YOUNG SAM HOUSTON, A STORM RISING AUDIOBOOK

Sam Houston was a great leader before he led the charge to create a new nation called Texas. This Sam Houston Album is Abridgment #2 of its nonfiction sourcebook TRAILS OF THE WHITE SAVAGES, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft History Award. The album's done in Dolby® Stereo as an AudioStagePlayÔ by Authors Gary Wiles and Delores Brown with a different voice for every person. Spiced by sound effects and music of the era, the Houston Album stars Sam Houston and features Andrew Jackson, David Crockett, Joseph Walker and other historical figures in lesser roles. Dialogue for all evolves from diaries, journals, letters, autobiographies and verified texts, letting legendary Americans talk in their very own words. A Table of Contents Chronology on each cassette label and audiotape soundtrack specifies every Chapter's time period, so you never guess when it happened. Battlemaps of the 1814 Creek War and the 1835-6 Texas War of Independence are inside the front cover of the elite white vinyl album. The album cover graphic shown here is the first known painting of Sam done in 1826.

Explore Sam Houston's Tennessee childhood with the Cherokees. Did Sam live up to his classic Greek ideals of heroism at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend? Let us introduce you to Sam before the battle with these quotes from Chapter 3.

[Chapter 3] On February 6, 1814 the 39th U.S. Infantry Regiment marched smartly onto Fort Strother, Alabama's nubby parade grounds, their banners billowing. General Jackson saluted Colonel John Williams who rode at its head. Veterans of two battles, the teenage brothers Joe and Joel Walker were seasoned enough not to wave at their brawny 6'5" cousin Ensign Sam Houston, who dismissed his company into the milling troops on the field.

Smartly uniformed in blue woolen coatee, white linen trousers and tall black leather shako hat with its cords and tassels swinging, Sam Houston strode toward the Walkers, who suddenly felt shabby in their buckskins. Ensign Sam Houston obviously didn't know the protocol for an officer about to greet two enlisted cousins wearing dirty deerskins. Houston saluted, hoping they would understand. They saluted back, restarting the cycle of uncertainty. The situation resolved itself when they found themselves slapping each other's backs. Sam smiled, "Meet you by the Coosa bridge at dark."

A Cherokee officer walked between them, and Sam saluted and spoke to him in his native tongue. The Cherokee grinned and replied with several stanzas in Cherokee.

At dusk the Walkers welcomed Sam's silhouette beside Fort Strother's bridge. They huddled in heavy coats to explore each other's lives for the past year in new moonlight that gilded their faces.

Sixteen year old Joel Walker asked, "What'd you say to that Indian this afternoon, Sam?"

"Asked in Cherokee if he liked his duty here."

"What'd he say?"

"General Jackson pays him same's his Whites and listens to what Cherokees say."

"You sounded more Indian than he did," 15 year old Joe Walker chimed in.

"Spent five years of my boyhood with the Western Cherokees. But I'd like to know if you boys completed The Iliad we started at my Maryville, Tennessee academy."

Joe replied, "After you told us we were ignorant till we read it, Marm drug us through Alexander Pope's whole book."

"The Iliad runs 24 books," Sam prompted.

"To be honest," Joe snickered, "I got enough Homer with just the one, Sam."

"Too bad. The Iliad's Trojan War philosophy applies to all of us right here."

Joel scratched his head. "We've fought two battles. Poetry was the farthest thing from my mind."

"What was it like for you boys in the thick of the fight?"

"Like brawling in the gut bin after the hog slaughter," Joe blurted.

Sam observed, "You boys are exceedingly young."

Joel countered, "How old're you, Sam?"

"Turning 21 in three weeks -- on March 2nd!"

Joe wondered, "Sam, how'd your mother take your coming out here?"

