cover image The Personal Correspondence of Sam Houston. Volume I: 1839-1845

The Personal Correspondence of Sam Houston. Volume I: 1839-1845

Sam Houston. University of North Texas Press, $35.95 (448pp) ISBN 978-1-57441-000-6

Roberts continues her exploration of Sam Houston's character and career (Star of Destiny: The Private Life of Sam and Margaret Houston) with this first volume of his private correspondence. Most of the letters were exchanged with his wife, and Roberts has done a model job of editing and annotating them. Her intellectual presence is constant but never obtrusive. The letters are valuable as a record of a loving, mutually supportive marriage that contributed much to Houston's recovery from depression and alcoholism. Their wider historical context, however, is limited. Houston's comments on the issues and personalities of pre-independence Texas politics are relatively sparse and add little to the evidence already available. Social historians and students of Texas lore will nevertheless find the collection of interest. (Feb.)