Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1882 — SAM HOLSTON. [ARTICLE]

SAM HOLSTON.

Some Recollections of the Hero of San Jacinto. [George Alfred Townsend.] “In whose administration was it that he returned to Washington?” “It was in the middle of General .Jackson’s administration. You renjember that about that time he committed an assault on a member of Congress from Ohio, named Stanbery.” “What were the circumstances of this assault ?” “Well, Indian agents were cheating the Cherokees in these times, and Houston had five of them removed from office They were like the Star-route ring in these days, mendacious and influential, and they pestered him in all sorts of ways, and got this fellow Stanbery to make imputations on his integrity on the floor of the House. Houston just got a stick, and met Stanbery on the way from the capitol and whaled him. Old General Jackson remarked that he had served Stanbery right. Jackson remitted the fine of SSOO that was levied upon him by the courts, and Houston was brought before the bar of Congress, where he had once been a member. He got so disgusted with this character of fussing that he went back to his wigwam on the Arkansas river. He had had a taste, however, of public life again, and in a little while he turned up in Texas.” “What is the truth of the tradition that General Jackson told him to go to Texas?”

“Well, I think there was something in it. Jackson, who had made all his reputation as a military chief in tho southwest, thought he saw an opportunity for a bold man to repeat the experience in Texas, and, sympathizing with the Texans, the best of whom were from Tennessee and pc r >onally known to him, Jackson thought Houston was just the person to bring that young State out of her dangers, and he never chose a better man. “As soon as he got to Texas he was made a delegate to the convention to make the constitution. The moment he appeared in that convention everybody seemed to defer to him. He chose the post of general, and, although picked at by a dozen little scamps from the southwestern States who had come to Texas to be great men, he laid down his rank and was again elected by the Republic with but one dissenting vote. He took charge of an army composed of 374 men. The Alamo hail been taken, and Goliad was about to fall—everything looked disaster and ruin. At the approach of Santa Anna, when the Texan camp was seized with panic, Houston restored order to it, made a long and careful retreat, knowing that as he approached the east he would be getting reinforcements from the American States, and finally, at San Jacinto, with only two six-pounder guns contributed by the city of Cincinnati, and a little army of about eight hundred men, Houston overturned Santa Anna’s army of twice his numbers, composed of the best veterans in Mexico, and the astonishing number of 630 were killed and only 208 wounded, while Houston lost just about the same number that Jackson did at New Orleans, eight killed and five wounded. He was shot in the ankle, however. His wound mortified and nearly killed him. He, seriously, did not want to be President of Texas, but the popular feeling compelled him so have the office. He was inaugurated President of Texas in 1836, only seven years after he had laid down the ofiice of Governor of Tennessee—a very remarkable resuscitation of a man’s fame in a short time.