustrious political figures of Texas, was born on March 2, 1793, the fifth child (and fifth son) of Samuel and Elizabeth (Paxton) Houston, on their plantation in Rockbridge County, Virginia. When he was thirteen years old, his father died; some months later, in the spring of 1807, he emigrated with his mother, five brothers, and three sisters to Blount County in Eastern Tennessee, where the family established a farm near Maryville.

Rebelling at his older brothers' attempts to make him work on the farm and in the family's store in Maryville, Houston ran away from home as an adolescent in 1809 to dwell among the Cherokees, who lived across the Tennessee River. Between intermittent visits to Maryville, he sojourned for three years with the band of Chief Oolooteka, who adopted him and gave him the Indian name Colonneh, or "the Raven." Houston viewed Oolooteka as his "Indian Father" and the Cherokees much as a surrogate family. He henceforth maintained great sympathy toward Indians.

At age eighteen he left the Cherokees to set up a school, so that he could earn money to repay debts. After war broke out with the British, he joined the United States Army as a 20 year-old private, on March 24, 1813. As part of Andrew Jackson's army, he fought at the battle of Horseshoe Bend, where he received three near-fatal wounds, but won the attention of General Jackson. Jackson thereafter became his benefactor and in return, Houston became a staunch Jacksonian Democrat.

Following his difficulties with Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, Houston resigned from the army on March 1, 1818. That year, Houston began practicing law in Lebanon, Tennessee. With Jackson's endorsement, he became adjutant general of the state militia through appointment by Governor Joseph McMinn. In late 1818, Houston was elected attorney general of the District of Nashville, where he took up residence. After returning to private practice in Nashville by late 1821, he was elected major general of the state militia by his fellow officers.

Houston's rapid rise in public office continued in 1823, when, as a member of Jackson's political circle, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives from the Ninth Tennessee District. As a member of Congress, he worked mightily, though unsuccessfully, for the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency in 1824. In 1825, he returned to Congress for a second and final term. In 1827, Houston was elected governor of Tennessee at the age of 34.

On January 22, 1829, he married nineteen-year-old Eliza Allen of Gallatin, Tennessee and soon after, announced his bid for re-election to the governorship. After eleven weeks and amid much mystery, the marriage ended. Extremely distraught, Houston abruptly resigned from his office on April 16 and fled west across the Mississippi River to Indian Territory, bringing an end to Houston's Tennessee phase and possibly, an eventual run at the presidency of the United States.

He made his way to the lodge of Oolooteka in what is now day Oklahoma to live once again in self-imposed exile among the Cherokees, this time for three years. Among the Indians, he initially drank heavily and secluded himself from contacts with white society. He quickly became active in Indian affairs, was granted Cherokee citizenship, and under Cherokee law, married Diana Rogers Gentry, an Indian woman of mixed blood.

Gradually reinvolving himself in the white world, he made various trips East. On the evening of April 13, 1832, on the streets of Washington, Houston thrashed William Stanbery, United States representative from Ohio, with a hickory cane. The assault resulted from a perceived insult by Stanbery over an Indian rations contract. Houston was soon arrested and tried before the House of Representatives. The month-long proceedings ended in an official reprimand and a fine, but the affair catapulted Houston back into the political arena. Leaving Diana and his life among the Indians, Houston crossed the Red River into Mexican Texas on December 2, 1832, and began perhaps the most important phase of his career.

Houston saw Texas as his "land of promise", a place for bold enterprise, rife with political and financial opportunity. He quickly became embroiled in the Anglo-Texans' politics of rebellion. He served as a delegate from Nacogdoches at the Convention of 1833 in San Felipe and in September 1835, he chaired a mass meeting in Nacogdoches to consider the possibility of convening a consultation. By October, Houston had expressed his belief that war between Texas and the central government was inevitable and on March 2, 1836, Texas adopted its Declaration of Independence. Two days later, Houston received the appointment of major general of the Texas army, with instructions to organize the Republic's military forces. Despite problems with infantry discipline, Houston and his men defeated the Mexican forces of Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna at the decisive battle of San Jacinto on the afternoon of April 21, 1836. At San Jacinto, Sam Houston became forever enshrined as a member of the pantheon of Texas heroes and a symbol for the age.

