by Lyndon Orr
THE WIVES OF GENERAL HOUSTON
Sixty or seventy years ago it was considered a great joke to chalk upon any man's house-door, or on his trunk at a coaching-station, theconspicuous letters "G. T. T." The laugh went round, and every onewho saw the inscription chuckled and said: "They've got it on you, oldhoss!" The three letters meant "gone to Texas"; and for any man to go toTexas in those days meant his moral, mental, and financial dilapidation.Either he had plunged into bankruptcy and wished to begin life overagain in a new world, or the sheriff had a warrant for his arrest.
The very task of reaching Texas was a fearful one. Rivers that overrantheir banks, fever-stricken lowlands where gaunt faces peered out frommoldering cabins, bottomless swamps where the mud oozed greasily andwhere the alligator could be seen slowly moving his repulsive form--allthis stretched on for hundreds of miles to horrify and sicken theemigrants who came toiling on foot or struggling upon emaciated horses.Other daring pioneers came by boat, running all manner of risks upon theswollen rivers. Still others descended from the mountains of Tennesseeand passed through a more open country and with a greater certainty ofself-protection, because they were trained from childhood to wield therifle and the long sheath-knife.
It is odd enough to read, in the chronicles of those days, that amid allthis suffering and squalor there was drawn a strict line between "thequality" and those who had no claim to be patricians. "The quality" wasmade up of such emigrants as came from the more civilized East, orwho had slaves, or who dragged with them some rickety vehicle withcarriage-horses--however gaunt the animals might be. All others--thosewho had no slaves or horses, and no traditions of the older states--wereclassed as "poor whites"; and they accepted their mediocrity without amurmur.
Because he was born in Lexington, Virginia, and moved thence with hisfamily to Tennessee, young Sam Houston--a truly eponymous Americanhero--was numbered with "the quality" when, after long wandering, hereached his boyhood home. His further claim to distinction as a boy camefrom the fact that he could read and write, and was even familiar withsome of the classics in translation.
When less than eighteen years of age he had reached a height ofmore than six feet. He was skilful with the rifle, a remarkablerough-and-tumble fighter, and as quick with his long knife as anyIndian. This made him a notable figure--the more so as he never abusedhis strength and courage. He was never known as anything but "Sam." Inhis own sphere he passed for a gentleman and a scholar, thanks to hisVirginian birth and to the fact that he could repeat a great part ofPope's translation of the "Iliad."
His learning led him to teach school a few months in the year to thechildren of the white settlers. Indeed, Houston was so much taken withthe pursuit of scholarship that he made up his mind to learn Greek andLatin. Naturally, this seemed mere foolishness to his mother, his sixstrapping brothers, and his three stalwart sisters, who cared littlefor study. So sharp was the difference between Sam and the rest of thefamily that he gave up his yearning after the classics and went to theother extreme by leaving home and plunging into the heart of the forestbeyond sight of any white man or woman or any thought of Hellas andancient Rome.
Here in the dimly lighted glades he was most happy. The Indians admiredhim for his woodcraft and for the skill with which he chased the wildgame amid the forests. From his copy of the "Iliad" he would read tothem the thoughts of the world's greatest poet.
It is told that nearly forty years after, when Houston had long led adifferent life and had made his home in Washington, a deputation of morethan forty untamed Indians from Texas arrived there under the charge ofseveral army officers. They chanced to meet Sam Houston.
One and all ran to him, clasped him in their brawny arms, hugged himlike bears to their naked breasts, and called him "father." Beneath thecopper skin and thick paint the blood rushed, and their faces changed,and the lips of many a warrior trembled, although the Indian may notweep.
In the gigantic form of Houston, on whose ample brow the beneficentlove of a father was struggling with the sternness of the patriarch andwarrior, we saw civilization awing the savage at his feet. We needed nointerpreter to tell us that this impressive supremacy was gained in theforest.
His family had been at first alarmed by his stay among the Indians;but when after a time he returned for a new outfit they saw that he wasentirely safe and left him to wander among the red men. Later he cameforth and resumed the pursuits of civilization. He took up his studies;he learned the rudiments of law and entered upon its active practice.When barely thirty-six he had won every office that was open to him,ending with his election to the Governorship of Tennessee in 1827.