"Being in charge of our family since my father's death at Callighan's tavern -- my mother's become -- well -- resolute. When my father Colonel Houston died, she called him 'an improvident visionary.' When I asked permission to join the Army last March, well I can hear her now, 'My son, take this musket and never disgrace it. For remember, I had rather all my sons fill one honorable grave, than that one should run to save his own life. Go, Sam, remembering that while my cottage door is open to brave men, it is eternally shut against cowards.' She placed this ring on my finger with the word

Honor engraved inside." Sam's voice choked with emotion. "Battle will be poetry and honor to me." [End Chapter 3]

Now let us probe Chapter 4 and the famous Battle of Horseshoe Bend to see if it was poetry and honor for Sam.

[Chapter 4] Morning mists shrouded Horseshoe Bend's colossal log ramparts at 10 o'clock on March 27, 1814. Andrew Jackson had never contemplated anything so formidable as Red Eagle's glowering fortress. He penned his observations of this Homeric bulwark in his journal: "Horseshoe Bend -- or Tohepeka to the Creeks -- is a 100 acre wooded peninsula jutting into the Tallapoosa River. A 350 yard inward curved breastwork of large tree trunks laid horizontally atop one another to a height of 5 to 8 feet with a double row of artfully arranged portholes seals off this neck of land and gives its defenders a deadly crossfire upon any advancing army. It is a place well secured by nature and rendered more secure by art -- an engineering feat unequaled in my experience by white men -- let alone savages."

General Jackson's spies said Red Eagle had amassed over 1,000 warriors from the Oakfusky, Newyouka, Hillabees, Fish Ponds and Eufaulas, exhorting them to a frenzy inside. Today he led 2,200 soldiers and 300 Cherokees. Losing this battle was not an option with will-o-the-wisp 90 day enlistments where he mustered 5,000 men one day and 130 the next. If ever a field commander could see a war's victory in a single battle, it lay before him in the shifting mists, and by the eternal he would seize it!

At 10:30 A.M. Jackson ordered his six pound and two pound cannons to breach the wall. Fifty feckless rounds fired from 80 yards barely knocked the bark off, so he had them lob twenty more at random into the compound without visible results. Sporadic Creek musketry returned fire between cannon blasts.

Creek Medicine Men in bird plumage danced jerkily exhorting the sun to kill the invaders. Instead of having them shot, Jackson decided to put the fear o' God in them. He sent his interpreter to demand evacuation of women and children. When refugees fled the fortress, Jackson knew he had shattered their confidence with words, even if his shells had failed to batter down their wall. His aides wondered why he was smiling.

Seeing black smoke over Morgan's force attacking Horseshoe Bend from the rear, Jackson ordered his cannoneers to roll their guns to the wall behind the infantry, then commanded, "Storm the breastworks!"

Sam Houston ran forward with his men as the 39th Infantry charged, their battle cries smothered by murderous blasts from every gunport. Ramming their rifles through the gunports, they fired -- muzzle to muzzle -- with their enemy's bullets welding to their bayonets. Bodies were blown back from both sides of the barrier.

Major Lemuel Montgomery climbed the wall shouting, "Follow..." but a skull-bursting bullet collapsed him onto Ensign Sam Houston scaling the breastworks. Sam lowered his dead comrade, then lunged among the Creeks. A long barbed arrow thunked into Houston's thigh. Young Sam yanked on the arrow till he nearly fainted from agony, but it hung fast.

Sam yelled to his Lieutenant, "Free me of this arrow!" Though the burly fellow pulled like a dray mule, the arrowhead clung in his flesh. Sam seized his sword, "Pull, damn you, or I'll run you through!" Thinking his Ensign mad, the Lieutenant ripped the arrow out. Sam's men hauled him over the wall to the surgeon's makeshift ward of strewn blankets.

General Jackson rode up as the surgeon stuffed rags into Sam's hemorrhaging thigh gash, then bound it tightly. Never having seen the General at such close range, Sam was shocked at how fragile the prodigious warrior was -- like a fine China replica.

Jackson asked, "This officer fit for duty?"

"No!" the surgeon blurted, rushing to tend another.

Jackson peered down his thin nose. "What's your name, Ensign?"

"Sam Houston, sir."

