WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1852
339
This the young man immediately set himself to do, and in November, 1839, he was admitted to the Texas bar, and set up his office for practice. In February, 1847, he was appointed Judge of the Seventh Judicial District by Governor Henderson, and was reelected to the position in 1852, but in 1854, he resigned the office to return to his private practice and to engage in farming. In 1857 he was elected, without opposition, to the State Legis- lature from Austin and Fort Bend Counties. In 1858 he was a candidate for the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, but was defeated. In 1859, he was again elected by Fort Bend and Austin Counties to the Legislature. He was appointed chairman of the judicial committee in that body. C. W. Buckley was twice married: first, in 1840, and again in 1852. By the fhst marriage he had three children, two sons and one daughter. See William DeRyee and R. E. Moore, The Texa-s Albmn of th~ Eighth, Legislat·1we (1860), 32-34; La1t11ar Papers, II, 158, V, 200. 3 Henry Grattan Smith, Ashbel Smith's brother, was one of the noted lawyers of Memphis, Tennessee, du1ing the 1850's, 1860's, and 1870's. After the Civil Wa1· he was on the Tennessee Supreme Court Bench for many years. Ashbel Smith PaJJers, passim. •These men were: Hamilton Stuart, see Volume IV, pp. 240-422; Colonel A. C. Allen, see Volume II, p. 181; John Sydnor, see Volume III, p. 49. 6 Colonel M. T. Johnson was born in Georgia, but resided in Alabama for many years before coming to Texas in 1842. He settled in Shelby County, and was chosen to represent that county in the Texas Congress in 1844. At the beginning of the Mexican War, he raised a company of "Minute Men" (mounted volunteers), and was soon on Mexican soil. He and his men participated in the battle of Monterey, but after the surrender of that place, the company was discharged. Returning to Texas, Johnson was commissioned by Governor Henderson to raise a company of rangers for frontier defense. The company was soon augmented to a full regiment. These men served until 1848, when they were honorably discharged. In 1851, Colonel Johnson and General Thomas J. Rusk were employed to sur- vey a railroad route west of Fort Worth. The survey was made for a dis- tance of two hundred miles. Rusk found that he could not remain on the project and do his duty as Senator from Texas to the United States Con- gress, therefore 1·esigned his position; but Johnson remained with the Pacific Railroad Company for several years longer. At the beginning of the Civil War, Colonel Johnson was bitterly opposed to secession, but when -he saw that war was inevitable, he gave his adhe- sion to the Confederacy. President Jefferson Davis personally assured him that if he would raise a brigade of Texans for the Confederate Army, he should be made brigadier general and would be given command of the men he might carry to the point of rendezvous. He raised the brigade as required and accompanied it to Little Rock, Arkansas, then made his report to President Davis at Richmond, Virginia, only to learn that Davis had changed his plans concerning the Texas Brigade, and that Johnson was not to command the men he had carried to Little Rock. According to orders, he delivered his brigade to those appointed to command it; he him- self returned to his home and took no further pa1·t in the Civil War. In 1866, he was a member of the Reconstruction Convention of that year, but he died in May, soon after the adjou1·nment of the Convention. He lies
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