85 Facts About Sam Houston

Samuel Houston was an American and Texan general and statesman who played an important role in the Texas Revolution.

Sam Houston served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two individuals to represent Texas in the United States Senate.

Sam Houston served as the sixth governor of Tennessee and the seventh governor of Texas, the only individual to be elected governor of two different states in the United States.

Sam Houston later ran away from home and spent about three years living with the Cherokee, becoming known as Raven.

Sam Houston served under General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, and after the war, he presided over the removal of many Cherokee from Tennessee.

Sam Houston strongly supported Jackson's presidential candidacies, and in 1827, Houston was elected as the governor of Tennessee.

In 1829, after divorcing his first wife, Sam Houston resigned from office, and moved to Arkansas Territory.

Sam Houston led the Texan Army to victory at the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive battle in Texas's war to help Texas settlers separate it from Mexico.

Sam Houston left office due to term limits in 1838 but won election to another term in the 1841 Texas presidential election.

Sam Houston played a key role in the annexation of Texas by the United States in 1845, and in 1846, he was elected to represent Texas in the United States Senate.

Sam Houston was an unsuccessful candidate for the presidential nomination of the American Party in the 1856 presidential election and the Constitutional Union Party in the 1860 presidential election.

In 1859, Sam Houston won election as the governor of Texas.

Sam Houston was forced out of office in 1861 and died in 1863.

Sam Houston's name has been honored in numerous ways, and he is the eponym of the city of Sam Houston, the fourth most populous city in the United States.

Sam Houston served in the Virginia militia, which required him to pay his own expenses and to be away from his family for long periods of time.

Sam Houston had five brothers and three sisters: Paxton, Robert, James who married Patience Bills, John, William who married Mary Ball, Isabella, Mary who married Matthew Wallace and then his nephew Williams Wallace, and Eliza who married Samuel Moore.

Sam Houston had dozens of cousins who lived in the surrounding area of east-central Tennessee.

Sam Houston had a care-free disposition and liked to escape to explore the frontier.

Sam Houston was at odds with concepts of hell and damnation of his mother's religion, Presbyterianism, and he was not interested schooling.

Sam Houston did take an interest in his father's library, reading works by classical authors like Virgil as well as more recent works by authors such as Jedidiah Morse.

Sam Houston formed a close relationship with Jolly and learned the Cherokee language, becoming known as Raven.

Sam Houston left the tribe to return to Maryville in 1812, and he was hired at age 19 for a term as the schoolmaster of a one-room schoolhouse.

Sam Houston attended Porter Academy, where he was taught by Rev Isaac L Anderson.

In 1812, Sam Houston enlisted in the United States Army, which then was engaged in the War of 1812 against Britain and Britain's Native American allies.

Sam Houston quickly impressed the commander of the 39th Infantry Regiment, Thomas Hart Benton, and by the end of 1813, Houston had risen to the rank of the third lieutenant.

Sam Houston was wounded badly in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, the decisive battle in the Creek War.

Sometime in early 1817, Sam Houston was assigned to a clerical position in Nashville, serving under the adjutant general for the army's Southern Division.

Angry over the incident with Calhoun and an investigation into his activities, Sam Houston resigned from the army in 1818.

Sam Houston continued to act as a government liaison with the Cherokee, and in 1818, he helped some of the Cherokee resettle in Arkansas Territory.

Sam Houston quickly won admission to the state bar and opened a legal practice in Lebanon, Tennessee.

Sam Houston was appointed as a major general of the Tennessee militia.

Tennessee gained three seats in the United States House of Representatives after the 1820 United States Census, and, with the support of Jackson and McMinn, Sam Houston ran unopposed in the 1823 election for Tennessee's 9th congressional district.

Sam Houston strongly supported Jackson's candidacy in the 1824 presidential election, which saw four major candidates, all from the Democratic-Republican Party, run for president.

Governor Sam Houston advocated the construction of internal improvements such as canals, and sought to lower the price of land for homesteaders living on public domain.

Sam Houston aided Jackson's successful campaign in the 1828 presidential election.

In January 1829, Sam Houston married Eliza Allen, the daughter of wealthy plantation owner John Allen of Gallatin, Tennessee.

Sam Houston was reunited with Ahuludegi's group of Cherokee in mid-1829.

When Sam Houston returned to Washington in 1832, Congressman William Stanbery alleged that Sam Houston had placed a fraudulent bid in 1830 in collusion with the Jackson administration.

Sam Houston crossed into Texas in December 1832, and shortly thereafter, he was granted land in Texas.

Sam Houston was elected to represent Nacogdoches, Texas at the Convention of 1833, which was called to petition Mexico for statehood.

Sam Houston strongly supported statehood, and he chaired a committee that drew a proposed state constitution.

Shortly after the battle, Sam Houston was elected to the Consultation, a congregation of Texas leaders.

In November, Sam Houston joined with most other delegates in voting for a measure that demanded Texas statehood and the restoration of the 1824 Constitution of Mexico.

