Help Wanted - Saracen - Sam Houston's Horse
Saracen - Sam Houston's Horse
Several years ago I began researching information about the horse Sam Houston was
riding at the Battle of San Jacinto when Texas won its independence from Mexico. In doing this research,
I discovered that in his book The Raven, Pulitzer Prize winning author, Marquis James, added a false
detail about Sam Houston's horse at the Battle of San Jacinto. James decided to make the horse white in
color. Despite the fact this was not true, many other "respectable" historians blindly repeated the detail
for the next 65 years. The horse was actually gray. Click here to see my short history Sam
Houston Rode a Gray Horse.
I enjoyed writing this paper and have presented it many times to school children
around Texas. More important than the color of the horse has been the lesson to these school children that
you should not rely on secondary and tertiary documents so much when writing a history. It is far more important to
use primary documents. Most histories that are written today show very little new work. When I
research primary historical documents, I almost always discover something new.
When I researched Sam Houston's horse, I discovered that something that has been a given in
Texas History for almost a hundred years has proven very difficult to verify. Since I was a
child, I have been told over and over again that the name of Sam Houston's horse upon which he rode into the Battle
of San Jacinto was Saracen. According to numerous history books, magazine articles,
historical reviews, Internet stories, blogs, etc., the name of the horse Sam Houston was riding in the Battle of
San Jacinto was Saracen.
I NEED YOUR HELP. To date, I have never seen a primary historical document
dating from the time before, during or after the Battle of San Jacinto identifying Houston's horse by the name
"Saracen." I have only seen secondary and tertiary sources making this claim. Is anyone aware of any
reliable primary documents, newspapers, letters, etc. that identify Houston's horse as Saracen? If you are
aware of such a document, let me know and I will be glad to include an entire article about your document on the
Texas History Page. And I will of course be glad to give you the credit for locating the
document. Thank you!
Contact me at:
Mr. Kameron K. Searle
9111 Katy Fwy., Suite 202
Houston, Texas 77024
Telephone: 713-880-4529
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