"Saw you breach that wall under fire. You got plenty o' sand. Press hard on your wound, you'll staunch it. Stay abed."

"Do we prevail?"

"Can't say yet, Ensign Houston."

"Then I must respectfully disobey your order, Sir." Sam grabbed the General's stirrup, pulled himself to his feet and hobbled into the deafening battle.

Jackson marveled to himself, "Courage is all of it! Sam Houston's one officer I'll never court martial for cowardice. Would to God I had an army of them!"

Relentlessly, the Walkers among hundreds of other soldiers crowded the Creeks against cliffs snarled with fallen trees and brush, then awaited the order to burn them out. Hand to hand battles surrounded Sam Houston. Staggering among them, Sam sabre-slashed one Creek after another. Holed up under the part of their breastworks that roofed a ravine, Creeks directed murderous fire at their pursuers.

General Jackson yelled, "Lives of those who surrender will be spared," but begging no quarter, warriors replied with musketry. Jackson commanded, "Charge!" but no man headed into the holocaust.

Then Sam Houston unstrapped the musket his mother had given him and limped toward the Creeks. Astonished that one cripple would charge, the Creeks allowed Sam within five yards of their barrier before blasting two rifle balls into him. Sam beckoned to his men with his musket as he fell. On hands and knees he crawled toward the enemy.

Jackson screamed, "See those heathens defile that young Houston? Burn them out! Take no prisoners!"

Rifle fire ripped the ravine. Where fierce braves had stood scowling death down minutes before, painted corpses sprawled in swirling smoke.

Joe Walker seized Sam Houston, carrying him to an exhausted surgeon sitting numbly among his dead and dying in the growing darkness. Able to feel both rifle balls in Sam Houston's body, the surgeon clawed one out with his fingers. When he was sure Sam Houston could hear him, the surgeon mumbled, "No need to torture you with the scalpel. Your right arm and shoulder are shattered. You'll not live till morning."

Young Joe Walker grated, "Surgeon's flat wrong, Sam! You were poetry and honor on the battlefield, like you said you'd be. You will see sunrise tomorrow! You're too damn brave to die. I'll roost here with you."

With Joe Walker dozing beside him, Sam hung on through the night. Barely alive next morning, Sam Houston was carted with other litter cases to Alabama's Fort Williams. [End Chapter 4]

And here we abandon Sam Houston to the surgeon's scalpels and the misery that only a crippled soldier can know.

Endure Sam's surgeries. Join Sam on General Jackson's Staff at the Hermitage. Learn why General Jackson asked Sam to become a U.S. Indian Agent for the Cherokees in 1816. Find out what provoked an infuriated Secretary of War John C. Calhoun to bring charges carrying the death penalty against Houston in 1818 and why Sam was actually arrested by President James Monroe himself only days later.

Share Sam's efforts as Major General of Tennessee's Southern Militia Division with Col. David Crockett to nominate U.S. Army General Andrew Jackson for President of the United States in 1822.

Let us eavesdrop on Chapter 22 of the Houston album while Sam, as the hard drinking Governor of Tennessee, romances the fiery Eliza Allen, daughter of one of Tennessee's wealthiest dynasties, and we hear ---

[Chapter 22] As the New Year 1829 toddled in, Sam received an invitation from the Allens. His heart hammering and hat in hand, he appeared at their mansion door. Eliza answered his pull on the bell in a fluffy dress that added sophistication to her 18 years. "My father hints we are soon to be wed. Don't you think he's the wrong person to deliver such shocking news?"

"Let's sit over there on the sunny side of the veranda."

"No, we'll retire to the tack room. That's where all the Allen Empire's decisions are made," Eliza grated.

Her full gown's whispers were the only sounds on their crisp winter walk to the tack room. Sam straddled a saddle on the rack. Eliza plopped on a boot stool.

"Shouldn't I pick my husband?"

"Assuredly, Eliza -- I --"

"Ever think I might find other men more exciting than you?"

