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After an undisputed record of political achievement--leading the decisive battle for Texas independence at San Jacinto, serving twice as president of the Republic of Texas, twice again as a United States senator after annexation, and finally as governor of Texas--Sam Houston found himself in the winter of his life in a self-imposed exile among the pines of East Texas. Houston was often a bundle of complicated contradictions. He was a spirited advocate for public education but had little formal education himself. He was very much "a Jackson man" but disagreed with his mentor on the treatment of Native Americans. He was a slaveholder who opposed abolition but scuttled his own political reputation by resisting the South's move toward secession.