Burned-Out Adventurer Cashes in His Chips

Dazed, depressed and at the end of his rope, Samuel W. Jordan wandered the streets of New Orleans on Jun. 22, 1841, looking for a place to die. Like many volunteers who arrived too late to fight for Lone Star independence, Jordan found life in the peacetime military too tame for his tastes. Resigning his commission as a captain in the Texas Army, he took part in the Rio Grande campaign that gave…