In a preceding chapter you learned how the great territories of Louisiana and Florida came to belong to America. We are now to learn of still other additions, namely, the great regions of Texas and California.
The most prominent man in the events connected with our getting Texas was Sam Houston.
Sam Houston.
He was born, of Irish descent, in 1793, in a farmhouse in Virginia. When he was thirteen years old the family removed to a place in Tennessee, near the home of the Cherokee Indians. The boy received but little schooling out in that new country. In fact, he cared far less about school than he did for the active, free life of his Indian neighbors.
So when his family decided to have him learn a trade he ran away from home and joined the Cherokees. There he made friends, and one of the chiefs adopted him as a son. We may think of him as enjoying the sports and games, the hunting and fishing, which took up so much of the time of the Indian boys.
On returning to his home, at the age of eighteen, he went to school for a term at Marysville Academy. In the War of 1812 he became a soldier and served under Andrew Jackson in the campaign against the Creek Indians. In the battle of Horseshoe Bend he fought with reckless bravery. During that fearful struggle he received a wound in the thigh. His commander, Jackson, then ordered him to stop fighting, but Houston refused to obey and was leading a desperate charge against the enemy when his right arm was shattered. It was a long time before he was well and strong again, but he had made a firm friend in Andrew Jackson.
Later Houston studied law and began a successful practice. He became so popular in Tennessee that the people elected him to many positions of honor and trust, the last of which was that of governor. About that time he was married, but a few weeks later he and his wife separated. Then, suddenly and without giving any reason for his strange conduct, he left his home and his State and went far up the Arkansas River to the home of his early friends the Cherokee Indians. The Cherokees had been removed to that distant country, beyond the Mississippi, by the United States Government.
About a year later Houston, wearing the garb of his adopted tribe, went in company with some of them to Washington. His stated purpose was to secure a contract for furnishing rations to the Cherokees.
But another purpose was in his mind. He had set his heart on winning Texas for the United States. Perhaps he talked over the scheme with his friend, President Jackson. However that may be, we know that some three years afterward Houston again left his Cherokee friends and went to Texas to live. His desire to secure this region for his country was as strong as ever.