Raven

About one hundred years ago there emerged from the West a new and exhilarating figure—the gifted young Governor of Tennessee. His story, even then, seemed fanciful. Scion of a distinguished Virginia family, he had left college to roam with the Indians, by whom he was named The Raven, adopting their garb, their language, their life; claiming for his share of the ancestral estate only a copy of the liiad and a rifle which he carried into the wilderness. Returning to fight with distinction under Andrew Jackson in 1812, Sam Houston rose attractively to the governorship of politically the most important state in the Union. For Old Hickory now ruled the nation and, with a singleness of purpose characteristic of him, prepared to perpetuate the dynasty.

It was said that the choice might fall upon Sam Houston, who seemingly lacked only one thing to promote his advancement. The Governor was thirty-five years old and a gay bachelor. Imagine then, the delight of Jackson and all concerned, at the news that Sam Houston was to wed Eliza Allen, belle of the aristocratic Cumberland Valley of Tennessee.

Eleven weeks after this significant marriage Governor Houston and his bride parted. Houston's friends were dumbfounded. A few days later they were stupefied when the Executive resigned his office, changed his name and vanished among the Indians beyond the pale of civilization in the Far West. The reason be gave for his act was that "it comports with my notion of honor."

For four years among the Indians Houston was alternately a leader and a tribal vagabond known by a name which translated means "Big Drunk." In bitterness and heart-break he played with the dream of a Red Empire, after the idea of Pontiac, whose strategy Houston knew thoroughly. The Government was worried but breathed easier for a moment when the exile stormed into Texas and formed a personal domain not less picturesque. Sam Houston's powder-stained Texas Republic usurped a seat at the roundtable of world diplomacy and by an audacious gamble threatened the supremacy of the United Stares in the New World, but in the end confirmed that supremacy.

Houston did these things "to recreate my mind" and turn it from the perils of introspection. Never, whatever the occasion, whatever the cost, did he amplify the chivalrous and enigmatic statement of why he left Eliza Allen. This tragic romance altered the destiny of a continent. Until this book was written the particulars of it remained as Sam Houston said they must remain forever—"an absolute secret."

Marquis James's life of Sam Houston is a permanent contribution to American biography and letters. Mr. James makes us know a new, a fascinating, a great figure in our history about whom very little has really ever been known with accuracy before. His book is the product of years of skilful research which has carried the author to every part of this country and to Europe. The mass of evidence uncovered has not been hitherto consulted and some had been withheld by design.

A style that possesses vigor and charm, and notably the fact that here is the story of a man's personal life, the concealed springs of which turned the wheels of history, will recommend The Raven to a very large audience. It will make new readers of biography.

—from the dust jacket