(CIVIL WAR--TEXAS.) Mary J. Hamilton. A Texas Unionist's wife asks permission to join him in New Orleans. Autograph Letter Signed to Pendleton Murrah. One page, 9 3/4 x 7 1/2 inches, docketed and signed by Murrah on verso; folds, lacking integral blank. Austin, TX, 31 March and 5 April 1864
When the Civil War began, Alexander Jackson Hamilton (1815-1875) of Austin was representing Texas in Congress. He was a vocal Unionist, and fled Texas in July 1862. Lincoln appointed him "Military Governor of Texas" with the rank of Brigadier General; he spent the war in New Orleans. Meanwhile, his wife and children were still in Texas.
This letter was addressed by his wife Mary Jane Bowen Hamilton (1828-1916) to the Confederate governor of Texas, Pendleton Murrah: "My husband Gen'l A.J. Hamilton . . . expresses a very strong desire for his family to join him, and wishes us to go by the way of Matagorda Bay." She requests "the necessary papers to insure our safe transit to that point" and "a sufficient escort to protect us from insults or interference on the route." She planned to bring her 3 daughters and a 15-year-old son.
On verso, Governor Murrah refers the request to General John B. Magruder as commander of the District of Texas, requesting that it be granted if deemed "consistent with the interest of the service and the country."
Hamilton was later named governor of Texas in the first months of Reconstruction. "Whatever measure of success the governor enjoyed was due in part to the capable assistance of his wife. Her gentle spirit and quick wit soothed tensions at the mansion on more than one occasion"--McQueary, "Dining at the Governor's Mansion," page 45.
