Sam Houston

Sam Houston
Sam Houston
	Portrait by Mathew Brady, c. 1848–1850
7th Governor of Texas
	In office; December 21, 1859 – March 15, 1861
Lieutenant	Edward Clark
Preceded by	Hardin Richard Runnels
Succeeded by	Edward Clark
United States Senator; from Texas
	In office; February 21, 1846 – March 3, 1859
Preceded by	Seat established
Succeeded by	John Hemphill
1st and 3rd President of Texas
	In office; December 21, 1841 – December 9, 1844
Vice President	Edward Burleson
Preceded by	Mirabeau B. Lamar
Succeeded by	Anson Jones
	In office; October 22, 1836 – December 10, 1838
Vice President	Mirabeau B. Lamar
Preceded by	David G. Burnet (acting)
Succeeded by	Mirabeau B. Lamar
Member of the Texas House of Representatives; from the San Augustine district
	In office; November 11, 1839 – November 1, 1841
Preceded by	Multi-member district
Succeeded by	Multi-member district
6th Governor of Tennessee
	In office; October 1, 1827 – April 16, 1829
Lieutenant	William Hall
Preceded by	William Carroll
Succeeded by	William Hall
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives; from Tennessee's 7th district
	In office; March 4, 1823 – March 3, 1827
Preceded by	Constituency established
Succeeded by	John Bell
Personal details
Born	Samuel Houston; March 2, 1793; Rockbridge, Virginia, U.S.
Died	July 26, 1863 (aged 70); Huntsville, Texas, C.S.
Resting place	Oakwood Cemetery, Huntsville, Texas, U.S.
Party	Democratic-Republican (before 1830); Democratic (1846–1854); Know Nothing (1855–1856); Independent (1856–1863); Constitutional Union Party (1860)
Spouses	; Eliza Allen (m. 1829; div. 1837) ; Dianna Rogers (m. 1830; ann. 1832) ; Margaret Lea (m. 1840)
Children	8, including Sam Jr., Andrew, and Temple
Signature
Nickname(s)	“The Raven”, “Old Sam Jacinto”
Military service
Allegiance	United States; Republic of Texas
Branch/service	United States Army; Texan Army
Years of service	1813–1818 (U.S. Army); 1835–1836 (Texan Army)
Rank	First Lieutenant (U.S. Army); Major General (Texan Army)
Unit	39th Infantry Regiment (U.S. Army)
Commands	Army of the Republic of Texas (Texan Army)
Battles/wars	War of 1812; Creek War Battle of Horseshoe Bend; ; Texas Revolution Battle of San Jacinto; ;

Samuel Houston (/ˈhjuːstən/ ^ⓘ, HEW-stən; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American military general and statesman who played a prominent role in the Texas Revolution in which the Republic of Texas seceded from Mexico. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and then one of the first two United States Senators from Texas after it became a U.S. state. Earlier he served as the sixth governor of Tennessee, and later as the seventh governor of Texas, the only individual to be elected governor of two different U.S. states.

Houston was born in Rockbridge County, Virginia to a slave-owning family and would own slaves throughout his life. The family relocated to Maryville, Tennessee, while he was a teenager. Houston ran away from home to live about three years in a Cherokee village, becoming known as "Raven". He served under General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, and was appointed as a sub-agent to oversee the removal of the Cherokee from Tennessee into Arkansas Territory in 1818. With the support of Jackson and others, Houston won election to the House of Representatives in 1823. He strongly supported Jackson's presidential candidacies and, in 1827, Houston was elected governor of Tennessee. In 1829, after divorcing his first wife, Houston resigned and moved to the Arkansas Territory to live with the Cherokee again.

In 1832, Houston settled in Mexican Texas, amidst rising tensions between U.S. immigrants and the Centralist government of Mexico. After the 1835 Battle of Gonzales, he became prominent in Texas's revolutionary government and the Texian Army, which he led in the decisive 1836 victory at San Jacinto. After the war, Houston won the 1836 Texan presidential election. He left office due to term limits in 1838, but won another term in the 1841 Texas presidential election. Houston supported the U.S. annexation of Texas, which finally took place in 1845. In 1846, he was elected to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate. He joined the Democratic Party and supported President James K. Polk's Mexican–American War, sparked by the annexation and resulting in the Mexican Cession of further vast territory which would become the Southwestern United States.

Despite remaining a slave-owner, Houston's Senate record was marked by his unionism and opposition to radicals from both the North and South. He voted for the Compromise of 1850, which settled disputes concerning the lands taken from Mexico, but against the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which he believed would increase tensions over slavery, later leaving the Democratic Party over the act. He unsuccessfully contested the presidential nomination of the American Party in the 1856 presidential election and of the Constitutional Union Party in the 1860 presidential election. In 1859, Houston was elected governor of Texas. In this role, he opposed Southern secession, and unsuccessfully sought to keep Texas out of the Confederate States of America at the start of the U.S. Civil War. He was forced out of office in 1861, and died in 1863. His name has been honored in numerous ways, and he is the eponym of Houston, the fourth-most-populous city in the United States.