PREFACE
Notwithstanding Houston's remarkable public career and the numerous biographies that have been written of him, there has hitherto been no effort to publish a complete compilation of his available writings. This statement is not to ignore the consid- erable collection of documents in Yoakum, History of Texas (1855) and in Crane, Life ancl Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston (copyright date 1884). It is necessary to emphasize available, for Houston's writings are widely scattered and by no means completely available. Some are in possession of members of his family, who withhold them from publication or examina- tion. Many are in the hands of collectors who will neither sell the originals nor furnish copies. Several considerable collections are known to be for sale, but the owners decline to put a price upon them. Much additional Houston material will ultimately become available, but, in the meantime, it seems desirable to publish this compilation, which undoubtedly comprehends the great bulk of Houston's extant writings. The materials in this volume touch upon Houston's career as a lieutenant in the United States Army, as a Member of Congress from Tennessee and Governor of Tennessee, as United States Indian Agent in the Southwest, as Commander in Chief in the Texas Revolution, and as President of the Republic of Texas. Perhaps the most interesting groups of material relate to his life among the Indians and to a somewhat shadowy connection with stockholders of the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company (of New York) who had claims to large grants of Texas lands. My own relation to this undertaking calls for some explanation. Some years ago I assigned to a graduate student, Mr. Andrew Jackson Stephens, the task of compiling a calendar of Houston's writings in the various libraries and departmental archives in Austin, and the resultant volume was accepted as a thesis for the Master of Arts degree. Subsequently, WPA funds made it possible for Miss Winnie Allen, Archivist of The University of Texas Library, to direct the transcription of a considerable part of the material listed in the Stephens calendar. Still later a sub- stantial grant from the Bureau of Research in the Social Sciences
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