How the States Got Their Shapes Too_ The People Behind the Borderlines - Mark Stein [85]
Returning to Tennessee, Houston studied law and, for a brief time, was a local attorney. In rapid succession, he was appointed by the governor to the honorary post of major general in the Tennessee militia, elected to Congress in 1823, and reelected in 1825. In 1826 a flurry of gossipy newspaper items regarding one of Houston’s numerous spats noted “information which may be relied upon has been received … that Gen. Houston and Gen. White had gone to Kentucky to fight a duel.” This item, from Richmond’s Constitutional Whig, included a curiously convoluted coda: “Gen. White accompanied Col. Smith when he bore the challenge from John P. Erwin, Esq. to Mr. Houston.” One might think duels the most straightforward way imaginable of resolving differences. Evidently not in this case: someone named Erwin, angry at Houston, got someone named Smith to deliver his challenge, in response to which Houston ended up dueling someone named White, who accompanied Smith.2 Honor among politicians, even then, had its intricacies.
Sam Houston (1793-1863) (photo credit 25.1)
The press reported on the duel as if it were the sporting event of the year, which, in effect, it was. The New York Spectator wrote in October 1826:
The parties met on Thursday morning beyond the Kentucky line. They fought at the distance of fifteen feet only, and at the first fire Houston’s aim took effect, striking White very near the center of the body, but, as he was in a walking position and the ball striking on a rib, it passed round the back and lodged on the opposite side, from which it was easily extracted. Had the ball passed directly through from the point of entrance to the point of extraction, it would have caused instant death.… They were accompanied by their friends on each side, who bear united testimony of the fair and chivalric conduct of the parties.
Clearly, Houston did not lack courage. But he could also tap-dance his way out of danger. Throughout his career, he was challenged to duels by numerous colleagues, including a naval commander and two of the presidents of the Republic of Texas.3 Houston accepted none of their challenges. In fact, he never dueled again, possibly because the practice was coming to entail an additional risk: one could get arrested. Kentucky charged Houston with attempted murder following his duel with White. But he nimbly managed to stay one step ahead of the law, as revealed in an exasperated editorial in Kentucky’s Frankfort Commentator:
A grand jury at Nashville, Tenn. has presented Gen. Houston, of that place, for having lately fought a duel within the limits of this state with Gen. White, who was severely wounded—not as having been guilty of a violation of the laws of God and man, but as having performed a manly act, quite necessary and altogether proper for a gentleman, and which ought to have no unfavorable effect upon his election of Governor of Tennessee!!
That Houston managed to get a grand jury in Tennessee to consider an act he committed in Kentucky attests less to his guilt or innocence than to his ability to maneuver—as does Houston’s subsequent use of the Tennessee grand jury’s ruling as an asset in his bid to become the governor. With the duel having become a campaign issue, outgoing Tennessee governor William Carroll opted not to decide on a response to Kentucky’s request for extradition. The decision then fell to the next governor, Sam Houston, who opted not to order himself to face trial in Kentucky.
While governor, an event took place that exploded Houston’s political plans and landed him, badly damaged, facing Texas. That event was marriage. Three months after Houston