Biography of Sam Houston, Founding Father of Texas

Sam Houston (March 2, 1793–July 26, 1863) was an American frontiersman, soldier, and politician. As commander of the forces fighting for Texas’ independence, he routed the Mexican troops at the Battle of San Jacinto, which essentially won the struggle. Over his long career, he was a successful and effective statesman, serving as congressman and governor of Tennessee and the first and third president of the Republic of Texas, before becoming a U.S. senator and governor for the state of Texas. Fast Facts: Sam Houston Known For: After winning the Battle of San Jacinto, which effectively won the Texas War of Independence, Houston was the founding statesman of Texas, serving as the first president of the Republic of Texas, then a U.S. senator and governor for the state of Texas.Born: March 2, 1793 in Rockbridge County, VirginiaParents: Samuel Houston and Elizabeth (Paxton) HoustonDied: July 26, 1863 in Huntsville, TexasEducation: Minimal formal education, self-taught, founded Cherokee school, read law in Nashville under Judge James TrimblePositions and Offices: Attorney general for Nashville Tennessee, U.S. congressman for Tennessee, governor of Tennessee, major general of the Texas Army, first and third president of the Republic of Texas, U.S. senator for Texas, governor of TexasSpouse(s): Eliza Allen, Diana Rogers Gentry, Margaret Moffette LeaChildren: With Margaret Moffette Lea: Sam Houston, Jr., Nancy Elizabeth, Margaret, Mary William, Antoinette Power, Andrew Jackson Houston, William Rogers, Te mple Lea HoustonNotable Quote: Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may. Early Life Houston was born in Virginia in 1793 to a middle-class family of farmers. They went West early, settling in Tennessee—which was, at that time, part of the western frontier. While still a teenager, he ran off and lived among the Cherokee for a few years, learning their language and their ways. He took a Cherokee name for himself: Colonneh, which means Raven. Houston enlisted in the American army for the War of 1812, serving in the west under Andrew Jackson. He distinguished himself for heroism at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend against the Red Sticks, Creek followers of Tecumseh. Early Political Rise and Fall Houston soon established himself as a rising political star. He had allied himself closely to Andrew Jackson, who in turn came to see Houston as a protà ©gà ©. Houston ran first for Congress and then for governor of Tennessee. As a close Jackson ally, he won easily. His own charisma, charm, and presence also had a great deal to do with his success. It all came crashing down in 1829, however, when his new marriage fell apart. Devastated, Houston resigned as governor and headed west. Sam Houston Goes to Texas Houston made his way to Arkansas, where he lost himself in alcoholism. He lived among the Cherokee and established a trading post. He returned to Washington on behalf of the Cherokee in 1830 and again in 1832. On the 1832 trip,  he challenged anti-Jackson Congressman William Stanberry to a duel. When Stanberry refused to accept the challenge, Houston attacked him with a walking stick. He was eventually censured by Congress for this action. After the Stanberry affair, Houston was ready for a new adventure, so he went to Texas, where he had purchased some land on speculation. He was also charged with reporting to Jackson about the political climate and events in Texas. War Breaks out in Texas On October 2, 1835, hotheaded Texan rebels in the town of Gonzales fired on Mexican troops who had been sent to retrieve a cannon from the town. These were the first shots of the Texas Revolution. Houston was delighted: by then, he was convinced that Texas separation from Mexico was inevitable and that the fate of Texas lay in independence or statehood in the United States. He was elected head of the Nacogdoches militia and would eventually be appointed major general of all Texan forces. It was a frustrating post, as there was little money for paid soldiers and the volunteers were hard to manage. The Battle of the Alamo and the Goliad Massacre Sam Houston felt that the city of San Antonio and the Alamo fortress were not worth defending. There were too few troops to do so, and the city was too far from the rebels east Texas base. He ordered Jim Bowie to destroy the Alamo and evacuate the city. Instead, Bowie fortified the Alamo and set up defenses. Houston received dispatches from Alamo commander William Travis, begging for reinforcements, but he could not send them as his army was in disarray. On March 6, 1835, the Alamo fell. All 200 or so defenders fell with it. More bad news was on the way, however: on March 27, 350 rebel Texan prisoners were executed at Goliad. The Battle of San Jacinto The Alamo and Goliad cost the rebels dearly in terms of numbers of soldiers and morale. Houstons army was finally ready to take the field, but he still had only about 900 soldiers, far too few to take on General Santa Annas  Mexican army. He dodged Santa Anna for weeks, drawing the ire of the rebel politicians, who called him a coward. In mid-April 1836, Santa Anna unwisely divided his army. Houston caught up with him near the San Jacinto River. Houston surprised everyone by ordering an attack on the afternoon of April 21. The surprise was complete and the battle was a total rout  with 700 Mexican soldiers killed,  about half of the total. The other Mexican soldiers were captured, including General Santa Anna. Although most of the Texans wanted to execute Santa Anna, Houston did not permit it. Santa Anna soon signed a treaty recognizing Texas independence which effectively ended the war. President of Texas Although Mexico would subsequently make several half-hearted attempts to re-take Texas, independence was essentially sealed. Houston was elected the first president of the Republic of Texas in 1836. He became president again in 1841. He was a very good president, attempting to make peace with Mexico and the Native Americans who inhabited Texas. Mexico invaded twice in 1842 and Houston always worked for a peaceful solution; only his unquestioned status as a war hero kept more bellicose Texans from open conflict with Mexico. Later Political Career Texas was admitted to the United States in 1845. Houston became a senator from Texas, serving until 1859, at which time he became governor of Texas. The nation was wrestling with the slavery issue at the time and Houston was an active participant in the debate, opposing secession. He proved a wise statesman, working always toward peace and compromise. He stepped down as governor in 1861 after the Texas legislature voted to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy. It was a difficult decision, but he made it because he believed that the South would lose the war and that the violence and cost would be for naught. Death Sam Houston rented the Steamboat House in Huntsville, Texas in 1862. His health took a downturn in 1862 with a cough that turned into pneumonia. He died on July 26, 1863, and is buried in Huntsville. The Legacy of Sam Houston The life story of Sam Houston is a gripping tale of rapid rise, fall, and redemption. His second, greatest ascent was remarkable. When Houston came west he was a broken man, but he still had just enough prior fame to immediately take an important role in Texas. A one-time war hero, he prevailed again at the Battle of San Jacinto. His wisdom in sparing the life of the defeated Santa Anna is considered to have been crucial to sealing Texas independence. Through this second rapid rise, Houston was able to put his more recent troubles behind him and become the great man that had seemed to be his fate as a young man. Later, Houston governed Texas with great wisdom. In his career as a senator from Texas, he made many prescient observations about the Civil War that he feared was on the nations horizon. Today, many Texans consider him among the greatest heroes of their independence movement. The city of Houston is named after him, as are countless streets, parks, and schools. Sources Brands, H.W. Lone Star Nation: The Epic Story of the Battle for Texas Independence. Anchor Books, 2004.Henderson, Timothy J. A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and its War with the United States. Hill and Wang, 2007.Kreneck, Thomas H. â€Å"Houston, Samuel.†Ã‚  The Handbook of Texas Online| Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), 15 June 2010.Sam Houston Memorial Museum.

