The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 94, July 1990 - April, 1991 Page: 23
692 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Sam Houston and Elza Allen
thousand slanders; has come upon; as a black cloud at noonday I am to
be hunted down! What am I? An Exile from my home; and my coun-
try, a houseless unshelter'd wanderer, among the Indians! Who has
met, or who has sustained, such sad and unexpected reverses? ...""
The following month Jackson responded:
[W]hen I parted with you on the 18th of January last. ... I then viewed you as
on the brink of happiness, and rejoiced. About to be united in marriage to a
beautiful young lady, of accomplished manners and of respectable connections,
and of your own selection-you the governor of the state, and holding the
affections of the people: these were your prospects when I shook you by the
hand and bade you farewell!-You can well judge of my astonishment and grief
in receiving a letter from you, dated at Little Rock, A. T., 1 ith of May, convey-
ing the sad intelligence that you were then a private citizen, 'an exzle from your
country!' . .."
In December, on the steamboat Amazon in route to Washington as
ambassador from the Cherokee Nation to Andrew Jackson, Houston
wrote his friend John Overton, that "[t]he hour of anguish has passed
by." He also composed a poem about fame. It was the eve of a new
year.5"
In the spring he passed through Nashville. According to Houston,
the Aliens had suggested a reconciliation with Eliza, to which he would
not agree. Houston wrote that they then
lost all hopes of a reunion. . . . They sent Mrs. H. to Carthage least she should
come to Nashville, in spite of them and I would not receive her. If she had
come this would have been the case, so I said to my friends from the time I
arrived there. Great efforts, and strong hopes of fame were held out to me, all
of no use. Tho' the world can never know my situation and may condemn me
God will justify me!
It is correct that Eliza had gone to Carthage. We can only guess if in-
deed she was "sent" there against her will to prevent her from going to
her husband and suffering the humiliation of rejection. Jackson was in-
formed that "Poor Houston is here and not well received .... He has
informed me he will leave in the morning." 5
'i Jackson to William S. Fulton, Jan 23, 1838, in Bassett (ed ), Correspondence of Andrew Jack-
son, V, 532 (1st quotation), Horn (ced.), "An Unpublished Photogiaph of Sam Houston," 350
(3rd and 4th quotations), 351 (2nd quotation), Robert V Remini, The Election of Andrew Jackson
(New York. J B Lippincott Company, 1963), 161; Houston to Andrew Jackson, May 11, 1829,
Writings, I, 132 (5th and 6th quotations), 132-133 (7th quotation)
50H-I[enderson] Yoakum, Huitory of Texas from Its Fzrst Settlement in I685 to Its Annexation to the
United States in 1846 (New York- Redfield, 1855), I, 307n.
' Houston to John Overton, Dec. 28, 1829, Wrtzngs, 1, 144, James, The Raven, 129-130.
52Houston to Wm. B. Lewis, May 20, 1830, Writings, I, 151 (1st and 2nd quotations); S. J
Hays to Andrew Jackson, May 5, 1830, in Bassett (ed.), Correspondence ofAndiewJackson, IV, 23n
(3rd quotation).
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 94, July 1990 - April, 1991, periodical, 1991; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101214/m1/47/: accessed May 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.