Then came a strange episode which changed the whole course of his life.Until then the love of woman had never stirred his veins. His physicalactivities in the forests, his unique intimacy with Indian life, hadkept him away from the social intercourse of towns and cities. InNashville Houston came to know for the first time the fascination offeminine society. As a lawyer, a politician, and the holder of importantoffices he could not keep aloof from that gentler and more winninginfluence which had hitherto been unknown to him.
In 1828 Governor Houston was obliged to visit different portions ofthe state, stopping, as was the custom, to visit at the homes of "thequality," and to be introduced to wives and daughters as well as totheir sportsman sons. On one of his official journeys he met Miss ElizaAllen, a daughter of one of the "influential families" of Sumner County,on the northern border of Tennessee. He found her responsive, charming,and greatly to be admired. She was a slender type of Southern beauty,well calculated to gain the affection of a lover, and especially ofone whose associations had been chiefly with the women of frontiercommunities.
To meet a girl who had refined tastes and wide reading, and who was atthe same time graceful and full of humor, must have come as a pleasantexperience to Houston. He and Miss Allen saw much of each other, and fewof their friends were surprised when the word went forth that they wereengaged to be married.
The marriage occurred in January, 1829. They were surrounded withfriends of all classes and ranks, for Houston was the associate ofJackson and was immensely popular in his own state. He seemed to havebefore him a brilliant career. He had won a lovely bride to make a homefor him; so that no man seemed to have more attractive prospects. Whatwas there which at this time interposed in some malignant way to blighthis future?
It was a little more than a month after his marriage when he met afriend, and, taking him out into a strip of quiet woodland, said to him:
"I have something to tell you, but you must not ask me anything aboutit. My wife and I will separate before long. She will return to herfather's, while I must make my way alone."
Houston's friend seized him by the arm and gazed at him with horror.
"Governor," said he, "you're going to ruin your whole life! What reasonhave you for treating this young lady in such a way? What has she donethat you should leave her? Or what have you done that she should leaveyou? Every one will fall away from you."
Houston grimly replied:
"I have no explanation to give you. My wife has none to give you. Shewill not complain of me, nor shall I complain of her. It is noone's business in the world except our own. Any interference will beimpertinent, and I shall punish it with my own hand."
"But," said his friend, "think of it. The people at large will not allowsuch action. They will believe that you, who have been their idol, havedescended to insult a woman. Your political career is ended. It will notbe safe for you to walk the streets!"
"What difference does it make to me?" said Houston, gloomily. "What mustbe, must be. I tell you, as a friend, in advance, so that you may beprepared; but the parting will take place very soon."
Little was heard for another month or two, and then came theannouncement that the Governor's wife had left him and had returned toher parents' home. The news flew like wildfire, and was the themeof every tongue. Friends of Mrs. Houston begged her to tell them themeaning of the whole affair. Adhe
rents of Houston, on the other hand,set afloat stories of his wife's coldness and of her peevishness. Thestate was divided into factions; and what really concerned a very fewwas, as usual, made everybody's business.
There were times when, if Houston had appeared near the dwelling of hisformer wife, he would have been lynched or riddled with bullets. Again,there were enemies and slanderers of his who, had they shown themselvesin Nashville, would have been torn to pieces by men who hailed Houstonas a hero and who believed that he could not possibly have done wrong.
However his friends might rage, and however her people might wonder andseek to pry into the secret, no satisfaction was given on either side.The abandoned wife never uttered a word of explanation. Houston wasequally reticent and self-controlled. In later years he sometimes drankdeeply and was loose-tongued; but never, even in his cups, could he bepersuaded to say a single word about his wife.
The whole thing is a mystery and cannot be solved by any evidence thatwe have. Almost every one who has written of it seems to have indulgedin mere guesswork. One popular theory is that Miss Allen was in lovewith some one else; that her parents forced her into a brilliantmarriage with Houston, which, however, she could not afterward endure;and that Houston, learning the facts, left her because he knew that herheart was not really his.
