m we frequently met during the year of
our sojourn in Nashville, was Samuel Houston, since so thoroughly
identified with the early history of Texas. He was at that time moving
in gay society, was called an elegant gentleman, was very fine looking
and very vain of his personal appearance; but domestic troubles
completely changed his whole life, and leaving his wife and family, he
abjured the world and went into exile, as he termed it. While we were
in Smithland, Kentucky, to which place our father had been ordered
from Nashville, he stopped with us on his way to the wilderness, and
excited our childish admiration by his fanciful hunter's garb and the
romance which surrounded him. I remember, too, that he begged a fine
greyhound and a pointer from my brother, who gave them up, but not
without a great struggle with himself, for he loved them,--little
thinking then, dear boy, that this man, fantastically clad in
buckskin, would one day, as President of Texas, repay him amply by
delivering him from a great peril.

I record here a reminiscence of Smithland which stamps that little
town, and its surroundings, indelibly upon my memory. One day, as my
brother and I were at play in front of the recruiting office, which
was situated on the one long street, near the river bank, a steamboat,
with its flag flying, came down the Ohio and rounded to at the wharf.
As it made the turn, we noticed that the deck was crowded with
negroes, and we heard them singing some of their camp meeting hymns in
a way to touch all hearts. The strain was in a minor key, and, as the
poor creatures swayed their bodies back and forth and clapped their
hands at intervals, we were strangely moved; and when, the landing
being effected, and the gang-plank arranged, they came off, _chained
in pairs_, and were marched, still singing, to a shed prepared for
them, we could not keep back the tears. The overseer, a great strong
man, cracking his "blacksnake" from time to time, to enforce
authority, excited our strong indignation. All this is an
impossibility now, thank God, but then it was a cruel, dreadful
reality. Like cattle, they were penned for the night, and were to be
kept there for a day or two, till another boat should take them to New
Orleans to be sold for the cane brake and the cotton field. They had
been bought by the dealer in men and women, who had them in charge, at
the slave pen in Washington, the capital of the United States. For
aught I know, Uncl