A native of Huntsville, Alabama, Hamilton moved to La Grange, Texas in 1846 to practice law. Four years later, he became the state attorney general, and was elected to the Texas House of Representatives for a single term the following year.
During the American Civil War, Hamilton sided with the Union, and was named Military Governor of Texas by Abraham Lincoln in 1862. At the end of the war, President Andrew Johnson named Hamilton as the provisional civilian governor of the state, an office Hamilton held for 14 months. He resigned to accept a position as a justice on the Texas Supreme Court. Hamilton tried to regain the governorship in the election of 1869, but he was defeated.
Hamilton died in Austin, Texas, and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery.
Abraham Lincoln appointed him a brigadier general of volunteers and military governor of Texas, and in June, 1865, he was made provisional governor by Andrew Johnson.
Hamilton pressed for equal civil rights for whites and fls, but the state constitutional convention (1866) rejected his program.
Andrew Jackson HAMILTON - HAMILTON, Andrew Jackson (1815—1875) HAMILTON, Andrew Jackson, (brother of Morgan Calvin...