Empire of Bones

Epic hero, valiant general, intellectual fond of quoting Homer, self-styled Messiah, opium drinker, alcoholic, exotic dresser - Sam Houston was all of these. The pivotal event of his life was the Battle of San Jacinto, when fate handed him Santa Anna, the Scourge of the Alamo, along with the patrimony of the nation of Texas. Houston, who survived both scandals and war wounds that would have buried ordinary men, later went on to become Texas president, senator, and governor, but the memory of San Jacinto never left him. In the popular imagination, the Battle of San Jacinto was a glorious victory in which heroic Americans freed Texas from the clutches of the despotic Mexican empire. The truth, however, is quite different - the so-called "miracle" of San Jacinto was a massacre. This rousing novel begins with the surrender and execution of David Crockett and the last survivors of the Alamo - an event that most Texans refuse to believe happened. It features a cast of larger-than-life characters from Texas history such as William Travis, David Crockett, Deaf Smith, Wylie Martin, Juan Seguin, and Pamela Mann. Empire of Bones re-creates the drama of the famous battle at San Jacinto: Houston's rag-tag, mutinous troops bent on vengeance for their comrades' horrific defeat at the Alamo, a surprise encounter with a wing of Santa Anna's army, and the savage slaughter of six hundred Mexicans at a cost of only a handful of Americans. Among the dead was a beautiful Mexican woman, and this shocking atrocity - as the Southern code regarded the murder of a woman - became Houston's moral Rubicon. Author Jeff Long, whose Duel of Eagles: The Mexican and U.S. Fight for the Alamo was called by James A. Michener "a remarkable contribution to Texas history," has done painstaking research to find the truth behind the Houston myth. Empire of Bones is based on actual depositions for a slander suit from some of the survivors of the Battle of San Jacinto, recorded twenty-five years later on


Genre: Historical