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  • The Texas That Might Have Been: Sam Houston's Foes Write to Albert Sidney Johnston
  • Brenda Jackson-Abernathy
The Texas That Might Have Been: Sam Houston's Foes Write to Albert Sidney Johnston. Collected by Margaret Swett Henson, edited and with an introduction by Donald E. Willett. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009. Pp. 306. Illustrations, appendix, notes, index. ISBN 9781603441452, $29.95 cloth.)

Renowned Texas historian Margaret Swett Henson compiled and edited this collection of letters from friends and business associates to General Albert Sidney Johnston in the early 1980s. Failing to secure a publisher, she stowed the manuscript away, where it remained until Donald E. Willett happened across it years later. With the blessing of Henson's family, Willett reedited and published Henson's work in The Texas That Might Have Been, and in so doing reveals the dealings of Texas politics and politicians during the years of the Republic and early statehood.

To the layman, or in any case to the non-Texan, the mention of Sam Houston conjures up dashing images. After all, the Hero of San Jacinto, eccentric and often unpredictable, singlehandedly delivered Texas its independence, guided it through the years of Republic, and orchestrated admission of Texas as the twenty-eighth of the United States, did he not? This collection of letters confirms that while Sam Houston had no shortage of admirers, supporters, and successes, a significant number of prominent Texians, and later Texans, disagreed with Houston and his policies, and turned their support to most anyone who opposed him, Mirabeau B. Lamar, the Republic's president from 1838-1841, among them. The collected letters, perhaps surprisingly, reveal Houston as something of a pacifist, or at least as non-aggressive, and unwilling to launch offensive military measures, deemed essential by his opposition, against either Mexico or the Comanche, Texas's greatest foes at the time. They also reveal the uncertain, some might suggest dire, financial conditions experienced during the era of the Republic, and Texas's ongoing efforts to gain official recognition as an independent nation from Mexico and Europe.

Although best known as the famous Confederate general who fell in 1862 during the battle of Shiloh, in the middle decades of the nineteenth century Albert Sidney Johnston served in Texas under both Houston and Lamar, though he [End Page 333] found himself at odds with Houston much of the time. James Love, a Kentuckian turned Texan and Johnston's partner in a number of land acquisition ventures, penned most of the selected letters, which reveal Johnston's position as a favorite of Houston's "opposition." They also reveal Houston's responses to his opposition, and in particular his success in keeping from Johnston an officer's commission during the War with Mexico. Johnston finally gained his commission after the election of Zachary Taylor to the U.S. presidency.

The volume is divided into three sections, and contains both preface and introduction by Willet and Henson's original introduction. A chronological list of the selected letters is also included as an appendix. Perhaps most impressive about this volume is its editing. There is no argument primary sources are invaluable to historical understanding, but the manner in which those sources are organized—and augmented with secondary information—determines their usefulness to readers. In his reediting of Henson's manuscript, Willet updated and expanded the endnotes, providing short biographical sketches on the multitude of individuals named in the letters as well as descriptions of the many events taking place in Texas, Mexico, and the United States at the time. The end result is a volume that clarifies and explains, through letters carefully selected by Henson, the unique politics at play during the years of the Texas Republic. If a criticism must be made, it is the absence of some sort of afterword or concluding thought, for the volume simply ends with a last letter to Johnston from Love dated October 14, 1861. This, however, does not detract from the volume, for Henson and Willet have produced a most important work, valuable to both casual readers and scholars, and one that should be included in any Texas or American West collection.

Brenda Jackson...

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