Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-12-12
SAM HOUSTON.
His Early Life-What Drove Hin
from Tennessee.

His Early Life-What Drove Him
from Teneessee.
Gath s Chicago Tribune letter.
In the year 1929, Arkansas Territory
was visited by nobler refugee than
commonly came to its secluson A
voluntary exile from the executive man
sion of Tennessee, followed by the fury
of political press, and that public, full
of uncharitable Interpretation which
believed the worst, Sam Houston had
resolved that the sun should forever
shine upon his back, aud the East be
forgotten in the misery of his spirit. A
Governor, elected at the age of thirty
four by IL, 900 majority, he had proved
the reverse of the couplet:
Art hath no charity for him
Whom lsve hath satisfied. W
He had married younger lady, and,
after three months of living together,
they separated. The reasons neither
ever gave. All rushed forward with a
reason, and that the basest; but none
guessed the shortest one; that the wo-
man did not love him. Like Hester
Prynne, implored by the preacher, in
public, to tell the name Of her betrayer,
when the preacher himself was that, it
might be said over Sam Houston: He
would not speak Wondrous strength
and generosity OF mans heart. He
would not speak," He resigned his
office, bowed his head, and, in the splen-
dor of young career, departed for the
desert. He landed at the mouth of White
river, and ascended the Arkansas to
Little Rock, but not to tarry and take
root again in public station; for appre-
hending this, the political papers even
there DETAINED him. Many years before,
he had been adopted into a Cherokee
tribe, and he had come to claim its
sympathy and brotherhood. -Four hun
dred miles by land and water he pushed
up toward the falls of the Arkansas,
and his father, 0olooketa, the chief, has
tened likewise to approach him. The
young Governor of Tennessee stood be-
fore the savage, and was greeted by his
Indian name.
Colennah," said the chief you have
become a great chief among your peo-
pie. You have suffered there, and have
turned your thoughts to my wigwam. |
am glad Of it. 1t was done by the Great
Spirit.
For little space Houston relapsed
into the Indians own drunken and
maudlin sorrow His strong nature re-
vived again, and he became the Iudian
champion at Washington, and the
ssourge of the swindling agents and
traders who imposed upon them. They
revived at this capital all the ISLANDERS
Of Tennessee, but his scars had healed,
and would not bleed anew At last, an
Ohio Congressman slandered Andrew
Jackson in his name, whom Houston
revered. Then there was an afray on
the avenue, and nearly simultaneously
breaches of the Congressmsn's head and
Of the privileges Of the House" For
this offense they tried the man of nis-
fortune on the floor, in Police Court, and
VhereYeF he could be dragged; but be
compelled a verdict Of character at the
hands Of the very cock-sparrow who
had DETAINED him Then, shaking the
dust Of Washington from his feet he re-
turned 10 the wilds of Arkansas, and
read Horace till the beauty Of life and
career were open again, and, with
freshed spirit be saw his opportunity in
Texas To that great new State he be.
came deliYerer aud president and, with
magnanimous patriotism, be led the
conquest to the capital and the nation
which had cast himof