But the evidence is all against this. Had it been so she would surelyhave secured a divorce and would then have married the man whom shetruly loved. As a matter of fact, although she did divorce Houston, itwas only after several years, and the man whom she subsequently marriedwas not acquainted with her at the time of the separation.
Another theory suggests that Houston was harsh in his treatment of hiswife, and offended her by his untaught manners and extreme self-conceit.But it is not likely that she objected to his manners, since she hadbecome familiar with them before she gave him her hand; and as to hisconceit, there is no evidence that it was as yet unduly developed. Afterhis Texan campaign he sometimes showed a rather lofty idea of his ownachievements; but he does not seem to have done so in these early days.
Some have ascribed the separation to his passion for drink; but hereagain we must discriminate. Later in life he became very fond of spiritsand drank whisky with the Indians, but during his earlier years hewas most abstemious. It scarcely seems possible that his wife left himbecause he was intemperate.
If one wishes to construct a reasonable hypothesis on a subject wherethe facts are either wanting or conflicting, it is not impossible tosuggest a solution of this puzzle about Houston. Although his abandonedwife never spoke of him and shut her lips tightly when she wasquestioned about him, Houston, on his part, was not so taciturn. Henever consciously gave any direct clue to his matrimonial mystery; buthe never forgot this girl who was his bride and whom he seems alwaysto have loved. In what he said he never ceased to let a vein ofself-reproach run through his words.
I should choose this one paragraph as the most significant. It waswritten immediately after they had parted:
Eliza stands acquitted by me. I have received her as a virtuous, chastewife, and as such I pray God I may ever regard her, and I trust I evershall. She was cold to me, and I thought she did not love me.
And again he said to an old and valued friend at about the same time:
"I can make no explanation. I exonerate the lady fully and do notjustify myself."
Miss Allen seems to have been a woman of the sensitive American typewhich was so common in the early and the middle part of the lastcentury. Mrs. Trollope has described it for us with very littleexaggeration. Dickens has drawn it with a touch of malice, and yet notwithout truth. Miss Martineau described it during her visit tothis country, and her account quite coincides with those of her twocontemporaries.
Indeed, American women of that time unconsciously described themselvesin a thousand different ways. They were, after all, only a less strikingtype of the sentimental Englishwomen who read L. E. L. and the earliernovels of Bulwer-Lytton. On both sides of the Atlantic there was a reignof sentiment and a prevalence of what was then called "delicacy." It wasa die-away, unwholesome attitude toward life and was morbid to the lastdegree.
In circles where these ideas prevailed, to eat a hearty dinner wasconsidered unwomanly. To talk of anything except some gilded "annual,"or "book of beauty," or the gossip of the neighborhood was wholly to becondemned. The typical girl of such a community was thin and slender andgiven to a mild starvation, though she might eat quantities of jam andpickles and saleratus biscuit. She had the strangest views of life andan almost unnatural shrinking from any usual converse with men.
Houston, on his side, was a thoroughly natural and healthful man, havinglived an outdoor life, hunting and camping in the forest and displayingthe unaffected manner of the pioneer. Having lived the solitary life ofthe woods, it was a strange thing for him to meet a girl who had beenbred in an entirely different way, who had learned a thousand littlereservations and dainty graces, and whose very breath was coyness andreserve. Their mating was the mating of the man of the forest with thewoman of the sheltered life.
Houston assumed everything; his bride shrank from everything. There wasa mutual shock amounting almost to repulsion. She, on her side, probablythought she had found in him only the brute which lurks in man. He, onthe other, repelled and checked, at once grasped the belief that hiswife cared nothing for him because she would not meet his ardorswith like ardors of her own. It is the mistake that has been made bythousands of men and women at the beginning of their married lives--themistake on one side of too great sensitiveness, and on the other side oftoo great warmth of passion.
This episode may seem trivial, and yet it is one that explains manythings in human life. So far as concerns Houston it has a direct bearingon the history of our country. A proud man, he could not endure theslights and gossip of his associates. He resigned the governorship ofTennessee, and left by night, in such a way as to surround his departurewith mystery.
