War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its

size, and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. host, James Early. Hello, everyone.

This is James, as always.

And I haven't given you any special episodes or bonus episodes, whatever you want to call them, Saturday episodes in a while. So I thought I would give you one related to Sam Houston. As you know, we're about to go into the Texas Revolution, of which Sam Houston is a major player. And so I thought I would share this episode, which I wrote a long time ago, it actually does not deal with the

Texas Revolution. It deals with Sam Houston and his efforts to get Texas to not secede from

the union in early 1861. It's called Sam Houston and Texas Secession. I wrote this originally

for the Come and Take It podcast and appeared on that episode as a

guest with the fellows that do that podcast. And so I thought you might find it interesting. It's

shorter than the usual episode that I give you, but I did want to at least give the opportunity

to listen to it if you want, even though it's out

of sequence with what we're doing in the regular episodes. So I hope you enjoy this episode on

Sam Houston and Texas' session. And if you do, let me know what you think. All right,

without any further ado, here it is. We're going to go back to the mid-1850s, just a decade after Texas joined the United

States following its period as an independent nation. The annexation of Texas, the acquisition

to Mexico's northern territories, and the addition of the Oregon Territory doubled the size

of the United States in just three short years, and radically altered the political status quo that had

existed since the compromise of 1820 set a northern limit on the expansion of slavery.

...