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January, 1863, congratulates Texas for having driven the Northern forces from her soil.

March 18, 1863, makes his last public speech, at Houston, Texas, and bids Texas keep up its courage and its hopes of success of the Southern cause.

July 26, 1863, Sam Houston dies in his bed at the family home, in Huntsville, Texas, aged 70 years. His last words are: “Texas! Texas!” and “Margaret,” the name of his wife. He died beloved and respected by state and country. To his eldest son, Lieutenant Sam Houston, Jr., he bequeathed the “sword of San Jacinto.”

WITH SAM HOUSTON IN TEXAS

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The toiling little steamboat “Arkansas” was stuck harder than ever, as seemed, on a mud-bar far up the shallow Arkansas River, in the old “Indian Country,” which is present Oklahoma.

“Back her! Back her!” were bawling a half-dozen voices, from her passengers.

“Go ahead! Give her steam! Push her over!” were bawling a half-dozen others.

“No! Swing her!”

The paddle-wheel astern threshed vainly; the red-shirted pilot in the pilot-house continually jangled the engine-bell; from the upper deck the captain yelled himself hoarse; on the lower deck the mate stumped around in cowhide boots and swore horridly; the negro roustabouts, ranged along the flat open bows and the guard-rails, to shove with poles, grunted and panted, and now and then one fell overboard when his pole slipped; the passengers advised and criticized; the many dogs barked; and young Ernest Merrill, scampering upstairs and down, so as to be certain to see everything that happened, could not feel that the boat budged forward or backward an inch.