528
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1860
1 Executive Records, 1859-1861, pp. 99-100, Texas State Library. Andrew Jackson Hamilton (Januai-y 28, 1815-April, 1875) was born in Madison County, Alabama. He immigrated to Texas in 1846 and settled at La Grange. In 1849, Governor Bell appointed him Attorney General of the state, and from that time on he made his home at Austin. He served as a representative from Travis County in the State Legislature in 1851 and 1853. In 1856 he was a presidential elector on the Buchanan ticket; and in 1859 he was elected to a seat in the United States Congress as an independent candidate, in opposition to General T. N. Waul, the regular nominee of the Democratic party. Hamilton was bitterly opposed to secession, and retained his seat in Con- gress ·after the other members from the seceding states had returned to their constituencies. He finally returned to Austin in the latter part of 1861, and became the Union candidate for the State Senate, to which he was elected; but Texas had by this time joined the Confederacy, and he declined to take the oath of allegiance to that new Government. In 1862, being still opposed to the purposes and the progress of the war on the part of the South, he left Texas and made his way through Mexico to Washington City, where he was immediately appointed Brigadier General of all Texas troops in the service of the United States. In 1865 he was made provisional Governor of Texas by President Johnson, because he was the most suitable person who could be found within the state to effect the conservative plan of reconstruction. In this position he greatly endeared himself to the people of the state, irrespective of party affiliations, because he did his utmost to discharge the duties of his office in fairness and to bring as soon as possible a rehabilitation of Texas as a state of the Union. Even those who on party grounds differed with him in almost every essen- tial particular, testified that his administration was charcterized by hon- esty, ability and patriotism, and resented every effort to cast a stain upon his honor as an official and as a citizen. In 1866 he was appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and served as a prominent member of the reconstruction convention in 1868. In 1870 he was the conservative can- didate for governor, but was defeated by E. J. Davis, the Republican nominee. Hamilton then retired to private life. He died in April, 1875. See John Henry Brown, Indian Wa1·s and Pioneers of Texas, 619-620; James Lynch, Benck and Bar of Texas, 104-109; Norman G. Kittrell, Gov- ernors Who Have Been, and Other Public Men of Texas, 47-49; Baker, Texas Sc.rap Book, 31; Biographical Directory of the A,merican Congress (1928), p. 1051. 2 John Hemphill. See Houston to Clement R. Johns, January 12, 1860, Volume VII. 3 John Henniger Reagan (October 8, 1818-March 6, 1905), United States Senator from Texas, Postmaster General of the Confederacy, General Chairman of the Railroad Commission, statesman and public official in many positions. For biography, see Dictionary of American Biography, XV, 434; Reagan Papers, Texas State Library; Kittrell, Governors Who Have Been, and Other Public Men of Texas, 112-117; Johnson-Barker, Texas and Texans (1914 edition), II, 1107-1109; B. H. Good (Ph.D. thesis), University of Texas Library. •Louis Trezavant Wigfall (April 21, 1816-February 18, 1874), Senator from Texas to the Confedracy, Confederate General. See Dictionary of
Powered by FlippingBook