War, Ruin, and Reconstruction - Part 1, 1861-1866

Born: April 1, 1815 in New Orleans, the nephew Governor John Clark of Georgia.

Early Career: Clark moved to Alabama in 1832, and then to Marshall, Texas in 1842 to practice law. Clark was elected to the Annexation Convention of 1845, the House of Representatives in the First Legislature, and the state senate in the Second Legislature. He served under General J. Pinckney Henderson at the Battle of Monterrey and later was appointed secretary of state by Governor E.M. Pease (1853-1857) and state commissioner of claims in 1858. As lieutenant governor under Sam Houston, Clark replaced Houston as governor after Houston's refusal to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate States of America.

Accomplishments: The major event of Clark's governorship was the enlistment of 20,000 Texans to fight for the Confederacy.

Later years: After being narrowly defeated by Francis Lubbock (he lost by 124 votes), Clark became colonel of the 14th Texas Infantry. He was wounded at Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, and promoted to brigadier general. After a brief exile in Mexico at the end of the war, Clark returned to business and a law practice in Marshall, where he died May 4, 1880.

Handbook of Texas article about Governor Edward Clark
 

Letter from John H. Reagan on the Confederate postal service

Born: October 16, 1815 in South Carolina

Early Career: Lubbock clerked in a hardware store and managed a cotton warehouse before he became a druggist in New Orleans in 1834. He followed his brother Tom to Texas in 1836, after the Battle of San Jacinto. He claimed to have sold the first barrel of flour and the first sack of coffee in the village of Houston. After clerking in the House of Representatives in the Second Congress of Texas, he was appointed comptroller of the Republic. He became the district clerk of Harris County in 1841, and bought a ranch near Harrisburg in 1846. Lubbock was elected lieutenant governor in 1857, and governor in 1861.

Accomplishments: Among his actions were the mobilizing of a frontier regiment of cavalry against hostile Indians, the modest expansion of industrial resources, and the sale of U.S. bonds acquired in 1850 to help replenish an exhausted treasury. His interpretation of conscription laws made every able-bodied man between 16 and 60 years of age liable for military service. He did not run for reelection, preferring to join the Confederate Army as a lieutenant colonel in November 1863.

Later years: In 1864 Lubbock joined Jefferson Davis' staff, and was captured with him in May 1865. Upon his release he returned to business in Houston and Galveston. He was tax collector in Galveston for three years, and state treasurer (1879-1891). He served under Governor James Hogg on the Board of Pardons before retiring at age 80. Lubbock wrote his autobiography Six Decades in Texas in 1900. He died in Austin on June 22, 1905.

Handbook of Texas article about Governor Francis R. Lubbock
 

Letter to Jefferson Davis

Born: 1824 in South Carolina, either illegitimate or orphaned early.

Early Career: Murrah attended the University of Alabama and graduated from Brown University in 1848. Murrah moved to Marshall, Texas and began practicing law there sometime before 1855, when he was defeated by the Know-Nothing candidate in a race for Congress. In 1857, he was elected to the state legislature. He defeated T.J. Chambers in the gubernatorial election of 1863.

Accomplishments: During his administration, military and financial difficulties pushed the state and the Confederacy into contests over conscription, frontier defense, and the impressment of cotton, cattle, and slaves. In addition, Murrah was dying of tuberculosis. In May 1865, Governor Murrah fled to Mexico, where he died at Monterrey in July or August.

In Murrah's absence (May to June 1865), Lieutenant Governor Fletcher S. Stockdale was acting governor. Stockdale was born in Kentucky in 1827 and moved to Indianola, Texas in 1846. In 1856 he was a promoter of the Powderhorn, Victoria, and Gonzales Railroad. He served in the state senate from 1857 to 1861, and was on the committee which drafted the Ordinance of Secession in 1861. After the Civil War, Stockdale practiced law and promoted land in Cuero. He was active in a number of Democratic National Conventions, and in the Constitutional Convention of 1875. He died in Cuero in 1902.

Handbook of Texas article about Governor Pendleton Murrah

Invitation to the Marshall conference, April 1865

Born: January 28, 1815 in Alabama

Early Career: Hamilton left Alabama in 1846 to practice law in La Grange, Texas. Governor P. Hansbrough Bell appointed "Colossal Jack" Hamilton attorney general in 1849, and he was elected state representative from Travis County in 1851 and 1853. After briefly considering the Know-Nothing party, Hamilton was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1859 as an Independent. He retained his seat after other Southern congressmen had withdrawn. In 1861 Hays, Travis, and Bastrop counties elected him to the state senate, but Hamilton refused to take the oath to the Confederacy and left the state in 1862. President Abraham Lincoln named him military governor of Texas, with headquarters at federally-occupied New Orleans and Brownsville.

Accomplishments: In 1865, President Andrew Johnson confirmed Hamilton as provisional governor. Among the problems faced were Indian incursions, general lawlessness, chaotic finances, and the huge number of freedmen, emancipated since June 19, whom he advised to work hard and acquire property. He criticized the Constitutional Convention, which met in early 1866, for its reluctance to grant black suffrage. Hamilton chose not to run for governor in the 1866 election, but supported E.M. Pease, who lost to James Throckmorton. Hamilton did not finish his term, but turned the governor's office over to the secretary of state while he went to Philadelphia to fight President Johnson's plan for Reconstruction.

Later years: After General Philip Sheridan removed Governor Throckmorton and the Texas Supreme Court, General J.J. Reynolds named Hamilton to the state supreme court. In the Constitutional Convention of 1868-1869, and again in the gubernatorial election of 1869, A.J. Hamilton ran against the leader of the Radical Republicans, E.J. Davis. Hamilton had alienated General Reynolds, who threw his support to Davis, who won by a narrow margin. In 1871 Hamilton participated in the anti-Davis Non-Partisan Taxpayers' Convention. He died in Austin on April 11, 1875.

Handbook of Texas article about Governor Andrew J. Hamilton

Telegram from President Andrew Johnson on the Constitutional Convention of 1866