Felix Huston

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Felix Huston (1800 – 1857) was a lawyer, soldier, and the first commanding general of the Army of the Republic of Texas.

Huston was born in Kentucky. He was a slave trader, planter and Whig politician and attorney in Natchez, Mississippi. Receiving news of the Texas Revolution, he raised and equipped troops (often at his own expense) and money throughout Mississippi and Kentucky.

He left Natchez on May 5, 1836, with approximately 500 to 700 volunteers to join the Texian army, but arrived well after the Battle of San Jacinto, in which Mexican General and President Santa Anna ceded defeat and in effect, granted Texas her independence.

On December 20, 1836, Sam Houston commissioned Huston as a brigadier general in the 2,000-man army and temporary commander-in-chief. His men referred to him as "Old Long Shanks" or "Old Leather Breeches", and Huston attracted adventurers and men of little discipline to his "Camp Independence" in Jackson County. He feared San Antonio could not be defended in the event of another Mexican invasion, and ordered the town and the nearby Alamo burned.

However, Juan Seguín intervened, and the town and historic mission were spared from destruction. Later in the year, Sam Houston appointed Albert Sidney Johnston as the senior brigadier general and permanent commander of the Texan army. Huston felt slighted, and challenged Johnston to a duel on February 5, 1837, wounding him in the right hip.

In November of 1839, Huston was elected as major general of the militia, defeating James C. Neill and other candidates. He developed an aggressive scheme to capture Matamoros, Mexico in 1840, believing that Texas should expand its borders southward beyond the Rio Grande River. However, his desires were thwarted by moderates.

In August, warchief Little Buffalo Hump and 500 Comanche Indians attacked Victoria, Texas and other nearby towns, stealing horses and livestock and murdering dozens of white settlers. Huston led 200 Texans and Tonkawa Indians against the raiders at Plum Creek near Gonzales on the evening of August 11, killing 80 Comanches while only losing 1 man.

In May 1837, President Sam Houston furloughed much of the Texas army, leaving Huston a general without troops to command. Shortly thereafter, Huston left Texas and co-founded a law firm in New Orleans.

In 1844, he supported a movement to annex the republic to the United States. However, by the late 1850s Huston had become an ardent secessionist. In 1851, he spoke at a rally in New Orleans supporting Cuban independence from Spain.