WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1860
482
incursions by outlaw Indians that will occur can be checked and punished. I would be glad to act in concert with your Department, in carrying out the measures proposed. Sam Houston. 1 Gove1,io1·s' Lette,-s; also Execiitive Records, 1859-1861, pp. 35-36, Texas State Library. Jacob Thompson (May 15, 1810-March 24, 1885), cabinet officer, governor of Mississippi, Confederate soldier, was born in Caswell County, North Carolina, and died at Memphis, Tennessee. He was gradu- ated from the University of North Carolina in 1831; was· admitted to the bar in 1834; settled in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, in 1835. He set up his law office and soon had a lucrative practice. In 1838 he was sent as a representative to the United States Congress on a Democratic ticket, a position he held by continued reelection until 1857. He advocated the repudiation by Mississippi of part of the state bonds, and opposed the Compromise of 1850, on the ground that it was not favorable to the South. In Congress he served for some time as the chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs. In 1845 he refused an appointment offered by the gov- ernor of Mississippi to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate. Presi- dent Buchanan appointed him Secretary of the Interio1· in 1857, and he held that office until January 8, 1861, when he resigned, giving as his Teason that troops had been ordered to reenforce Fort Sumter contrary to an agreement that this should not be done without the consent of the Cabinet. In December, 1860, while he was still in office, the Legislature of Mississippi appointed him on a committee to urge on North Carolina the .ordinance of secession. In 1862-1864, he was governor of Mississippi; later he served as aide-de-camp to General Beauregard. In the summer of 1864 he was sent as a member of a committee of the Confederate Gov- ernment to Canada, where he promoted plans to release prisoners of war at Camp Douglas, near Chicago, and to seize that city.. He was also charged ~vith instigating plots to burn northern cities and commit other outrages. After the close of the war, he returned to the United States. At the time (,f his death, Secretary of the Interior, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, ordered the national flag to fly at half mast over the building of the Interior Depart- ment, an order that caused great excitement at the North. See Appleton, Cyclopaedia of American Bi.ography, VI, 91; Biographical Directo,-y of the .hne,-ican Cong1·ess (1928).
TO JAMES BUCHANAN 1
Private
Austin, 17th February, 1860. My dear Sir: I am aware of the great press of official cares e..nd business, by which you are surrounded and regret that I for a moment should trespass on your notice, but the peculiar situation of our frontier is such that I feel myself compelled
Powered by FlippingBook