The Persian Royal Road Improve Governing And Communism Essay

Essential Questions Chapter 4 - Christopher Hallinan Why would the Persian Royal Road improve governing and communism in the Persian Empire? The Persian Royal Road was very beneficial for governing and communication because it allowed people to go throughout the empire efficiently. According to the Behistun inscription, how does Darius the first justify his assumption to power and why is his relationship to Ahuramazda significant? He says that he has power because Ahuramazda gave him control of the kingdom. Because he was chosen by the god, nobody would ever think to question his authority due to respect for their religion. According to the Behistun inscription, what role does divinity play in human affairs? Divinity plays a major role in human affairs because the gods let Darius rule Persia. According to the document of Xerxes from Persepolis, did Alexander the Great possess the desired qualities of a ruler? According to the document, Alexander the Great did possess the desired qualities of a ruler because he was friendly with his people, respected their culture, and was a great leader for war. Which Persian leader would be the equivalent of George Washington; Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes? Explain your answer. I would pick Xerxes to be most equivalent to George Washington because he firmly believed in religion and was respected by his people. How did the Persian treatment of conquered people compare to the Assyrians treatment of conquered people. As we learned fromShow MoreRelatedInternational Management67196 Words   |  269 Pagesarticles have been published in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of World Business, and European Management Journal. Since the very beginning of the transition to a market economy after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, he has been actively involved in management education programs sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development in Albania and Macedonia, and in U.S. Information Agency programs involving the Central Asian countries ofRead MoreOne Significant Change That Has Occurred in the World Between 1900 and 2005. Explain the Impact This Change Has Made on Our Lives and Why It Is an Important Change.163893 Words   |  656 Pagesan overview of the gendering of political and social transformations over the course of the twentieth century. Attentive to differences across cultures and regions and under varying political regimes, Smith chronicles the struggles of women to improve their situation within the domestic sphere and the conditions under which they labored to expand the career opportunities available to them at different times and in diverse settings. She places special emphasis on the important but often overlooked

