Houston, SAMUEL

Houston, SAMUEL, president of Texas, was born in Rockbridge county, Virginia, March 2, 1793, was brought up near the Cherokee territory in Tennessee, and was adopted by one of the Indians there. In 1813 he enlisted as a private soldier, and by persistent bravery rose to the rank of second-lieutenant before the end of the war. He left the army in 1818, studied law at Nashville, and was elected in 1823 and 1825 a member of congress, and in 1827 governor of Tennessee. In January 1829 he married the daughter of an ex-governor; but in the following April, for reasons never made public, he abandoned wife, country, and civilisation, and spent three years among the Cherokees, beyond the Mississippi, where his adoptive father had settled. In 1832 Houston went to Washington, and procured the removal of several United States Indian agents on charges of fraud, but got into personal difficulties with their friends. The Texan war offered a new field to his ambition. He was made commander-in-chief. The Americans at first sustained some severe losses, but on 21st April 1836 Houston with 750 men inflicted a crushing defeat on a force of 1800 Mexicans under Santa-Anna, on the banks of the San Jacinto, and by this one decisive blow achieved the independence of Texas. The hero of San Jacinto was elected first president of the republic, and re-elected in 1841, and on the annexation of Texas, in 1845, was elected to the United States senate. Elected governor of Texas in 1859, he opposed secession, was deposed in March 1861, and took no further part in public affairs. He died 26th July 1863.