Sam Houston helped organize the Convention of 1836, where the Republic of Texas declared independence from Mexico, and appointed him as Commander-in-Chief of the Texas Army.

The Texans quickly routed Santa Anna's force, though Sam Houston's horse was shot out under him and his ankle was shattered by a stray bullet.

Sam Houston stayed briefly for negotiations, then returned to the United States for treatment of his ankle wound.

Sam Houston, meanwhile, faced the challenge of assembling a new government, putting the country's finances in order, and handling relations with Mexico.

Sam Houston selected Thomas Jefferson Rusk as secretary of war, Smith as secretary of the treasury, Samuel Rhoads Fisher as secretary of the navy, James Collinsworth as attorney general, and Austin as secretary of state.

Sam Houston sought normalized relations with Mexico, and despite some resistance from the legislature, arranged the release of Santa Anna.

In early 1837, the government moved to a new capital, the city of Sam Houston, named after him as the country's first president.

In 1838, Sam Houston frequently clashed with Congress over issues such as a treaty with the Cherokee and a land-office act and was forced to put down the Cordova Rebellion, a plot to allow Mexico to reclaim Texas with aid from the Kickapoo Indians.

The Texas constitution barred presidents from seeking a second term, so Sam Houston did not stand for re-election in the 1838 election and left office in late 1838.

Sam Houston was succeeded by Mirabeau B Lamar, who, along with Burnet, led a faction of Texas politicians opposed to Houston.

Meanwhile, Sam Houston opened a legal practice and co-founded a land company with the intent of developing the town of Sabine City.

Sam Houston defeated Burnet in the 1841 Texas presidential election, winning a large majority of the vote.

Sam Houston appointed Anson Jones as secretary of state, Asa Brigham as secretary of the treasury, George Washington Hockley as secretary of war, and George Whitfield Terrell as attorney general.

The republic faced a difficult financial situation; at one point, Sam Houston commandeered an American brig used to transport Texas soldiers because the government could not afford to pay the brig's captain.

Sam Houston continued to curry favor with Britain and France, partly in the hope that British and French influence in Texas would encourage the United States to annex Texas.

Meanwhile, Sam Houston's term ended in December 1844, and he was succeeded by Anson Jones, his secretary of state.

Sam Houston chose to align with the Democratic Party, which contained many of his old political allies, including President Polk.

Sam Houston was the first person to serve as the governor of a state and then be elected to the US Senate by another state.

Sam Houston initially supported Polk's prosecution of the war, but differences between the two men emerged in 1847.

Unlike most of his Southern colleagues, Sam Houston voted for the Oregon Bill of 1848, which organized Oregon Territory as a free territory.

Sam Houston supported the Compromise of 1850, a sectional compromise on slavery on the territories.

Sam Houston sought the Democratic nomination in the 1852 presidential election, but he was unable to consolidate support outside of his home state.

Sam Houston voted against the act, in part because he believed that Native Americans would lose much of their land as a result of the act.

Sam Houston perceived that it would lead to increased sectional tensions over slavery.

In 1855, Sam Houston began to be associated publicly with the American Party, the political wing of the nativist and unionist Know Nothing movement.

Sam Houston was attracted to the Know Nothing's support for a Native American state as well the party's unionist stance.

Sam Houston sought the presidential nomination at the Know Nothing party's 1856 national convention, but the party nominated former President Millard Fillmore.

The American Party collapsed after the election, and Sam Houston did not affiliate with a national political party for the remainder of his tenure in the senate.

Sam Houston narrowly trailed Bell on the first ballot of the 1860 Constitutional Union Convention, but Bell clinched the nomination on the second ballot.

Sam Houston refused to endorse any of the remaining presidential candidates.

In late 1860, Sam Houston campaigned across his home state, calling on Texans to resist those who advocated for secession if Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election.

Sam Houston did not recognize the validity of his removal, but he did not attempt to use force to remain in office, and he refused aid from the federal government to prevent his removal.

Sam Houston later settled in Huntsville, Texas, where he lived in a structure known as the Steamboat House.

Sam Houston owned the horse until its death in 1860.

Sam Houston's bride was 21-year-old Margaret Moffette Lea of Marion, Alabama, the daughter of planters.

In 1833, Sam Houston was baptized into the Catholic faith in order to qualify under the existing Mexican law for property ownership in Coahuila y Tejas.

On November 19,1854, Houston was baptized by Rev Rufus C Burleson, president of Baylor University, by immersion in Little Rocky Creek, two miles southeast of Independence.

Sam Houston was born on and inherited a slave plantation and mansion, and had many slaves throughout his life.

Sam Houston did not support the westward expansion of slavery.

Sam Houston owned slaves but held a "centrist" position believing both sides of the slavery debate were too extreme on the issue.

Sam Houston thought states should decide for themselves on the issue of slavery.

Sam Houston has been portrayed in works such as Man of Conquest, Gone to Texas, Texas Rising, and The Alamo.