WRITINGS OF Sur HousToN, 1860
559
• Attorney General, and had been commissioned to index the criminal codes. Thus, the greater part of the duties of Attorney General devolved upon ·young Asa Willie. During the Civil War he was with the Confederate Army under Gen- eral Gregg, with the rank of major. After the close of the war he moved to Galveston, but was soon elected (1866) associate justice of the Texas Supreme Court; but he was removed (1867) from this office by the mili- tary commandant of Texas. After the people of the state had regained control of its government (1872), Asa Willie was elected representative at large for Texas to the United States Congress (March 4, 1873-March 3, 1875); but would not consent to be a candidate for reelection. He resumed his law practice at Galveston, but was again called to public service by his election to the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, which office he held from 1882 until his resignation, 1888. He again took up his law practice at Galveston and devoted his whole time to it until his death. In 1859, he ma1·ried Bettie Johnson, of Brandon, Mississippi. They had ten children, five of whom lived to be grown. See James D. Lynch, Bench and Bar of Texas, 295-301; John Henry Brown, bul-ian Wars and Pionee,·s of Texas, 282-283; Johnson-Barker, Texas and Texans (1916 edition), II, 1119; F. A. Battey & Company (publishers), Biographical Soiivenfr of Texas, 904-905; William G. Speer (ed.), Encyclopedia of the New West, 138-140; Davis and Grobe, The Encyclopedia. of Texas, 94-95; Biog1·aphical Directory of the American Cong1·ess (1928), 1710; J. H. Daven- port, The History of, the Supreme Court of the State of Texas, 85. TO WILLIAM BANTA 1 Executive Department, Austin, March 27, 1860. Mr. William Banta, Esq., Burnet [County] Court House Dear Sir : Your letter of the 27th this morning to hand. Replying to the same I have to say that Lieutenant Hair hav- ing fully complied with my orders of March 9th and having filed his bond together with the certificate of the Chief Justice of the County, your company of minute men will not be regarded as in the service of the State. The County was only authorized to raise one Detachment of minute men and the manner prescribed by the orders has been fully ·carried out in ·the organization of Lieutenant Hair's Company by the Chief Justice. Your neglect of its requirements, notwithstanding you may have first made up your Detachment necessarily secured to him precedence. Sam Houston. 1 E-xec·1Ltive Record Book, No. 278, p. 113, Texas State Library. William Banta, son of Isaac and Abiah Banta, was born June 23, 1827, in Warren County, Kentucky. Isaac Banta and famliy moved to Clarks- ville, Texas, December 15, 1839, and in the fall of 1840, pressed on to Pin Hook (now Paris), in Lamar County, and located a headright on Bullard Creek, about eight miles from the present town of Bonham. Isaac
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