IN: Sam Houston was the fifth son of Major Samuel Houston and Elizabeth Paxton. Houston's paternal ancestry is often traced to his great-great grandfather Sir John Houston, who built a family estate in Scotland in the late seventeenth century. His second son John Houston emigrated to Ulster, Ireland, during the Ulster plantation period. Under the system of primogeniture, he did not inherit the estate.

Houston's political reputation suffered further due to the publicity related to the trial for his assault of Stanbery. He left for Texas in December 1832 and was immediately swept up in the politics of what was still a part of the Mexican state of Coahuila, attending the Convention of 1833 as representative for Nacogdoches. Houston emerged as a supporter of William Harris Wharton and his brother, who promoted independence from Mexico. This was the more radical position of the American settlers and Tejanos in Texas. He also attended the Consultation of 1835, and the Texas Army commissioned him as Major General in November 1835. He negotiated a peace settlement with the Cherokee of East Texas in February 1836 to allay their fears about independence. Houston was selected as Commander-in-Chief at the convention to declare Texan independence in March 1836, and he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836, his 43rd birthday. Mexican soldiers killed almost all of those at the Alamo Mission at the end of a 13-day siege on March 6. On March 11, Houston joined what constituted his army at Gonzales: 374 poorly equipped, poorly trained, and poorly supplied recruits. Word of the defeat at the Alamo reached him and, while he waited for confirmation, he organized the recruits as the 1st Regiment Volunteer Army of Texas. On March 13, Houston retreated before the superior forces of Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, as he was short on rations. Heavy rain fell nearly every day, causing severe morale problems among the exposed troops struggling through the mud. He received additional troops near present-day La Grange, after four days' march, and continued east two days later with 600 men. At Goliad, Santa Anna ordered the execution of more than 400 volunteer Texas militia led by James Fannin, who had surrendered his forces on March 20. Houston's forces were joined by 130 more men on March 26 near present-day Columbus, and the next day he learned of the Fannin disaster. Houston continued his retreat eastward toward the Gulf coast, drawing criticism for his perceived lack of willingness to fight, and two companies refused to retreat further on March 29 while they were camped along the Brazos River. Houston decided to use the opportunity for rudimentary training and discipline of his force. On April 2, he organized the 2nd Regiment and received a battalion of regulars, and he ordered all troops along the Brazos to join the main army on April 11, approximately 1,500 men in all. He began crossing the Brazos on April 12. Santa Anna finally caught up with the Texans, but he had split his own army into three separate forces in an attempt to encircle Houston's forces. Houston surprised Santa Anna's forces during their afternoon siesta at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. The Texans won a decisive victory in less than 18 minutes, suffering few casualties, although Houston's ankle was shattered by a stray bullet. Santa Anna was badly beaten and forced to sign the Treaty of Velasco, granting Texas its independence. Houston stayed on briefly for negotiations, then returned to the United States for treatment of his ankle wound.
QUESTION: did he do anything else during the war?
IN: Augusta Jane Evans, or Augusta Evans Wilson (May 8, 1835 - May 9, 1909), was an American author of Southern literature. She was the first woman to earn US$100,000 through her writing. Wilson was a native of Columbus, Georgia, and her first book, Inez, a Tale of the Alamo, was written when she was still young.

Augusta Evans Wilson was not a professional writer and her style was severely criticized as "pedantic." She wrote in the domestic, sentimental style of the Victorian Age. Critics have praised the intellectual competence of her female characters, but as her heroes eventually succumb to traditional values, Wilson has been described as an antifeminist. Of St. Elmo one critic maintained, "the trouble with the heroine of St. Elmo was that she swallowed an unabridged dictionary." Wilson was the first American woman author to earn over $100,000. This would be a record unsurpassed until Edith Wharton. Macaria, or Altars of Sacrifice, published in 1864, was popular with Southerners and Northerners alike. Melissa Homestead writes that the transportation of the novel to New York was deliberate, done in installments and nearly simultaneous with the novel's preparation for publication in the South. Thus, while previous critics, scholars and biographers have all treated Macaria's appearance in the North as unauthorized, the truth is much more meaningful. Some scholars say that by dispensing with the romantic notion that the novel appeared in a "bootleg" edition, Homestead debunks the hard and fast distinction between Northern and Southern readerships as an invention of historians and critics rather than an accurate reflection of reading practices of the period. However, a great number of discrepancies exist between the version published in the North and the version published in the South, which remove huge portions of the text which romanticize the Southern heroes that are portrayed. Her novel St. Elmo was her most famous and it was frequently adapted for both the stage and screen. It inspired the naming of towns, hotels, steamboats, and a cigar brand. The book's heroine, Edna Earl, became the namesake of Eudora Welty's heroine (Edna Earle Ponder) in The Ponder Heart published in 1954. The novel also inspired a parody of itself called St. Twel'mo, or the Cuneiform Cyclopedist of Chattanooga (1867) by Charles Henry Webb.
QUESTION:
Did Evans have a response for the critics?