William Robert Hamby

He moved from Tennessee to Austin, TX with his mother when his father died, about 1851. He served briefly in the Austin City Light Infantry (Carter's Company) in April 1861, then, on 11 July 1861, giving his age as 21 (he was almost 17), occupation student, he enlisted at Camp Clark in Guadalupe County as a Private in Company B, 4th Texas Infantry. He was wounded at 2nd Manassas on 30 August 1862.

He was wounded in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was discharged for disability on 4 November 1862 in Richmond, VA.

He was in Austin to 1866, when he returned to his native Tennessee and attended Cumberland University in Lebanon for a year. He was then a journalist and a founder of the Tennessee Press Association. He married in September 1869 in Weakley County, TN and by 1870 he was an attorney in Paris, TN. He served as the state's Adjutant General (1875-79) and was afterwards routinely addressed as General. In 1880 he was the superintendent of the state prison in Nashville.

He returned to Austin, TX in 1882 and edited and was part owner of the Daily Statesman. He was elected to the state legislature in 1888, was Cashier of the American National Bank from 1890 to 1906, and afterward president of the Citizens Bank and Trust Company.

He was active in veterans organizations like the Hood's Texas Brigade Monument Committee (1910) and the Hood's Texas Brigade Association.

Service information from Polley,1 who says he was disabled at Sharpsburg, and his Compiled Service Records,2 as R.W. Hamby, via fold3. Personal details from a bio sketch in the Handbook of Texas, family genealogists, and the US Census for 1870-1910. His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture is from a carte de visite in the Lawrence T. Jones III Texas photography collection at Southern Methodist University, Dallas; it was probably taken late-war, judging by his apparent age.

He married 3 times; first to Mary Smith Morris (1848-1876) in September 1869 - they had 2 sons; next, Mary Frances Burns (1855-1900) in November 1876, 2 children; lastly, Katherine "Kate" Bremond (1855-1939) in 1901.

There's an excellent photograph of him taken about 1906, across from his bio in F.B. Chilton's Unveiling and Dedication of the Monument to Hood's Texas Brigade (1911) [online from the Hathi Trust].

See a small collection of Hamby artifacts over on the blog.

07/24/1844; Paris, TN

01/23/1915; Austin, TX; burial in Mount Calvary Cemetery, Austin, TX