Page:Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston of Texas (1884).djvu/37

 yielded to the importunities of his commander, and entered upon the new duties with zeal, and performed them with eminent ability. Unfit for public service when he commenced this line of duties, and offered a furlough if he should decline the agency, he was successful beyond his own expectations. Conducting, however, a delegation of Indians to Washington during the same winter, arrived at the seat of Government he learned with amazement that efforts had been put forth to lower him in the estimation of the Government for "having prevented African negroes from being smuggled into the Western States from Florida," which at that time was a province of Spain. Friends of the smugglers then in Congress had circulated these reports. He appeared before President James Monroe, and the Secretary of War (Hon. John C. Calhoun), and vindicated himself, proving that he had only striven to secure respect for the laws of the country in all that he had done. Occupied most laboriously in his new and difficult mission, discharging its duties with marked ability, he was still suffering severely from the painful wounds which he had received in the service of his country. Gen. Jackson and all who understood the position and services of Houston thought that he should have received some warmer recognition for his great services and sacrifices for the State than the full and complete exculpation from blame which was freely accorded to him. Sensitive under a sense of slight, he resigned his first lieutenancy in the army at a period when his precarious health made it extremely doubtful in what way he was thereafter to obtain a livelihood. In accordance with the convictions of his life, and acting on the principles which always had governed and animated him, he threw up his commission in the army, returned with the delegation to the agency on the Hiwassee, and then resigned his commission as sub-agent among the Cherokee Indians, and went to Nashville to commence the reading necessary to practice law. Few young men had ever had such a preparatory drill in the hard service of life, beginning as Sam Houston. Of academies and colleges, of professors and libraries he had small acquaintance, but with wild human nature, with toil, struggle, weariness, hunger, pain, danger, and suffering he had been familiar from his early erratic boyhood up to the time when he bade farewell to the army of the United States, and determined to qualify for the honorable duties of a lawyer.

MEMORANDUM FOUND AT WAR DEPARTMENT.

"Sam Houston entered 7th infantry as a Sergeant; became ensign in 39th infantry 29th July, 1813; was severely wounded in battle of Horse Bend under Maj. Gen. Jackson 27th March; made Third Lieut. Dec, 1813; promoted as Second Lieut, in May, 1814; retained May 15th in 1st infantry; became First Lieut. Mar. 1st, 1818, resigned May 17th."