Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, Troubadour and Crusader. By
Herbert P. Gambrell. (Southwest Press, Dallas, 1934.)

The definitive biography of Mirabeau B. Lamar has yet to be
written. Neither A. K. Christian nor Herbert P. Gambrell has
told the complete story of the life and deeds of the second presi-
dent of the Republic of Texas. It is only fair to point out, how-
ever, that Professor Christian concerned himself with the public
services and political activities of Lamar, while Professor Gam-
brell admits the unilateral scope of his undertaking in his prefa-
tory statement "that this work is not so much a study of Lamar's
presidency as it is a study of the man's career." The worth of
the book may be measured, then, by the degree of success that
the author has attained in placing his protagonist against the
scenes of the half century in which he lived.

To this reviewer Lamar emerges from the pages of his biog-
raphy as the apotheosis of mediocre versatility. He did a num-
ber of things acceptably, but never exceptionally, well. He
was a military dilettante, a "talented amateur" in statescraft,
and a rococo rhetorician rather than an orator. He was a versi-
fier whose efforts never rose to the level of poetry, save in two
possible exceptions that serve to prove the rule. He took part
in amateur theatricals, played the violin indifferently (one sur-
mises that Money Musk and Buffalo Gals was not a part of his
repertoire) and painted a little.

On the positive side, he was patriotic; he was brave to the
point of recklessness; he was honest; and apparently he was not
galled with the saddle of personal ambition as was his contem-
porary, Houston. If he was not moved to the great heights of
personal achievements by passing events, on the other hand he
held to his dominant purposes steadfastly while more volatile
men were swayed from their original designs. Santa Anna, con-
vinced of Lamar's obdurate will, said, "There goes the shadow
of Farías," and in so saying did both Lamar and Gomez Farías
honor.

The elements of a visionary and a hard-headed realist were
mixed up in Lamar; he dreamed of a Greater Texas that would
stretch from the Sabine and the Red to the Pacific, from the
highlands of San Luis Potosi to the Jackson Hole country. The
natural results of such an ambition was the Santa Fe Expedi-
tion, which, by the way, Gambrell does not believe so chimerical
a dream of conquest as has been professed by Lamar's opponents.
Lamar was a particularist in politics, both as an ardent state's
rights man in Georgia and Alabama and as an anti-annexation-
ist in Texas. There are not lacking those in Texas today who
assert that the happiest solution of her problems would have
been the realization of his plans for the creation of a Greater
Texas.

So much for the man. Professor Gambrell has delineated him
in chiaroscuro rather than in colors. We know too little of what
he was like even after reading his biography. For instance,
what actually did he read: Plutarch, Shakespeare or Gibbon?
What was his economic status? Undoubtedly he had slaves, but
not a word about them to enliven the narrative.

Nevertheless, the touches are there in spots. Here is a volun-
teer who walked to San Jacinto and commanded the cavalry of
Texas on that field. Here is the major-general of the Army of
the Republic of Texas who found himself ejected from his com-
mand by the viva voce of the common soldiery. Here is the
vice-president who could recognize with a straight face the sen-
ator who was going to deliver the opposition speech that he him-
self had written. Here is the chief magistrate who at his own
inauguration heard the retiring president occupy three hours in
a self-laudatory panegyric and then chose to have his own ad-
dress read in a sing-song by his private secretary. Here is the
president who acted as his own groom and cook in the camp of
the forces of which he by virtue of his office was the commander-
in-chief. Yes, the narrative is alive in many places and these
places redeem by contrast the remainder of the book.

Gambrell has written the best available biography of Lamar
for the general reader. Despite its obvious shortcomings, it
serves, if for nothing else, to rescue Lamar from the odium
heaped upon him by partisans addicted to Houston-itis. It por-
trays him as a very human sort of a man, one worthy of friend-
ship and respect. Somehow one feels that he can tie to a man
that David G. Burnet loved. All in all, the work betrays prom-
ise that Gambrell's forthcoming life of Anson Jones (which will
be by way of his magnum opus) will be worth looking forward
to by all readers of his Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar.

State Teachers College, Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Rex Wallace Strickland.

How to cite:
"Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, Troubadour and Crusader", Volume 39, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v039/n2/review_DIVL2094.html
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