WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1858
147
appealed to by a soldier in vain. Nay, sir; if a soldier's dog had come to his marquee hungry, and he had asked, "Whose dog is that?" and they had replied that it was a soldier's dog, he would have said, "Feed him." [Mr. Hayne, the Vice-President, Mr. Stuart, Mr. Hale, Mr. Jones, Mr. Toombs speak.] Mr. Houston. Mr. President- Mr. Toombs. I yield. Mr.. Houston. I thought that the gentleman had finished. I do not wish to interfere with him. I am very sorry that he has thought it necessary to forget that portion of history which was considered very exciting at the time, I recollect, and involved the security of our frontier. General Gaines was engaged for years arduously in defending Florida, subject to the influences of climate and Indian warfare. He was there wounded a second time. He shed his blood, as I have stated, and was disabled in the war in Canada. He resumed his duties, and continued them up to the day of his death, always subject to the insalubrious climate of the South, never having a northern station, and never having a furlough that I ever heard of. He was the very officer that would have been selected for command in the Mexican war had it not been for some difficulties that arose in the construction of orders and military regulations, and he was withdrawn. I can assure the gentlemen that he was never off duty. He died at his post in the insalubrious climate of New Orleans. It was cholera that carried him off. Had he selected a pleasant northern situation, one in the interior, one not subject to all the malign influences of a seaboard, he might have been living today. He was not super- annuated, for he had always performed his duty promptly. He stood erect; he had no debility about him. He had been a soldier inured to martial difficulties and dangers. He met every emer- gency that awaited him in life, and acquitted himself to the satis- faction and admiration of his countrymen; and the devotion of his soldiers will only perish with themselves. Sir, I am proud in this Senate to say that I served as an enlisted soldier under Gaines, who was unrivaled in all the attributes of soldiership, of honor, and of truth. 1 Congressional Globe, 1857-1858, Part 3, pp. 2726, 2728, 2778-277''1. The debate on the application for a pension by Myra Clark Gaines, widow of General Edmund P. Gaines, began on the following motion: "The name of Myra Clark Gaines, widow of General E. P. Gaines, to be placed on the pension roll at the rate of half pay per month, proper to be paid to snid Gaines at his death."
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