Hamilton, Andrew Jackson

Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, 1815–75, American politician, b. Huntsville, Ala. Moving to Texas in 1846, he served (1849) as attorney general, was a member of the legislature (1851–53), and in 1859 was elected as a Unionist to the U.S. House of Representatives. He returned (1861) to the state legislature, but after the outbreak of the Civil War he fled (1862) to Washington. 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 blacks, but the state constitutional convention (1866) rejected his program. As leader of the conservative Republicans, he ran (1869) unsuccessfully for governor.