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Military Service: Army

War(s) Served:  Civil War

A native of Georgia, EDWARD CLARK moved with his mother to Montgomery, Alabama after his father's death, attending common schools and studying law. He relocated to Texas in 1842 and served on the staff of General (and later governor) James Pinckney Henderson during the Mexican War. He was a member of the Texas Constitutional Convention of 1845, and served in the First Texas House of Representatives and the Second Texas Senate. He went on to become Secretary of State for Texas from 1853 to 1857, was appointed Texas State Commissioner of Claims in 1858, and served as Lieutenant Governor from 1859 until 1861. When Governor Sam Houston refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate States after Texas's secession from the Union, Clark succeeded to the governorship for the remaining eight months of Houston's term. During the Civil War, he raised the Fourteenth Texas Infantry for service with the Confederate Army and rose to the rank of Brigadier General. He fled to Mexico after the Civil War but returned to Marshall, Texas and resumed his law practice. He died on May 4, 1880, and was buried in Marshall.

Sources:

Sobel, Robert, and John Raimo, eds. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789-1978, Vol. 4. Westport, CT: Meckler Books, 1978. 4 vols.

The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. 9. New York: James T. White & Company.

Texas State Library & Archives Commission

Governors of Texas, 1846-present