"Big Drunk" Gets Baptized

by Tom Goodman

“The Baptism of Sam Houston” hangs in Independence Baptist Church in Independence, Texas

You’re never too ruined to be beyond change, and you’re never too admired to not need it. 

Sam Houston is a case in point.

At 61, the Texas hero became a believer and submitted to baptism in Ricky Creek near his home in Independence, Texas.  

One old companion of his wilder days winked at his dripping-wet friend and asked if he felt his sins had now been washed away.  

"Yes," said Houston, adding, "and God help the fish down below!"

Sam Houston in traditional Cherokee dress

If it wasn’t for the historical record, you would think Sam Houston was a made-up character in a Texas tall tale. 

He was born in 1793 to Scottish-Irish immigrants in Pennsylvania, the fifth of nine children. When his father died, the family moved south to Maryville, Tennessee, near today’s Smoky Mountains. At sixteen, Houston walked away from a clerk’s job in his brother’s store and disappeared into the wilderness. There, he was taken in by a Cherokee chief known to Americans as John Jolly, who gave him the name Colonneh—“the Raven.” Houston became fluent in Cherokee and lived between two worlds for years.

At nineteen, he returned home, founded one of Tennessee’s earliest schools, and soon after was swept into the War of 1812. He fought bravely and survived multiple wounds. Those scars opened doors. He befriended Andrew Jackson, studied law, entered politics, and rose quickly—congressman, then governor of Tennessee before thirty-five.

A brief, disastrous marriage ended his governorship in scandal. Later, while lobbying in Washington for Native American rights (where he preferred his Cherokee garb to business suits), Houston was publicly slandered by a congressman. He responded by publicly beating the man with a hickory cane. At trial, Francis Scott Key, author of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” served as his attorney. Despite the competent defense, Houston was convicted and fined.

Rather than pay, he fled west into Mexican Texas. 

Matthew Brady's photograph of Sam Houston

He soon found himself at the center of revolution. On his forty-third birthday, Houston signed the Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico and led Texian forces to victory. Texas made him president of the new Republic, and when the Republic became the twenty-eighth state in the Union, Houston became its governor—making him the only man ever to be elected as governor of two different states. The state’s largest city still bears his name.

He stood six foot six. Weathered. Hard. Not exactly pious. Friends and enemies alike had called him “Big Drunk” from the days of his youth. 

But his wife, a devout Baptist, prayed for him faithfully. Houston himself later wrote that, at first, he attended church only out of respect for her faith. Somewhere along the way, though, it took. And at 61, he sought baptism as the profession of his faith in Christ. Word spread quickly: Texans came from far and wide to see the baptism of their hero. Rufus Burleson, the church’s pastor and the president of the fledgling Baylor University, conducted the ceremony.

He was re-elected governor in 1859 but soon clashed with Texas’s secession movement. Ever the Unionist, he refused to swear allegiance to the Confederacy and was removed from office in 1861. He died in 1863. Among the statements on his tombstone summarizing his life, he wanted the words “Consistent Christian.” 

67-foot statue of Sam Houston along Interstate 45 in Huntsville

Credit: Tiffany Hofeldt for Texas Highways

Sam Houston mastered reinvention long before it became fashionable. He crossed borders, rebuilt reputations, and outlived disgrace more than once. Yet Houston understood that a man may conquer nations and still need mercy. The most radical act of his life might be when he stepped into the water and admitted it.

The Texas Archives War

 Austin or Houston? 

by Martha Rogers

Most people know some of the history of Texas like the battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto and men like Sam Houston, James Bowie, and Davy Crockett, but many have never heard of the Texas Archives War.

After Texas became in Republic in 1836, many decisions had to be made. One of them was choosing where to place the capital city. The Texas Congress liked a location in Central Texas, but Sam Houston, the first president of the Republic blocked the plan in favor of his own namesake city, Houston, on the Gulf Coast.

The location hung in limbo until 1839 when Mirabeau B. Lamar replaced Houston as president and again pushed the Central Texas location for the capital city. They had chosen a site along the Colorado River near the settlement of Waterloo. 

In less than a year, Lamar moved to the new capital now known as Austin. Log buildings had been constructed in the frontier town to house the meetings of Congress. From this point, the archives and records became a highly visible symbol of the conflict that earned the name of The Texas Archives War.

