William Carey Crane

“ Fear never blanched the cheek of Sam Houston. Dread of danger never dismayed his courageous soul nor withheld him from a peril for a right or liberty. His courage was the courage of a predetermined thought; resolved to make a sacrifice only with the highest possibility of a grand advantage. Had Gen. Houston risked an engagement with Santa Anna near Goliad, or at a period earlier than he did at San Jacinto, numbers would have won the victory, and Texas would have been enslaved. ”

“ He had served under Jackson, and in the regular army of the United States as a lieutenant, sufficiently long to give him practice in military drill and the art of war. He had mingled with frontiersmen so long and intimately that he knew better than any other man of his times how to bring under control men not used to obedience to any will save their own. Whether fighting with Indians at Tohopeka, or with Mexicans at San Jacinto, Gen. Houston proved himself a hero as well as a soldier. ”

“ He maintained a lofty independence of spirit. He was willing to concede to others all he claimed for himself. Capacity for independent thought is the first quality of a commander. No leader of public opinion was ever successful in impressing his ideas upon others who did not maintain some originality of thought, which is but another name for independence of idea. Gen. Houston had such independence of spirit that he would have reached the highest point of success in any walk or profession of life. ”