Heroes and Hound Dogs
Dishing some dirt on Texas legends
What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise. -Oscar Wilde
I’ve always been a voracious reader. I freely admit I got a little sidetracked with the onset of social media. But I’ve recommitted to reading more the past few years, and my brain thanks me.
I absolutely love finding out just how much stuff there is that doesn’t make it into the high school history textbooks. One of my local fellow history nerds recently recommended a book called Duel of Eagles by Jeff Long. It’s a revisionist history of the Alamo, published 30+ years before the marvelous Forget the Alamo made so many waves in 2022.
I’m really enjoying Duel. The author has an irreverent, downright cheeky tone as he’s destroying Alamo hero myths left and right.
If you’ve read Forget the Alamo, you’re probably aware of the foibles of the dudes so many schools and streets and, yes, humans, are named for. But I don’t think I realized until this deeper dive how often the sketchy behavior of some of these Go Ahead* bros also leached into their private relationships.
Why am I not surprised?
Full disclosure: I am dishing the dirt here. The academic grad student in me appreciates primary sources and footnotes. But the salacious rumors definitely keep things lively!
James Bowie
Jim Bowie, Bowie as in BOOOOOOO, had been living in Texas several years before he died during the Battle of the Alamo. It appears he came to put his slave trading and land speculation skills to work in this new land of opportunity. He did comparatively well for himself in Texas, probably partially due to his skill with the shell game that is land speculation, and perhaps also partially due being fairly fluent in Spanish. It wasn’t long before he put these same skills to work acquiring a wife. He grossly misrepresented his net worth to his future father-in-law in order to give the appearance of providing a proper dowry for the beautiful teenager Ursula Veramendi. He also under-misrepresented his age by a few years. He was 35 at the time. Not only did he scam her family about his finances; when she passed away during a cholera epidemic a few years later, he had the nerve to sue the family for the value of the non-existent dowry. He lost.
Sam Houston
- Ick factor warning -
The female-centric scandal surrounding the ‘Father of Texas’, Sam Houston, is literally the stuff of legend because there is so little information available about it. He refused to discuss it. Some might say this refusal was the sign of a gentleman. Others may wonder what he had to hide.
Long before Sam Houston was a Texas resident, he was a political rising star in Tennessee. While he was governor, he became engaged to Eliza Allen, a southern belle from a prominent family.
Ick Factor #1: When they married on 22 Jan 1829, he was 41 and she was 19.
The marriage ended after 11 weeks.
Two days after the wedding, Eliza commented to a friend as they watched Houston participating in a snowball fight with some kids, “I wish they would kill him.” When he was away on governor business a few weeks later, she high-tailed it back to her parents.
One rumor is that she was in love with another and married Sam Houston due to pressure from her parents. It’s no exaggeration to say she immediately regretted it.
Ick Factor #2: Houston went to great pains to tamp down the fires of scandal, insisting their falling out was nothing to do with her virginity (or lack thereof) and that she appeared to him to be ‘virtuous’. He even certified her ‘virtue’ in writing to her father, for crying out loud. Not a bit awkward.
Another rumor bandied about supplies us with our Ick Factor #3. Houston had barely survived serious wounds suffered fifteen years earlier during the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. One of these refused to heal. It was in his groin area.
Eliza Allen wasn’t the only bride Sam Houston left in the rear view. When he departed Tennessee and resigned his governorship, he sought refuge with what he considered his adopted family, the Cherokee tribe in Arkansas.
Ick Factor #4: dare I say he was licking his wounds?
Too much?
While living with the Cherokee, he found a new wife. Happy ending, right? Not exactly. He left her behind when he answered the siren call of Texas in 1832.
I guess we shouldn’t feel too badly for ol’ Sam. He finally found a wife in Texas once all the revolution drama had settled. They had a bunch of kids together. Still a slight ick because once again, he was old enough to be her father.
William Barrett Travis
Before William Barrett ‘Buck’ Travis came to Texas, wrote the famous ‘Victory or Death’ letter pleading for reinforcements, and died at the Alamo, he was a schoolteacher in Alabama. Slight ick factor: he married one of his students, Rosanna Cato. At least the age differential between them was in the single digits.
Travis wasn’t making much money as a school teacher. He went into debt to get a law degree, but couldn’t make much of a go of that, either. Like so many others, he heard there were fortunes to be made in Texas. So he left his pregnant wife and their toddler with little more than promises that he would send for them once he had made his fortune.
He never returned. Once in Texas, he claimed he was a widower. He wasn’t a widower. He was a hound dog. He slept with as many women as he could. He soon contracted venereal disease, even spreading it to his new fiancee.
We know this because he kept a journal. A direct quote: “Chingaba una mujer que es cincuenta y seis en mi vida.” For those of you speak Spanish, my apologies for that vulgarity. Even if you don’t speak Spanish, you have probably figured out that this is not exactly a respectful love note. In addition to the crude sexual reference, Buck is also letting us know this is #56 in his list of conquests. Not sure if he is counting Rosanna back home. Maybe we’ve been misinformed about his nickname, and it only rhymes with ‘buck’?
There are probably lots more things in life we have been misinformed about. Like breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Or that touching a frog will give you warts. That [fill in the blank war] was about lofty intangibles like independence and personal liberty, not about money or power or slavery or religion or ethnic supremacy. Do your own homework, folks. There’s plenty more info out there that didn’t make it into your high school history textbooks.
*Before I read Duel, I was unfamiliar with this 19th century term Go Ahead to describe the men who espoused what they considered an admirable quality promoted by 19th century cultural phenomenon Davy Crockett. The complete quote is: ‘be sure you are right, then go ahead’. And if you’re wondering why I didn’t mention Mr. Crockett more in the gossip fest above, it’s because he apparently was a good dude and didn’t generate any anti-woman tea for me to spill. Click here for more about Crockett from a great article in Texas Monthly.
I will leave you with three things.
My writer buddy Dan Stutzman has a new book out, Heartspeed. It’s a sci-fi adventure with a romance subplot. A little something for everyone! You can purchase it here on Amazon.
Some of you may be familiar with Ted Gioia here on Substack. This week, he nailed it. Click to read if you are also Team Teslas Are Fugly.
I don’t know about you, but finding something decent or interesting or well-crafted to watch on TV is getting to be more of a challenge. That’s why I was so pleased to stumble across The Burning Girls on Roku recently. Man, I love a good twist!
My latest book, Double Fault, is available now on Amazon.
When an investigation of illegal match fixing by the Russian mob brings the FBI to her tennis club in the person of hunky agent Wilson DuBois, Veronica Burk vows to help him solve the case quickly before her own very successful gambling habit falls under suspicion.
My historical fiction book, Ventured, is also available now on Amazon.
When she takes a chance on making a new life for herself, French orphan and cutpurse extraordinaire Belle must find a way to survive in the New World—or she may not live long enough to enjoy it.
My YA trilogy is also still available if historical fiction isn’t your thing.
Brody Morgan grew up starring in commercials for his dad's mega food corporation. What will Brody do when he discovers what he's really been selling?
I love all your “idk factor” sidebars. You should write a history book called the “ick factor” of American expansion. It would probably be really popular.