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Before a twenty-year-old Sam Houston joined the United States Army, his mother gave him two gifts: a musket and a thin gold ring with the word “HONOR” written on the inside.

Houston’s first combat experience came a year later, on March 26, 1814, when he fought with American soldiers and their Cherokee allies in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend against the Red Stick Creek. The American forces’ victory ended the Creek Civil War and the Creek nation’s resistance to American expansion into the Mississippi Territory.

During the battle, Houston took part in the first assault of the Creek’s breastwork. He was struck in the thigh by an arrow and shot twice, in the shoulder and the arm. The shoulder injury never fully healed.

General Andrew Jackson, who commanded the American forces and later became the seventh president of the United States, was impressed with Houston’s bravery and took the young man under his wing. He even gifted Houston his own rifle (also on display in the Museum) as a reward for his bravery. Houston became a staunch Jacksonian Democrat, and the two men stayed close until Jackson’s death in 1845. Houston even named his second son after Jackson.

In 1936, that son, Andrew Jackson Houston, broke ground for the San Jacinto Monument, built to commemorate his father’s other famous military victory.