Andrew J. Hamilton

Andrew Jackson Hamilton

Full Name: Andrew Jackson Hamilton
Date of birth: January 28, 1815
Date of death: April 11, 1875

Terms of Service top

Chamber District Dates of Service Legislatures Party City/County Note Counties in District
S 25 Elected but never sworn 8th (1) (2) (3)     Austin / Travis   Bastrop, Burnet, Travis
H 42 Nov 3, 1851 - Nov 7, 1853 4th (4)     Unknown / Travis   Travis

(1) Hamilton was elected to the Senate in 1861 as the Union candidate, but "he declined to take the required oath of qualification." Bench and Bar of Texas, 1885.
(2) "When he [Hamilton] returned to Texas in the spring of 1861 he won a special election to the state Senate." Handbook of Texas Online.
(3) "Our late Representative in Congress, Hon. A.J. Hamilton, was elected State Senator for the Austin district, last Monday [8/25/1861] . . . Judge Towns [sic], resigned." Civilian and Gazette. Weekly. (Galveston, Texas), 4/2/1861, p. 2, crediting Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. Portal to Texas History (University of North Texas Libraries).
(4) "By the 1850s he had become a member of the "Opposition Clique" in Texas, a faction of the regular Democratic party that opposed secession, reopening the slave trade, and other Southern extremist demands." Handbook of Texas Online.

Terms of Service top

Senate District 25
Elected but never sworn
Legislatures: 8th (1) (2) (3)  
Home City/County: Austin / Travis
Counties in district: Bastrop, Burnet, Travis
House District 42
Nov 3, 1851 - Nov 7, 1853
Legislatures: 4th (4)  
Home City/County: Unknown / Travis
Counties in district: Travis

(1) Hamilton was elected to the Senate in 1861 as the Union candidate, but "he declined to take the required oath of qualification." Bench and Bar of Texas, 1885.
(2) "When he [Hamilton] returned to Texas in the spring of 1861 he won a special election to the state Senate." Handbook of Texas Online.
(3) "Our late Representative in Congress, Hon. A.J. Hamilton, was elected State Senator for the Austin district, last Monday [8/25/1861] . . . Judge Towns [sic], resigned." Civilian and Gazette. Weekly. (Galveston, Texas), 4/2/1861, p. 2, crediting Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. Portal to Texas History (University of North Texas Libraries).
(4) "By the 1850s he had become a member of the "Opposition Clique" in Texas, a faction of the regular Democratic party that opposed secession, reopening the slave trade, and other Southern extremist demands." Handbook of Texas Online.

Biographical Information top

Resolutions and Journal entries

  • 28th Legislature, 1st C.S., 4/29/1903, pp. 220-226. Mentioned in the presentation address of the oil portrait of Judge A.W. Terrell. House Journal.

Biographical Sketches

Military Service Notes

  • Biography in LRL collection, Z UA550.8 H18. Colossal Hamilton of Texas: A Biography of Andrew Jackson Hamilton, Militant Unionist and Reconstruction Governor, 1968.
  • Brigadier General of volunteers, appointed military governor of Texas, November 1862. Handbook of Texas Online.
  • "In 1862 . . . was immediately appointed brigadier-general of Texas troops in the Union service." Personnel of the Texas State Government with Sketches of Representative Men of Texas, 22nd Legislature, 1892.
  • Brigadier General USV; Military Governor of Texas. Andrew Jackson Hamilton. Texas Burial Sites of Civil War Notables: A Biographical and Pictorial Field Guide, 2002.
  • Prominent Texas Unionist leader, appointed military governor of Texas by Abraham Lincoln, November 1862. Biographical sketch and portrait, pp. 140, Plate No. 60. Texas in the War, 1861-1865, 1965.

Other Resources

  • Included in list of Unionists who fled Texas to avoid "a requirement that public officials take a loyalty oath to the Confederacy . . ." Baggett, James Alex, "Origins of Early Texas Republican Party Leadership," The Journal of Southern History, Vol.40(3), August 1974, p. 448. Journal of Southern History.
  • Mentioned in list of "Future Republicans . . . at one time or another championed Know-Nothingism." Baggett, James Alex, "Origins of Early Texas Republican Party Leadership," The Journal of Southern History, Vol.40(3), August 1974, p. 443. Journal of Southern History.
  • Governor of Texas 1865-1866. Legislative Reference Library, Governors of Texas, 1846-present.
  • Obituary, Semmes Wilder Parish, Asheville Citizen-Times (Asheville, North Carolina), 10/1/1943, p. 8. Native of Calvert, Texas, oil drilling operator, Captain in Spanish-American War. "Survivors include the widow, Mrs. Katherine H. Parish, granddaughter of the late Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton, of Texas." Newspapers.com.
  • Delegate to Constitutional Convention, 1868. Included in "List of Delegates to the Reconstruction Convention, As Announced in Special order No. 213, Dated Headquarters Fifth Military District, New Orleans, LA., April 13th, 1868." Journal of the Reconstruction Convention, Which Met at Austin, Texas, June 1, A.D., 1868 (1870), pp 533-534. Texas Constitutions Digitization Project (Tarlton Law Library, The University of Texas at Austin), 2009.

Photographs

Committee Information top

4th R.S. - 1851
Internal Improvements  
Judiciary  
Land Titles West of the Nueces, Select  
Peters' Colony, Governor's Message, Select  
Public Buildings  
Public Lands  

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