SAM HOUSTON &
the ALAMO AVENGERS

In his now-trademark style, Brian Kilmeade brings alive one of the most pivotal moments in American history, this time telling the heart-stopping story of America's fight for Texas. While the story of the Alamo is familiar to most, few remember how Sam Houston led Texians after a crushing loss to a shocking victory that secured their freedom and paved the way for America's growth.

In March 1836, the Mexican army led by General Santa Anna massacred more than two hundred Texians who had been trapped in a tiny adobe mission in San Antonio for thirteen days. American legends Jim Bowie and Davey Crockett died there, along with other Americans who had moved to Texas looking for a fresh start.

The defeat galvanized the surviving Texians. Under General Sam Houston, a maverick with a rocky past, the tiny army of settlers rallied--only to retreat time and time again. Having learned from the bloody battles that characterized his past, Houston knew it was poor strategy to aggressively retaliate. He held off until just one month after the massacre, when he and his army of underdog Texians soundly defeated Santa Anna's troops in under eighteen minutes at the Battle of San Jacinto, and in doing so won the independence for which so many had died.

Sam Houston and the Alamo Avengers recaptures this pivotal war that changed America forever, and sheds light on the tightrope all war heroes walk between courage and calculation. Thanks to Kilmeade's storytelling, a new generation of readers will remember the Alamo--and recognize the lesser-known heroes who snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

CHAPTER EXCERPT

Chapter 1  

Sam Houston’s wounds healed slowly. He underwent several surgeries to repair his arm and thigh. But the young soldier’s subsequent rise to power and prominence was surprisingly swift.

By the time Houston returned to active duty in the infantry, General Jackson and his army had won a stunning victory at the Battle of New Orleans, in January 1815, ending once and for all American battles with the British. But even as the war came to a close, Houston’s relationship with Jackson continued to grow. Houston became Jackson’s protege— and more, almost a son to Old Hickory—after the twenty-two-year-old, at Andrew Jackson’s personal request, was assigned to the general’s staff in Nashville, Tennessee.

And Houston needed a father. His own had died when he was thir- teen, and he had spent his early teens in frontier Tennessee, with a rocky relationship with his mother. Finally at age sixteen, unhappy with life on his mother’s farm, he ran away, finding a home with Chief Oo- Loo-Te-Ka of the Cherokee nation. Houston embraced life with the Cherokee, since he liked “the wild liberty of the Red Man better than the tyranny of his own brothers.”

The Cherokee had trained the restless young man, equipping him for a life of war. Now Houston wanted to be equipped for a life of politics, and he needed someone from his own culture to take him under his wing. Jackson, perhaps perceiving Houston’s need and remembering his own fatherless youth, became that man.

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