XLIIA. D. 1836SAM HOUSTON
Servingin Jackson’s force was young Sam Houston, a hunter and a pioneer from childhood. Rather than be apprenticed to a trade he ran away and joined the Cherokees, and as the adopted son of the head chief became an Indian, except of course during the holidays, when he went to see his very respectable mother. On one of these visits home he met a recruiting sergeant, and enlisted for the year of 1812. At the age of twenty-one he had fought his way up to the rank of ensign, serving with General Andrew Jackson at the battle of Horseshoe Bend.
The Creeks held a line of breastworks, and the Americans were charging these works when an arrow struck deep into young Houston’s thigh. He tried to wrench it out but the barb held, and twice his lieutenant failed. “Try again,” said Houston, “and if you fail I’ll knock you down.” The lieutenant pulled out the arrow, and streaming with blood, the youngster went to a surgeon who dressed his wound. General Jackson told him not to return to the front, but the lad must needs be at the head of his men, no matter what the orders.
Hundreds of Creeks had fallen, multitudes were shot or drowned attempting to swim the river, but still a large party of them held a part of the breastwork, a sort of roof spanning a gully, from which, through narrow port-holes, they kept up a murderous fire. Guns could not be placed to bear on this position, the warriors flatly refused all terms of surrender, and when Jackson called for a forlorn hope Houston alone responded. Calling his platoon to follow him he scrambled down the steep side of the gully, but his men hesitated, and from one of them he seized a musket with which he led the way. Within five yards of the Creeks he had turned to rally his platoon for a direct charge through the port-holes, when two bullets struck his right shoulder. For the last time he implored his men to charge, then in despair walked out of range. Many months went by before the three wounds were healed, but from that time, through very stormy years he had the constant friendship of his old leader, Andrew Jackson, president of the United States.
Houston went back to the West and ten years after the battle was elected general of the Tennessee militia. Indeed there seemed no limit to his future, and at thirty-five he was governor of the state, when his wife deserted him, and ugly rumors touched his private life. Throwing his whole career to the winds he turned Indian, not as a chief, but as Drunken Sam, the butt of the Cherokees.
It is quite natural for a man to have two characters, the one commanding while the other rests. Within a few months the eyes of Houston the American statesman looked out from the painted face ofDrunken Sam, the savage Cherokee. From Arkansas he looked southward and saw the American frontiersmen, the Texas pioneers, trying to earn a living under the comic opera government of the Mexicans. They would soon sweep away that anarchy if only they found a leader, and perhaps Drunken Sam in his dreams saw Samuel Houston leading the Texas cowboys. Still dressed as a Cherokee warrior he went to Washington, called on his old friend President Jackson, begged for a job, talked of the liberation of Texas—as if the yankees of the North would ever allow another slave state of the South to enter the Union!
Houston went back to the West and preached the revolt against Mexico. There we will leave him for a while, to take up the story of old Davy Crockett.