In 1841, Houston again became president and refused to move to the official residence in Austin. Instead, he moved into a boarding house run by Mrs. Angelina Eberly. When the Mexican army invaded Texas in 1842 and took control of San Antonio, Goliad, and Victoria, Houston saw the opportunity to move the capital back to Houston. He called a special session of Congress in Houston and argued that Austin was not safe for the archives. He ordered them to be moved. However, a group of Austin, "Committee of Safety" warned the heads of government in Austin they would meet with resistance if they attempted to remove the documents. 

In December of 1842, Houston made the announcement that Austin was no longer the capital and ordered the archives be removed. Two army officers, Colonel Thomas I. Smith and Captain Eli Chandler, with 20 men loaded three wagon with papers before Mrs. Eberly spotted them. She ran onto Congress Avenue, confiscated a cannon, then fired it at the team loading the wagons.

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/treasures/republic/archwar/archwar.html

This alerted the citizens and the men fled with what they had on the wagons and with the vigilantes following. They had to stop overnight at Brushy Creek just north of Austin where they were forced to surrender at gunpoint.

The archives returned to Austin with much celebration by the citizens of Austin on New Year's Eve. Below is a copy of a letter from Sam Houston concerning the archives. 

Although the archives were there, the government did not move back until 1845. Even then, the official naming of Austin as the capital city was not completely settled until 1850. At that time, Texans voted by a large majority to make Austin the permanent capital and seat of government for the state.

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/treasures/republic/archwar/archwar.html

Above is a picture of the historical marker commemorating the events that took place.

The state government decided Mrs. Eberly had played an important role in the "war" and erected a statue in her honor that stand in downtown Austin.

Thank you to the Texas State Library and Archives Commission for the story and pictures of this event.

In your study of history, have you discovered any unusual or not as well known facts about your state?

Martha Rogers is a free-lance writer and multi-published best-selling author from Realms Fiction of Charisma Media and Winged Publications. She was named Writer of the Year at the Texas Christian Writers Conference in 2009. She is a member of
ACFW and writes the weekly Verse of the Week for the ACFW Loop. ACFW awarded her the Volunteer of the Year in 2014. Her first electronic series from Winged Publications, Love in the Bayou City of Texas, debuted in the spring of 2015.  Martha is a frequent speaker for writing workshops and the Texas Christian Writers Conference of which she is a director. She is a retired teacher and lives in Houston with her husband, Rex. Their favorite pastime is spending time with their twelve grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. 

SECESSION - TEXAS DIVIDED and GIVEAWAY!

By Golden Keyes Parsons

In doing research for my Civil War novel set in Texas, I was reminded that Texas was a state divided as far as the issue of secession was concerned. But a large part of Texas was a cotton-growing and slavery state, so like her sister states of the same ilk, Texas seceded. However, because of divided opinions on the subject, Texas didn't make the move until early 1861. She was the last state to secede before the firing upon Fort Sumter. The election of Abraham Lincoln and the fear that his Republican party would abolish slavery, thus threatening traditional rights and the economy of Texas ran through the whole secession issue.

ThestoryofTexas.com

Many Texans in the 1850s believed that slavery was essential to the Texas economy and its future growth. Slavery had expanded rapidly since the annexation of Texas to the United States in 1845, especially in East Texas and along the Gulf Coast, where cotton plantations had sprung up. That was due largely to the fact that many plantation owners from the deep South had moved to Texas and settled in those areas. Cotton grown could easily reach market along the rivers and waterways pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. Slaves constituted approximately 30 per cent of the population of Texas by 1860.

TshaOnline.org

However in other settled regions of Texas, the economy did not depend upon cotton and slavery, therefore, slavery was virtually absent. The economy in these regions depended on livestock, corn, and/or wheat. Thus Texas became divided on secession between those regions whose economy depended on cotton and slavery and those whose economy did not. (See map.) Historians today still debate the secession issue in Texas looking at the timing, the population, the local needs, political parties, Unionists such as Sam Houston, and running through entire debate was the slavery issue. Sam Houston was adamantly opposed to Texas seceding and aligning with the Confederate

States. In fact, he was run out of town, here in Waco, after making a speech on the courthouse steps to that effect. It eventually cost him his governorship. Secession could not be stopped, however, no matter how hard Sam Houston tried. The public pressure simply became too great to halt the secessionist movement in Texas and became an exceptionally volatile issue. Pressure to call a convention to vote to secede began in October of 1960 when it appeared Lincoln was going to be elected President. But Governor Houston refused to convene hoping the highly charged emotions would cool down with time. But the flames simply grew, and in December of 1860 the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court took the law in his own hands and called for a convention in January to vote to secede.