"Your father never intimated --"

"He wouldn't! He sees me joining in holy matrimony with the sovereign state of Tennessee."

"Since you find our marriage repugnant, I'll leave." Sam lowered his boot to step off his racked saddle.

"Our marriage resolution merits more than one minute of floor time before you vote."

"It's your tone, Eliza. I want a wife to love and respect me -- as I will love and respect her."

"How old are you?"

"I'll be 36 on the second of March."

"You're twice my age!"

"Did you think I was the boy Governor of Tennessee?"

Eliza shook her yellow hair violently, "No. I'm trying to decide if I can abide the sudden death of my youth!"

"President Jackson's lovely departed wife Rachel gifted her prized sterling silver flatware for my nuptials. I was her pallbearer."

"Isn't that impressive?"

Sam retorted angrily, "Eliza, Rachel Jackson was dear as my own mother. Her memory shall not be bandied in sarcasm!"

"That's what I wanted to see!"

"What?"

"A man beneath your fluff and flattery."

"My age may be fair game for your sassy quips. My manhood's not. I've proved it in battle."

"Don't you see? This is a battle! If you want my hand in marriage, fight for it!"

"Eliza, I demand your hand in marriage."

"Yell it!"

"Like hell! I'll not become a lout to prove my love."

"How kind of you to mention love, Governor."

"This tender tryst is over, Eliza. Give your family my best. Tell them I had to leave on official business."

"I will not. We're getting married. Now kiss me."

Sam leapt off the saddle. Seizing Eliza from her stool, he kissed her hard to seal their bargain, but wasn't sure she kissed him back.

Eliza's jubilant parents selected January 22, 1829 for the wedding in their Gallatin, Tennessee mansion. Eliza was the final requirement for his political future, but Sam felt uneasy.

Just before the wedding, a notice in the Nashville Banner and Whig read: "We are requested to announce the present Governor of Tennessee, Honourable Samuel Houston, is a candidate for re-election."

Right Reverend William Hume conducted their candlelight ceremony before a cavalcade of distinguished guests worthy of a monarch. The bride was reserved, but striking in her glorious gown. The groom was garbed in a black velvet suit with a crimson satin lined Spanish cloak. Whiskey flowed like the rain rivering down the windows. Near midnight the bride and drunken groom retired -- to separate rooms in the Allen mansion.

The newlyweds' carriage left for Nashville next morning. Tumultuous storms forced them to shelter in the Martin mansion. Governor Houston tippled with Robert Martin through the evening. Martin collected political insider stories, so Sam spun them as long as he could before passing out in his chair. Eliza exploded to Mrs. Martin, "I hate my husband!"

The Nashville Inn seemed the place to consummate the marriage, but Sam's cronies converted their first night there to a riotous wedding celebration. Political strategists beat on their door before noon to launch Houston's re-election campaign.

When finally left to themselves, Eliza was repulsed by her husband's running thigh sore, his unhealing souvenir of the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. He was dismayed by her coldness -- and his other discovery. [End Chapter 22]

That concludes our intrusion into Governor Sam Houston's catastrophic 1829 private life.

Find out why Sam had to flee Tennessee's riots to live among Oklahoma's Cherokees. Court Tiana, the lovely daughter of Hellfire Jack Rogers with Sam. Battle Mexicans across Texas as American and Tejano rebels fight the 1835-6 War of Independence. Watch Texas warlords lose the war. Change world history at the Battle of San Jacinto! Avenge the Alamo! Should Sam kill Mexican General Santa Anna who slaughtered every American prisoner he captured?

To Order

Andrew Jackson, The Gunfighter President

David Crockett, Frontiersman, Soldier & Man For The Ages

Mighty Joe Walker, Soldier, Sheriff & Mountain Man

Young Bill Sublette & The Legendary Mountain Men

Big Bill Sublette-The Oregon Trail & Beyond

The Sublettes & The Fur Wars

First Women Over The Rockies

Read about the sourcebook TRAILS OF THE WHITE SAVAGES

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