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  When I research primary historical documents, I almost always discover something new.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  To date, I have never seen a primary historical document dating from the time before, during or after the Battle of San Jacinto identifying Houston's horse by the name "Saracen."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

908 Town & Country Blvd., Suite 120

Houston, Texas 77024

Telephone: 713-880-4529