One day, on the floor of the House of Representatives, the representative from Ohio, William Stansberry, accused Sam of pilfering funds from the Indian allowances. The newspapers picked up the accusation and ran with it. Defending his honor, Sam demanded a retraction and an apology, but Stansberry refused. One afternoon shortly thereafter, while walking with a friend on a public street in Washington, D.C., Sam unexpectedly came upon Stansberry walking a short distance away. Sam ran up to him and demanded an apology, but again, Stansberry refused. Sam started hitting Stansberry on his back and shoulders with his cane. Stansberry drew his pistol, stuck it in Sam’s chest, and pulled the trigger. Luckily, the pistol misfired. Unluckily, Stansberry filed charges against Sam with the House of Representatives. Sam gave a brilliant three-hour oration in defense of his right to retaliate against slander. After a vote of the House members, he was censured by the Speaker. Feeling thwarted, Stansberry filed suit with the D.C. court, which fined Sam 500 dollars. Sam refused to pay because to do so would have been to admit guilt. The fine languished unpaid until Jackson pardoned Sam on his last day in office as President.
Sam decided to seek his fortune in Texas, because it seemed there was great opportunity there for an ambitious man. Tiana chose to remain with her tribe, so Sam journeyed alone to Texas in his 40th year of life. He started a law practice and began to speculate in land.
Sam became caught up in the feverish politics of rebellion and signed the Texas Declaration of Independence on his 43rd birthday. He was appointed general of the Texas army, which was composed of mostly farmers and ranchers. Few of them knew much about soldiering, so time was needed to train them. Consequently, General Houston adopted a strategy of delay and retreat. This strategy, “the runaway scrape,” was necessary, but very unpopular. Settlers fled eastward to escape the invading Mexican army, led by President Santa Anna. Sam was put under tremendous public pressure to stop retreating and to stand and fight the Mexicans. He was widely accused of cowardice, even by the provisional president of Texas, David Burnet. Sam refused to stop retreating until he knew that the men were properly trained and ready to fight. He also knew that, by drawing the Mexicans farther away from their supply base, the more likely an opportunity would arise that would favor a Texian victory. Sam was not willing to risk losing one battle because it could mean losing the dream of independence forever. As the Texan army retreated, Sam drilled the soldiers, using the techniques he had learned as an officer in the United States army.
At San Jacinto, Sam stopped retreating. On April 21, 1836, while the enemy troops confidently took their afternoon siestas, Sam led an unexpected assault on the much larger Mexican forces. The Mexican army was caught unprepared and Santa Anna was caught - literally - with his pants down (he was entertaining the Yellow Rose, his putative bride, in his tent). Sam led the charge, riding his great horse, Saracen, at the front of the Texas line, leading, and encouraging his men. Sam was a conspicuous target for the Mexicans, and caught a bullet that shattered his ankle into more than twenty separate bone fragments. Gangrene soon set in and only a miracle kept him alive.
The Mexicans fired their cannon at the Texans but could not hit them. The cannon had been damaged in a previous skirmish, so could not be lowered enough to hit the advancing Texans, as they were now too close. The Mexicans had been trained in the European style, which was to stand up close together in rows and to fire and reload upon their officers’ commands. The Texians, however, kept advancing into the crowded Mexican ranks, and after firing, used their guns as clubs. The Mexicans did not know how to fight one on one, so were at a distinct advantage against the Texians, who were no doubt still enraged by the Mexican massacres of their compatriots at the Alamo and at Goliad. The actual battle lasted only 18 minutes, but the slaughter continued until Sam was sure of victory. Several hundred Mexican prisoners were captured.
Santa Anna was captured the next day. Sam leveraged the situation rather than giving into calls to execute the Mexican general. He granted Santa Anna his life in return for his pledge to return to Mexico with his army.
The Mexican government never granted Texas its independence, but it lacked the power to do anything about it. Texas was free. Sam, the conquering hero, was elected to be the first president of the Republic of Texas.
