The trouble culminated when Houston, having gone to Washington to plead for his friends, the Indians, caned a member of Congress who had slandered him on the floor of the House.  He was arrested, and arraigned before the bar of the House for “breach of privilege,” and was reprimanded by the Speaker and fined five hundred dollars—­a fine which President Jackson promptly remitted, remarking that a few more examples of the same kind would teach Congressmen to keep civil tongues in their heads.  Houston’s comment on the affair was, “I was dying out once, and, had they taken me before a justice of the peace and fined me ten dollars for assault and battery, it would have killed me; but they gave me a national tribunal for a theatre and it set me up again.”

It did “set him up” in earnest.  The President, who always had a warm place in his heart for him, helped by sending him—­not, perhaps, without some insight into the future—­to Texas, to examine into the value of that country, in case the United States should decide to buy it.  What Jackson’s private instructions were can only be surmised, but, certainly, Houston showed no hesitation or uncertainty after he reached the scene.

On December 10, 1832, he crossed into Mexican territory, and was soon at the head of the Texas insurrectionists, who had determined to establish a government of their own, and who found in Houston a leader after their own hearts.  Armed collisions between Texans and Mexican troops became of common occurrence, and the spirit of revolt spread so rapidly that Santa Anna, dictator of Mexico, sent an army under General Cos to pacify the country and drive the Americans out.

It was the spark in the magazine.  All Texas sprang to arms under such leaders as Houston, Austin, Travis, Bonham, Fannin, “Deaf” Smith, and “Ben” Milam; took Goliad, where Milam lost his life heading a desperate assault; captured Concepcion and San Antonio, until, by the middle of December, 1836, not a Mexican soldier was left north of the Rio Grande.  But Houston, who had been appointed commander-in-chief of the Texan forces, knew they would return, and bent every effort to organize a disciplined army.  It was a difficult thing to do with the high-tempered and lawless elements at hand; everything was disorder and confusion, and meanwhile came word that Santa Anna himself, at the head of an army of six thousand men, was entering Texas.

No effective opposition could be offered such an army; the San Antonio garrison was entrapped in the old mission called The Alamo and killed to the last man; Fannin and his force, three hundred and fifty strong, were cornered at Goliad and brutally shot down in detachments after they had surrendered; and Santa Anna, certain that Texas had been conquered, divided his army into columns to occupy the country.  Houston only was left, and the fate of Texas hung on his little force; he knew he could strike but once; if he were defeated, the war for independence would end then and there; so he watched and waited, gathering together the stragglers, keeping them in heart, laboring like a very Hercules.  Hundreds of miles away, in Washington, old Andrew Jackson, a map of Texas before him, followed with his finger the retreat as far as he knew it, and paused with in on San Jacinto.