Learning from Mistake, Agree or Disagree Free Essays

I don’t like to make mistake. Everything to me has to be perfect because I felt that if one person made a mistake the first time, how they would be able to do anything. That is why learning from mistake is impossible to me. We will write a custom essay sample on Learning from Mistake, Agree or Disagree or any similar topic only for you Order Now When you make mistake and try to learn something from your mistake, you will waste lots of things, ruin the way that people look about you. In addition, learning from mistakes will make you regret much. First of all, learning from our mistakes will waste you lots of things. You will waste your time because you have to do again everything that you did in the wrong way. It seems too hard to start something again which is done one time already. By doing again, you will feel bored and tired. Not only doing it over, but also, you have to find where you did it wrong and give yourself a lesson in order to prevent from making that mistake once more. Studying in this school is an example. If you failed, you had to spend 16 weeks in fall or spring semester and 8 weeks in summer semester. You have to study again. In addition, learning from your mistake will waste your money. Failing in this school is an instance. You have to spend lots of money on the subject that you failed to study again. Spending 75 US dollar for each subject in ELS program and 150 US dollar for each subject in AAS program is the result. In learning, you always have many chances to fix your mistake but how about in working, will you have any opportunity? In reality, the real world, you will not have second chance. Especially, in the business world, where everything is a competition, you do not have the time to learn from mistakes. So, you are forced to do everything completely. Even though you can learn from your mistakes, you do not have chance to fix them. It means that you will be going to end up your career. That is the reason why I don’t like to learn from my mistakes. Secondly, in daily life, learning from mistakes will ruin the way that your friends and family look or feel about you. Everyone will look at you with a strange way if you learn from your mistakes. In addition, they will laugh at you as a silly person. Even though you learn from mistakes, they will make you feel uncomfortable. My cousin is as an illustration. She failed high school exam. She said to me that her old friends looked at her with their curious eyes; her neighbor and her relative always annoyed her with their questions. She seemly lost her hope though she had a lesson from her mistakes and knew how to overcome this hard situation. In life, learning from your mistakes will affect your job and your ability to success. When you work in a company and you always say that I have lots of experience from my mistakes. Then, you continue making mistakes. What will your boss and you co-worker think about your ability? Of course, they will suspect your capability. In addition, does the company want to hire employees that always make mistake and say that they learn a lot from their mistakes? In my point of view, people do not care about if you learn from your mistakes or not. They just look at your mistake because caring about your learning from mistakes dose not bring any benefits to them. In a company, the boss just wants to have perfect employees- hard working and aâ‚ ¬? no-mistakeaâ‚ ¬? employees. More over, your boss may think that if he allows employees to make mistakes, how will they ever learn? They will just keep on making even more mistakes. Further more, when you learn from your mistakes, people who do not like you will know where you are weak. It will be easy for them to let you down. They can seize your status in your company. Everything that you have will not belong to you any more. It belongs to people who want to harm you. So, learning from your mistakes will deteriorate yourself and bring disadvantages to your life. Thirdly, learning from mistakes will make you regret much. You may think that you do not willing to do any things that you face. You have not enough experience to overcome your challenges. Further more, you will be diffident when you face some hard situations. So, you do not concern much about what you are doing. Students who learn from their mistakes will be discouraged because they used to not to pay more attention to their study. They do not prepare any things for their future. In addition, felling ashamed and giving up their goal is the affect of learning from mistakes. The more complicated mistakes they learn, the more shameful they feel. To me, if I do something, you I will do it for a reason and I will not regret. I find that regretting is a bad way. If you know results that will not good for you, why donaâ‚ ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t you try to prevent that? To me, I before doing something will always attempt to think about what Iaâ‚ ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢m going to do first. In addition, I usually consider about the result of doing something. I ask myself that if doing some things will bring benefit to me or not. So, I may choose the way that will not make me regret. Right now, we are living in an achievement and success oriented world. So, a popular rule is whenever you do anything, try to do it right. That is why, to me, learning from mistakes is something unacceptable. In conclusion, I do not like learning from mistakes. Everybody can reduce as much mistake as possible. By preparing yourself and hard working, I believe that you can overcome everything in your life. In addition, do not think about learning from your mistakes because it just brings disadvantages to your life. It not only makes you spend lots of things, but also lays down the way that your relative look at you and makes you regret much. Hopefully, you will be strong and confident to overcome every hard situation. How to cite Learning from Mistake, Agree or Disagree, Essays