Sam Houston: The general stands tall
City owes its grandiose, pioneering spirit to its larger-than-life namesake
An hour or so north of the city that bears his name, flanking the highway that connects two enormous metropolitan areas unimaginable in his day, Sam Houston stands above all, walking stick in hand, peering vaguely westward into an ineffable expanse of time and geography.
There is no context — just a gleaming white colossus arising from gently rolling hills that soon give way to the coastal plain where Houston and his soldiers made their mark in American history 180 years ago.
Of course, the man in marble did spend his final years not far away in the town of Huntsville and is buried there in Oakwood Cemetery. Yet the moment and place of Houston’s passing is a trivial matter compared to what he did in the 70 remarkable years that preceded it.
While some passers-by might dismiss the 67-foot statue erected in his honor as one more testament to the state’s oversized ego, historians are likely to disagree. If ever there lived a Texan worthy of larger-than-life designation, it was the Virginia-born, Tennessee-raised, frontier-inspired military and political leader, a man who did not inspire the so-called Texas Revolution but helped guide it to a successful end and then paved the way for American westward expansion through the tricky process of annexation.
“He was the single most important politician in the U.S. between Jackson and Lincoln,” said James Haley, who wrote a lengthy biography of Houston in 2002. “Manifest destiny was a term first used in connection with Texas’ annexation. If there hadn’t been Texas independence, the U.S. might not have been a continental country in the way that it came to be. Really, the Battle of San Jacinto was a huge key to ... expanding to the Pacific.”
The broad outline of Houston’s life is known to every Texas schoolchild who completed the seventh grade, even if his great human flaws, including a taste for drink and no lack of hubris, rarely get emphasized in history class. But he certainly was more than a Texan. The general who captured Santa Anna and forced a treaty that brought its legal separation from Mexico enjoyed a substantial career long before he left what was then the United States.
Raised on a hardscrabble plantation near Maryvill, Tenn., not far from current-day Knoxville, Houston was one of nine children born to Samuel and Elizabeth Paxton Houston. The patriarch of the family died young, in 1807, before the family’s move to Tennessee was completed. That left Sam’s mother and older children to establish their new home. His brothers worked hard, both in the fields and running a dry goods store.
Young Sam was an uninspired student, preferring to gain knowledge through independent reading from his father’s expansive library. And neither did he enjoy the rigors of farm labor or mercantile employment. This led him to run away and live periodically with a nearby Cherokee tribe when he was 14.
From that period, when the tribal leader virtually adopted him, gave him a Cherokee name meaning “Raven,” and taught him their language, emerged Houston’s love and respect for Native Americans, especially the more friendly but equally mistreated Cherokee, whose betrayal by the fledgling Texas government after the war angered him to his dying days. He served as both a formal and informal advocate for the Cherokee for much of his life.
Houston made a name for himself during the War of 1812 when he fought against a Creek Indian uprising under the overall command of Andrew Jackson, who in time would become his political mentor and periodic benefactor. His first job after the war, and after recovering from serious wounds suffered in it, was to assist in the relocation of Cherokee tribes from eastern Tennessee to Arkansas.
Later he studied the law, then a more common practice than attending a formal law school, and became head prosecutor for Nashville. That helped launch a political career that took him to Congress for two terms and then the Tennessee governor’s office. He was running for re-election and perhaps would have spent the remainder of his days in that state but for an unfortunate marriage. His unstable young bride left him shortly after they were wed, causing a personal scandal that prompted him to resign from office during the campaign.
As Haley views it, Houston had imagined a line of progression of sorts in which he might have ended up in the White House, arguing that he was “the all-but-annointed heir to the most popular president since Washington himself.” Though long interested in the West, Houston had no romantic notions then about taking his political capital and spending it on behalf of this uncertain turf called Texas, a “swamp of intrigue into which American filibusters had wandered and died for thirty years.”
But as events transpired, Houston did leave Tennessee — amid his personal and professional turmoil — and headed to Arkansas Territory, spending time working on behalf of the Cherokee in their dealings with the U.S. government because of passage of the Indian Removal Act. While there he also got into a literal fight with a congressman from Ohio over accusations — unproved — of profiting from contracts to provide food and provisions to the tribes being forcibly removed west of the Mississippi River. A criminal conviction by a narrow vote of the U.S. House of Representatives led to only a light sanction, but a subsequent civil judgment for $500, a significant sum, went unpaid as he departed Washington for what was then part of Mexico.