With a touch of irony, the state voted to secede on March 2, Texas Independence Day. All state officials were required to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy, which Sam Houston refused to do. Thus ended the long and illustrious political career of Sam Houston. And Texas entered into a losing bloody conflict which would devastate the country.

Texas was "fortunate" in that very little actual fighting took place on Texas soil. Although Texas soldiers gained a reputation for their fierce fighting abilities, particularly a group which became known as Terry's Texas Rangers (not affiliated with the law enforcement group). And one of the only towns occupied by Union troops was a small town on the Gulf Coast, Indianola, which was destroyed in a hurricane in the 1880s. It is the setting for my Civil War book, His Steadfast Love.

 Thomas Nast wood carving of Union troops occupying
Indianola. Calhoun County Museum

Have you ever visited any of the Civil War sites in Texas--Camp Ford in Tyler, Palmito Ranch, where the last battle of the war was fought, or perhaps Jefferson, Texas? Tell us about them or a visit to any Civil War site, for a chance to win a copy of my Civil War novel set in Texas, His Steadfast Love.

A multi-published fiction author, Golden Keyes Parsons and her husband, Blaine, live in Waco, TX. Her series, Darkness to Light, (Thomas Nelson) was a finalist for ACFW’s Debut Author of the Year in 2008. Her fourth novel, His Steadfast Love, a Civil War novel, was a National Readers Choice finalist. Parsons has also written a biblical fiction series entitled Hidden Faces, Portraits of Nameless Women in the Gospels (WhiteFire Publishing). www.goldenkeyesparsons.com.

Texas Independence

The Battle of San Jacinto

by Martha Rogers

Ten days from now, Texas will celebrate her independence from Mexico won at a hard fought battle now know as the “Battle of San Jacinto.” It is the birthplace of Texas liberty and was one of the world’s most decisive battles. Sam Houston and his ragged group of about 900 Texan pioneers attacked Santa Anna and changed the map of North American.

The story of the battle has thrilled Texas for well over a century and a half as it was a story of desperate valor and high adventure, hardship, romance, as well as tragedy. That battle established Texas, the Lone Star Republic.

Almost two months before, the Mexican Army, led by Santa Anna, had defeated the men at the Alamo.Texas heroes like William B. Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett lost their lives in the futile attempt to defend the mission in San Antonio. Even after more troops arrived from Gonzales, on March 6, 1836, after thirteen days of battle, the Texans and Tejanos at the Alamo went down in defeat. 

“Remember the Alamo” became the battle cry of the Texas army as they headed for the battlefield near the coast where the Mexican army and Santa Anna were headed.  

Although six years in the planning, the actual battle of San Jacinto lasted less than twenty minutes. Besides the Alamo, disturbances at Anahuac and the battle of Velasco set Texans on the road for independence. The imprisonment of Stephen F. Austin in 1834 and the capture of Goliad in 1836 all preceded the Alamo and created a fierce determination in the Texans to fight to the death.

The Texas Declaration of Independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos came into being on March 2, 1836 and officially signaled the revolution was to begin.

At dawn, April 20, the Texans resumed their trek down the bayou to intercept the Mexicans. At Lynch's ferry, near the juncture of Buffalo Bayou and San Jacinto River, they captured a boat laden with supplies for Santa Anna. This probably was some of the plunder of Harrisburg or New Washington. Ascertaining that none of the enemy forces had crossed, the Texans drew back about a mile on the Harrisburg road, and encamped in a skirt of timber protected by a rising ground.

Because of the premature actions of Colonel Sidney Sherman who attacked a small group of the infantry with his cavalry, a major battle almost ensued. As it was, one Texan was killed and another wounded. The actions of one Mirabeau B. Lamar helped avert tragedy and on the next day he was placed in charge of the cavalry.

