Chicago newspaper employees Sam Sawyer and Barry Conovan have been assigned to track down Sam Houston in Huntsville, Texas, unaware he died years before. Renegade guerrilla leader Henry Clay Jackson does not want Texas re-admitted as one of the United States, but is intent on restoring it as a republic. As he and his gang raid and loot Texas, Jackson believes himself to be following in the footsteps of Houston. When Jackson is about to be hanged for his crimes, Houston's ghost rises from his grave to tell Jackson he was wrong.[1]