One of Sam’s chief objectives as president was to grant the Cherokees, who then lived in East Texas, clear and legal title to their land. The Cherokees had remained neutral in the Texas war for independence, and Sam felt it would be fair and just to reward them for not aligning with the Mexicans. Sadly, his efforts failed with the Texas legislature.
Prevented by the Texas constitution from succeeding himself as president, Sam sat out the next three-year term while his political opponent, Mirabeau Lamar, was president. (Lamar took the opportunity to drive the East Texas Indians out of Texas). During this time, Sam served as a representative in the Texas House. Sam was again elected President of Texas in 1841. In his inaugural address of November 25, 1841, Sam proclaimed:
In promoting the interests of my country, I feel that I am promoting my own individual happiness. All that I have, either in reputation or in property, is in Texas. Texas is my abiding place; this is my home, my nation, the home of my friends… When my country calls, I have ever deemed it my duty and my privilege to peril my life upon the issue of her glory.
During Sam’s second administration, the Mexicans made two abortive raids on San Antonio in the spring of 1842 and carted some captive Texans back to Mexico. Texans clamored to invade Mexico in retribution, but Sam resisted. He knew that it would be the height of folly to venture into the interior of Mexico. The national legislature passed a bill to invade Mexico, but Sam refused to sign it, thus preventing it from becoming law. In so doing, he cautioned:
To invite an army of 5,000 volunteers into service without means to subsist them would be productive of incalculable injury to the nation. It is an established fact that if subordination and discipline are not maintained, an armed force is more dangerous to the security of citizens and the liberties of a country than all the external enemies that could invade its rights.
For his refusal to attack Mexico, Sam was sharply criticized and even challenged to duels. On one occasion when Sam’s secretary informed him that he had been challenged to yet another duel, he quipped, “Put him on the list and tell him he’s number 16.” Later that year (1842), the citizens of Texas came to their senses. They were grateful that Sam had not risked Texas’ independence by fighting another war with Mexico.
Sam’s protégé, Anson Jones, succeeded him as president, and Sam re-entered private life as a lawyer and a farmer. During Jones’ administration, Texas accepted an invitation to become the 28th state in the American union. Sam was elected senator to represent Texas in Washington, D.C. In one of his first letters back home to his wife, Margaret, he wrote, “To be a good man, an affectionate husband, a kind parent, a generous master, a true patriot, and to leave my family and the world a spotless reputation comprise all the objects of my earthly ambition.”
While in the Senate, Sam represented the national welfare more than Texas’ parochial interests. Representing a slave state, while believing strongly in the federal union, created a dilemma for Sam, but he remained faithful in voting according to his principles. During his tenure as state senator, Texas became deeply embroiled with secessionist sentiments sparked by the slavery issue. Nonetheless, Sam was the only southern senator to vote for the admission of Oregon into the union as a free state, noting that “some northern senators voted to bring Texas into union as a slave state. I’m only returning the favor.” He was also the only southern senator to vote against the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Act stipulated, contrary to the provisions of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, that the territory could be slave if the citizens within the territory so voted. The Act opened the door to bloodshed between abolitionists and slaveholders, and sure enough, Kansas started bleeding soon after the Act passed.
In 1859, Sam ran for governor of Texas and won. He continued his outspoken support of preserving the Union. President-elect Abraham Lincoln wrote to Sam in early 1861 promising to send federal forces to Texas if Sam would agree to help keep Texas in the Union. Sam threw the letter into the fire, fearing that such an act would spark a civil war within Texas. Sam spoke all over the state pleading with Texans to remain loyal to the Union, warning that:
To secede from the Union and set up another government would cause war. If you go to war with the United States, you will never conquer her. As she has the money and the men. If she does not whip you by guns, powder, and steel, she will starve you to death. It will take the flower of our country, the young men.