Houston arrived in Texas on Dec. 2, 1832, likely with an eye on how to deliver it to Jackson someday, but with the purported purpose of inquiring on Jackson’s behalf about the possibility of some sort of peace treaty between the displaced “civilized tribes” pushed west and the Plains Indian tribes already there. The smokescreen, though short-lived, was useful. Jackson wanted Texas, and his attempts to purchase it, a la Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, had been rebuffed by Mexico.
Houston’s genius, in Haley’s view, was “surfing” on the top of ongoing events, capitalizing on his popularity and reputation while looking for the opportunity to help nudge their course. It was not long before the newly arrived Houston — and there weren’t so many old Texas hands — made himself indispensible to the cause of indepen-
dence. He had previously been involved, at a distance, with a Texas land venture. Now he was there in person.
In less than four years, he had become the leader of a rag-tag Texian army. It was unclear precisely how Houston, with his ill-trained and poorly equipped troops, figured on defeating a much bigger Mexican army led by Gen. Santa Anna. Some historians now believe that Houston’s repeated retreats were really an attempt to get Santa Anna to cross the Neches River, not far from a large group of American soldiers who lay in wait for anything that could be made to resemble a border crossing.
But Santa Anna split his troops and headed toward Galveston, not taking the bait. The smaller force was weaker of course, and in the brief Battle of San Jacinto, it was routed and, more important, Santa Anna captured.
Houston was the man of the moment and once again a great figure, perhaps greater than he had been in Tennessee. First, he served as president of the new republic. Because he could not serve successive terms, he became a representative for two years before again being elected president. He also married, happily and for the third time, in 1840.
Houston served in a new city that had been named in his honor. There wasn’t much to the swampy little burg, certainly nothing befitting a national capital. That changed within a few decades, though not thanks to government. When Mirabeau Lamar became president, the capital was moved to central Texas. Lamar, a Houston foe, had a different vision for Texas: perpetual independence and eventual expansion to the Pacific, with no consideration for Native Americans other than their destruction.
Houston, of course, was an ardent unionist. He saw himself as an American, and America as a transcontinental nation, with Texas having a role in making that happen. It took endless finesse to bring annexation about. Mexico was opposed, with a new invasion from its army an ongoing and reasonable fear, and so were many northern abolitionists who saw in Texas another slave state. Houston’s greatest accomplishment may have been keeping the roughhewn and destitute new nation afloat, building its legal and literal infrastructure while gaining formal recognition from the U.S. and other foreign countries, until the opportunity was ripe.
Texas finally joined the nation in 1845 as the 28th state. Upon annexation, Houston served first as one of Texas’ two senators. Then, in 1859, he won a term as governor. He is the only person to have been elected governor in two states.
Houston might have died then a happy man, yet he lived on to see his dream crushed by secession and the rise of the Confederacy. He was removed from office when he refused to pledge loyalty to the new would-be nation. He believed in the rights of the member states, though profound, did not include the right to abandon the Union.
While much was made of his opposition to the Confederate cause, in truth Houston was no abolitionist. He had invited British ships to interdict any slave ships bound for Texas shores, and he had no qualms about condemning the practice of slavery. Yet he recognized that it was too wellestablished to reasonably advocate its sudden end. As with many more enlightened Southerners, he believed its days were already numbered.
In civil war, he saw needless folly and the ruination of the South. That he could not convince his fellow Texans that the war was wrong and destined to end badly made for a baleful, if brief, retirement. He died in Huntsville in 1863.
“He died thinking he was a failure,” biographer Haley said. “He had fought for Texas as part of the Union.”
The giant statue along Interstate 45 is ample evidence otherwise. However accurate Houston’s predictions for the eventual fate of the southern states, Texas ended up a marginal player that quickly boomed in war’s aftermath. And as it did, Houston remained a revered figure. Its people believed their singular history owed much to his timely arrival.
Asked how Houston might regard his giant stone resemblance standing a sort of perpetual guard, Haley believes he would take it in stride.
“I think he would smile and ask why it isn’t a little bit bigger,” he said.