Riding the wave of popularity as "Old Sam Jacinto," Houston became the first regularly elected president of the Republic of Texas, defeating Stephen F. Austin. His first term lasted from October 22, 1836, to December 10, 1838, during which the town of Houston served as the capital of the Republic. During this term, Houston sought to demilitarize Texas and avoid trouble between white settlers and Indians. In late 1836, Houston sent Santa Anna, then a prisoner of war, to Washington to seek the annexation of Texas to the United States. Although Houston favored annexation, his initial efforts to bring Texas into the Union proved futile, and he formally withdrew the offer by the end of his first term. After leaving office because the Constitution of the Republic of Texas barred a president from succeeding himself, Houston served in the Texas House of Representatives as a congressman from San Augustine from 1839 to 1841.

On May 9, 1840, Houston married twenty-one-year-old Margaret Moffette Lea of Marion, Alabama. A strict Baptist, Margaret served as a restraining influence on her husband and especially bridled his drinking. They had eight children: Sam Houston, Jr., (1843), Nancy Elizabeth (1846), Margaret (1848), Mary William (1850), Antoinette Power (1852), Andrew Jackson Houston (1854), William Rogers (1858), and Temple Lea Houston (1860).

Houston succeeded Mirabeau B. Lamar to a second term as president from December 12, 1841, to December 9, 1844. During this administration, Houston stressed financial austerity and drastically reduced government offices and salaries. Although many Texans clamored for action, President Houston deftly managed to avoid war with Mexico after the two Mexican invasions of 1842. After the first incursion, Houston directed that the government archives be moved from Austin, an order that ultimately resulted in the "Archive War," in which residents of Austin forcibly prevented removal of the files.

Following his succession to the presidency by Anson Jones, Houston became one of Texas's two United States senators, along with Thomas Jefferson Rusk. Houston served in the Senate from February 21, 1846, until March 4, 1859. As senator, Houston emerged as an ardent Unionist, true to his association with Andrew Jackson, a stand that made him an increasingly controversial figure. He stridently opposed the rising sectionalism of the antebellum period and delivered eloquent speeches on the issue. His career in the Senate was effectively ended when, in 1855, the Texas legislature officially condemned his position on the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which he opposed because it allowed the status of slavery to be determined by popular sovereignty, a concept he saw as potentially destabilizing to the nation.

As a lame-duck senator, Houston ran for governor of Texas in 1857, but was defeated by the state Democratic party's official nominee, Hardin R. Runnels. Predictably, the state legislature did not reelect Houston to the Senate; instead, in late 1857, it replaced him with John Hemphill. Out of the Senate, Houston ran a second time for governor in 1859. Because of his name recognition, a temporary lull in the sectional conflict, and other factors, he defeated the incumbent, Runnels, and assumed office on December 21.

When Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States, the clamor of discontent in Texas prompted Houston to call a special session of the state legislature. Despite his adamant opposition to slavery, Texas withdrew from the Union, a move Houston acquiesced in order to avoid bringing civil strife and bloodshed to his beloved state. But when he refused to take the oath of loyalty to the newly formed Confederate States of America, the Texas convention removed him from office on March 16 and replaced him with Lieutenant Governor Edward Clark.

After leaving the Governor's Mansion, Houston at least verbally supported the Southern cause. Against his father's advice, Sam, Jr., eagerly joined the Confederate Army and was wounded at the battle of Shiloh. Houston moved his wife and other children in the fall of 1862 to Huntsville, where they rented a two-story residence known as the Steamboat House, so called because it resembled a riverboat. On July 26, 1863, after being ill for several weeks, he died in the downstairs bedroom of the Steamboat House, succumbing to pneumonia at age 70. Dressed in Masonic ceremonial trappings, he was buried in Oakwood Cemetery at Huntsville.

Excerpted from: "HOUSTON, SAMUEL." The Handbook of Texas Online. <http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/HH/fho73.html> [Accessed Thu May 20 10:48:47 US/Central 2004 ].