On April 20, both sides made camp and set up barricades to protect themselves as they prepared for the conflict sure to come the next day. On Thursday, April 21, the Texans awakened to a clear day. They were eager to attack as they could see Santa Anna’s flags flying over the enemy camp, and  they heard the Mexican bugle calls.

General Houston had his own plan and kept the men occupied until the middle of the afternoon. About 3:30, the Mexican side lay quiet and still as the soldiers enjoyed their customary siesta. The Texans' movements were screened by the trees and the rising ground, and evidently Santa Anna had no lookouts posted. Big, shaggy and commanding in his mud-stained non-military garb, Houston rode his horse up and down the line. "Now hold your fire, men," he warned in his deep voice, "until you get the order!"

At the command, "Advance," the patriots, 910 strong, moved quickly out of the woods and over the rise. Bearded and ragged from forty days in the field, they were a fierce-looking band, but their long rifles were clean and well oiled.

Only one group of men belonging to Sidney Sherman wore uniforms. Edward Burleson, George Hockley and Henry Millard fought along with Sherman and Lamar.

The Mexicans were so caught by surprise that they were soundly defeated in twenty minutes or so. Sam Houston became the great hero of San Jacinto, and on that day, April 21, 1836, Texas won not only the battle but also her independence. 

On May 14, 1836, Santa Anna signed the Treaties of Velasco. The treaty insured him safe travel back to Mexico on his agreement o withdraw his troops from Texan soil. There, he promised to lobby for recognition of the new republic. Two treaties were signed that day, a private treaty and a public treaty. In the private treaty, Santa Anna pledged to try to persuade Mexico to acknowledge Texas' independence, in return for an escort back to Mexico. The treaty also set the Texas/Mexico boundary at the Rio Grande River. This was one of the issues later contributing to the 1846 Mexican War. After being held for six months in prison by the United States, he was finally taken to Washington, D.C. where he met with President Andrew Jackson. He finally returned in disgrace to Mexico in early 1837.

The independent Republic of Texas now received diplomatic recognition from the United States, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Republic of Yucatan, all sovereign nations recognizing the new nation and its independence from Mexico. Even after the Republic joined the United States in 1845, Mexico maintained claims on Texas to the mid-19th century, until it was defeated in another war with the U.S. and was forced to sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.

Sam Houston was the man chosen to be the first President of the Republic of Texas. 

Today, a 67 foot tall statue of the hero of San Jacinto stands at the edge of Interstate 45 in Sam Houston State Forest between Conroe and Huntsville. Because it was once the Lone Star Republic, a recognized country, Texas could withdraw from the United States today and become its own country once again if the governor and the people voted for it.

One interesting tidbit I remember from studying Texas history in the seventh grade is the story of the “Twin Sisters.” One key element missing for the Texas army was artillery. Funds were raised to build two cannons, and a foundry in Ohio built them then shipped them to New Orleans and from there they sailed on a schooner to Galveston. One Dr. Charles Rice and his family were on the boat and presented the cannons to Texas authorities under the sponsorship of his twin daughters, Elizabeth and Eleanor. Someone in the audience noted the fact of two sisters and two cannons and the cannons from then on were called the “Twin Sisters.” They fired the first volley into the Mexican camp. Where those cannons could be today remains a mystery because Dr. Rice died without revealing where they had been buried. Replicas were made from the memory of those who had actually seen the cannons before they disappeared because the foundry that made them had no descriptions of the cannons. These replicas can be seen on the site of the battle field where the San Jacinto Monument now stands.

Every year on April 21, the battle is re-enacted on the grounds where it took place. The monument houses a museum containing murals and relics saved from the battle. 

Texas has a rich and colorful history and I'm proud to be a fifth generation Texan with roots that go back to the early 19th century.

Martha Rogers is a free-lance writer and was named Writer of the Year at the Texas Christian Writers Conference in 2009 and writes a weekly devotional for ACFW. Martha and her husband Rex live in Houston where they enjoy spending time with their grandchildren.  A former English and Home Economics teacher, Martha loves to cook and experimenting with recipes and loves scrapbooking when she has time. She has written three series, Winds Across the Prairie and Seasons of the Heart and The Homeward Journey. Book three in that series, Love Never Fails, released in November, 2014.