General J. Pinckney Henderson

HAMPSON GARY

J. Pinckney Henderson, the one hundredth anniversary of
whose inauguration as the first governor of Texas will be cele-
brated early next year, February 19, 1946, was at the time of
his death, in 1858, the acknowledged leader of the Texas bar.
His career was one of the most distinguished and useful in the
entire annals of Texas. While the story of his life reads like
best-seller fiction, it is, in fact, important and authentic history.

Born in Lincoln County, North Carolina, March 31, 1808, the
son of Lawson Henderson and Elizabeth Carruth, he was pre-
pared for college at the Lincoln Academy, attended the Uni-
versity of North Carolina, and began the practice of law in
his native state.

Coming to Texas in 1836 at the head of volunteer troops,
which he had organized and equipped at his own expense, to
fight for the independence of our people, he was commissioned,
by the government ad interim, brigadier general in the army.
A few months later, upon the organization of the permanent
government of the Republic of Texas, President Sam Houston
appointed him attorney-general of the young nation; and in
December, 1836, upon the death of Stephen F. Austin, he was
named secretary of state. His administration of the foreign
affairs of the republic, an important part of the work of the
government in the early years, was marked by vision and skill.

In the latter part of 1837 he was named envoy extraordinary
and minister plenipotentiary to England and to France, and
through his exertions both of these great governments entered
into cordial treaty relations with the new nation.

His eminent talents and noble bearing and the fidelity and zeal with
which he urged the claims of his country to a place among the nations
engaged for him a warm personal consideration. His appeals for the
recognition of that independence which Texas had so nobly achieved fell
in stirring strains upon the proud ears of the great statesmen and diplo-
matists who at that time adorned the courts of St. James and St. Cloud.
It is said that in Paris he was looked upon as a new apparition of Amer-
ican glory, as another Franklin, fresh from the cradle of liberty.

In 1843 General Henderson was made special minister pleni-
potentiary to the United States, being sent to Washington to
negotiate the treaty of annexation. He was successful in his
negotiations in that the President of the United States and his
secretary of state signed the treaty with him; but, as has hap-
pened in modern instances, the Senate of the United States
failed to ratify it. Whereupon, annexation became the leading-
issue in the presidential campaign which was just opening.

Returning to Texas, General Henderson resumed the prac-
tice of law. When the annexation of Texas was consummated,
by a joint resolution passed by the two houses of Congress
instead of by a treaty ratified by the Senate, and a constitutional
convention was called in Texas to frame a state government,
he was elected a member and played a conspicuous part in the
deliberations and writing of the constitution of the new state,
a document which has been acclaimed a model of its kind.

Upon the admission of Texas as a state in the American
Union, General Henderson was elected the first governor of
the new commonwealth and was inaugurated February 19, 1846.
Soon, a requisition was made upon Texas, in consequence of
the Mexican War, for troops to aid General Zachary Taylor.
The troops of Texas were called out, and, by a resolution of
the legislature, Governor Henderson was authorized to assume
their personal command at the battle front, which he did. He
served with distinction and was commissioned major general
in the United States Army. For conspicuous gallantry in the
Battle of Monterey, the Congress of the United States gave him
a vote of thanks and awarded him a jewelled sword of honor,
the prized possession today of his great-grandson. Following
the battle of Monterey, he was named by General Zachary
Taylor one of three commissioners on the part of the American
army to negotiate the articles of surrender of the Mexican
army under General Ampudia, the other commissioners being
General Worth, for whom the Texas city of Fort Worth was
named, and Colonel Jefferson Davis of the First Mississippi
regiment.

Upon his return from the war, General Henderson resumed
the duties of governor, rendering a service of far-reaching
consequence in that early day of beginnings. Declining a second
term, he again resumed the practice of law and through the
years by his ability and eloquence, his high integrity and mag-
netic personality, won the undisputed leadership of the Texas
bar.

In 1857 Henderson was elected, by the unanimous vote of
the Texas legislature, United States Senator. He died the fol-
lowing year in Washington, shortly after reaching his fiftieth
birthday. He was accorded a state funeral in the Senate Cham-
ber in the Capitol, attended by members of the Senate and
House, the President of the United States and his cabinet, the
Diplomatic Corps, Supreme Court of the United States, ranking
officers of the army and navy, and a host of sorrowing friends.
Eulogies were pronounced in Congress by several of the greatest
statesmen of the day. Interment was in the Congressional
Cemetery. Years later the body was taken to Texas and re-
interred with high honors in the State Cemetery in Austin.

General Henderson and Miss Frances Cox, of Philadelphia,
were married in St. George's Church in London, October 30,
1839, while he was in the diplomatic service. The following
year the Hendersons returned to their home in Texas, to their
white-pillared home in San Augustine, where eighteen happy
years were spent and where their children were born. Mrs.
Henderson, educated in Philadelphia and abroad and widely
travelled, was a woman of great accomplishments and charm.
The first chatelaine of the Governor's Mansion in Texas, she
was, from all contemporary accounts, beloved for her qualities
of heart and mind.

In connection with the death of Senator J. Pinckney Hen-
derson, the following may be worthy of note.

Addresses in eulogy of him were delivered in the Senate by:

Sam Houston, of Texas

Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi

John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky-

David S. Reid, of North Carolina

Arthur P. Hayne, of South Carolina

William H. Seward, of New York

Addresses in the House of Representatives were delivered by:

Guy M. Bryan, of Texas

John A. Quitman, of Mississippi

The Committee of Arrangements for the funeral, named by
the Senate, was as follows:

James A. Bayard, of Delaware

Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania

Henry Clay, of Kentucky

Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio

James H. Hammond, of South Carolina

William H. Seward, of New York

Pallbearers, chosen from the Senate, were:

Albert G. Brown, of Mississippi

James F. Simmons, of Rhode Island

Thomas L. Clingman, of North Carolina

Lyman Trumbull, of Illinois

Graham N. Pitch, of Indiana

Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts

At a time when sectional feelings ran high one seeking
absolute impartiality in appraisal might discount what was
said of Senator Henderson from the Southern side; so the
following is given--a part of the remarks of William H. Seward,
Senator from New York.

If anything on this occasion has seemed to me more worthy of remark
than another, it is, that although Senator Henderson was yet a young
man, he had been a most successful and fortunate man, and, at the same
time, a type of the public man of America. In listening to the eulogiums
which have been pronounced upon him, I have been surprised as they
have followed him from the bar to the head of a brigade, from the head
of a brigade into the cabinet of his State, from the cabinet into a foreign
mission, from the foreign mission back to the bar, from the bar, flushed
with success, transferred again to the diplomatic corps--the ambassador
of his State to foreign lands, the ambassador of his State to form a union
with the United States--thence back again to the bar, then a member of
the constitutional convention -to frame the organic law for his State, then
the Governor of that yet new but already great State, then a major
general in the Federal service, and, finally, a Senator in the Congress of
the United States. It is a singular and a successful career for a revo-
lutionary man, a man who has spent his whole life in revolutionary times.
It was his felicity, one which rarely happens to revolutionary men, that
he did not survive either the fortune of his State or its favor.

How to cite:
Hampson Gary, "General J. Pinckney Henderson", Volume 49, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v049/n2/contrib_DIVL3917.html
[Accessed Sat Mar 20 14:22:02 CDT 2010]