Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/36

 of his regiment. After the army was reduced, his services as lieutenant were retained; and, attached to the first regiment of infantry, he was stationed at New Orleans. His voyage to New Orleans was commenced in a skiff on the Cumberland, with two young men,. one of whom afterward was distinguished as E. D. White, Governor of Louisiana. Passing down the Cumberland, smoothly gliding over the waters of the Ohio, they floated on the mighty waters of the Mississippi for many weary miles through a vast solitude. A Bible, Houston's mother's gift. Pope's translation of the Iliad, the same which had kept him company in his wild life among the Indians, Shakespeare, Akenside, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, and the Vicar of Wakefield were the travelling companions of that skiff's company, but they were the effective stimuli to the warm fancy of the young hero and his companions communing with those sublime wilds of nature. Turning a bend of the Mississippi, they saw what they supposed to be a vessel on fire, making headway on the stream without sails, and emitting heavy columns of smoke. It proved to be the first steamer which ever went up the Mississippi River. The party exchanged their narrow quarters on the skiff for the steamboat, and eight days thereafter Lieutenant Houston, reaching New Orleans, reported for duty. Here once more he had his wounds operated upon, and came near losing his life. After most completely shattering his right arm just below its juncture with the shoulder, the rifle-ball had passed around and lodged itself near the shoulderblade. His iron constitution, however, sufficed to endure an amount of suffering which few could have survived. Well-nigh did the last surgical operation come of depriving him of his remaining strength. But the indomitable will which sustained him triumphantly throughout all the struggles of a stormy life prevailed through all ills physical, mental, spiritual, and political.

In April of the following year, after a winter of great suffering, he sailed for New York, and spent there several weeks, with some slight improvement in his health. Passing through Washington city, he visited his friends in Tennessee, and then reported for duty to the Adjutant-General of the Southern Division, at Nashville, and was detailed on duty in the Adjutant's office, stationed at Nashville from the first of January, 1819. He was occupied in the office till the following November, when he was detailed on extra duty as a sub-agent among the Cherokees, to carry out the treaty just ratified with that nation. Notwithstanding his feeble health made it perilous for him to face the exposures incident to such an agency, still, as Gen. Jackson could procure no other person in whom he could repose such entire confidence, and as his life-long friend considered that the public service required that he should make the effort, Lieut. Houston