There had come over him the old longing for Indian life; and when he wasnext visible he was in the land of the Cherokees, who had long beforeadopted him as a son. He was clad in buckskin and armed with knifeand rifle, and served under the old chief Oolooteka. He was a gallantdefender of the Indians.
When he found how some of the Indian agents had abused his adoptedbrothers he went to Washington to protest, still wearing his frontiergarb. One William Stansberry, a Congressman from Ohio, insulted Houston,who leaped upon him like a panther, dragged him about the Hall ofRepresentatives, and beat him within an inch of his life. He wasarrested, imprisoned, and fined; but his old friend, President Jackson,remitted his imprisonment and gruffly advised him not to pay the fine.
Returning to his Indians, he made his way to a new field which promisedmuch adventure. This was Texas, of whose condition in those earlydays something has already been said. Houston found a rough Americansettlement, composed of scattered villages extending along the disputedfrontier of Mexico. Already, in the true Anglo-Saxon spirit, thesettlers had formed a rudimentary state, and as they increased andmultiplied they framed a simple code of laws.
Then, quite naturally, there came a clash between them and the Mexicans.The Texans, headed by Moses Austin, had set up a republic and askedfor admission to the United States. Mexico regarded them as rebels anddespised them because they made no military display and had no veryaccurate military drill. They were dressed in buckskin and raggedclothing; but their knives were very bright and their rifles carriedsurely. Furthermore, they laughed at odds, and if only a dozen of themwere gathered together they would "take on" almost any number of Mexicanregulars.
In February, 1836, the acute and able Mexican, Santa Anna, led acrossthe Rio Grande a force of several thousand Mexicans showily uniformedand completely armed. Every one remembers how they fell upon the littlegarrison at the Alamo, now within the city limits of San Antonio, butthen an isolated mission building surrounded by a thick adobe wall. TheAmericans numbered less than three hundred men.
A shar
p attack was made with these overwhelming odds. The Americansdrove the assailants back with their rifle fire, but they had nothing tooppose to the Mexican artillery. The contest continued for several days,and finally the Mexicans breached the wall and fell upon the garrison,who were now reduced by more than half. There was an hour of blood, andevery one of the Alamo's defenders, including the wounded, was put todeath. The only survivors of the slaughter were two negro slaves, awoman, and a baby girl.
When the news of this bloody affair reached Houston he leaped forth tothe combat like a lion. He was made commander-in-chief of the scantyTexan forces. He managed to rally about seven hundred men, and set outagainst Santa Anna with little in the way of equipment, and withnothing but the flame of frenzy to stimulate his followers. By march andcountermarch the hostile forces came face to face near the shore of SanJacinto Bay, not far from the present city of Houston. Slowly they movedupon each other, when Houston halted, and his sharpshooters raked theMexican battle-line with terrible effect. Then Houston uttered the cry:
"Remember the Alamo!"
With deadly swiftness he led his men in a charge upon Santa Anna'slines. The Mexicans were scattered as by a mighty wind, their commanderwas taken prisoner, and Mexico was forced to give its recognition toTexas as a free republic, of which General Houston became the firstpresident.
This was the climax of Houston's life, but the end of it leaves us withsomething still to say. Long after his marriage with Miss Allen he tookan Indian girl to wife and lived with her quite happily. She was a verybeautiful woman, a half-breed, with the English name of Tyania Rodgers.Very little, however, is known of her life with Houston. Later still--in1840--he married a lady from Marion, Alabama, named Margaret MoffetteLea. He was then in his forty-seventh year, while she was onlytwenty-one; but again, as with his Indian wife, he knew nothing butdomestic tranquillity. These later experiences go far to prove thetruth of what has already been given as the probable cause of his firstmysterious failure to make a woman happy.
After Texas entered the Union, in 1845, Houston was elected to theUnited States Senate, in which he served for thirteen years. In 1852,1856, and 1860, as a Southerner who opposed any movement looking towardsecession, he was regarded as a possible presidential candidate; but hiscareer was now almost over, and in 1863, while the Civil War--which hehad striven to prevent--was at its height, he died.