The Personal Correspondence of Sam Houston, Volume I: 1839-1845 - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1574410008 ISBN 13: 9781574410006

Publisher: University of North Texas Press, 1996

Synopsis

In the April, 1971, issue of Southwestern Historical Quarterly , historian Llerena Friend wrote that there was a “need for a new editing of Houston correspondence” to complement the eight-volume collection compiled in the 1930s by Eugene C. Barker and Amelia Williams.

When author Madge Roberts began research for her previous book, Star of Destiny: The Private Life of Sam and Margaret Houston, she began to collect just such a file of previously unpublished Houston correspondence, which soon consisted of nearly a thousand letters. Because most of these letters were until recently in the hands of Houston descendants, most of them are “personal” rather than “political.” Although a few have been excerpted in various books and historical articles, none have been published in their entirety.

In comparing these letters to those published in the Barker and Williams volumes, Roberts found that “the personal letters often take the historian one step further,” as Houston felt more free to discuss his analyses of people and events than he did in his official correspondence.

Houston was an extraordinary writer, in terms of both quantity and quality. His letters to friends and family overflow with lively details about manners, dress, medical practices, farming, transportation, family dynamics, and many other topics of interest to social historians.

In her footnotes, Roberts reveals the full names of the people mentioned and the historical events taking place at the time, thus placing the letters into the broader context of Houston's life and times.

Volume I, 1839–1845, covers the years of the Texas Republic.

About this title

About the Author

Madge Thornall Roberts has degrees from Southwestern University and Trinity University. She spent thirty-five years as a teacher before turning her attentions to writing. She is the author of Star of Destiny: The Private Life of Sam and Margaret Houston, which won the Otis Locke Award in 1993.

Reviews

Roberts continues her exploration of Sam Houston's character and career (Star of Destiny: The Private Life of Sam and Margaret Houston) with this first volume of his private correspondence. Most of the letters were exchanged with his wife, and Roberts has done a model job of editing and annotating them. Her intellectual presence is constant but never obtrusive. The letters are valuable as a record of a loving, mutually supportive marriage that contributed much to Houston's recovery from depression and alcoholism. Their wider historical context, however, is limited. Houston's comments on the issues and personalities of pre-independence Texas politics are relatively sparse and add little to the evidence already available. Social historians and students of Texas lore will nevertheless find the collection of interest.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of North Texas Press
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1574410008
• ISBN 13: 9781574410006
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448
• Editor: Roberts Madge Thornall