Edward Clark (governor)

Edward Clark ( born April 1, 1815 in New Orleans, Louisiana; † May 4, 1880 in Marshall, Texas ) was an American politician (Democratic Party), and the eighth Governor of the State of Texas.

Clark was born in 1815 in Louisiana as the son of Elijah Clark, Jr., a brother of John Clark, the governor of Georgia from 1819 to 1823. His father died in the early 1830s and he and his mother moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where he studied law and was admitted as a lawyer. In 1840 he married Lucy Long, but died a few months later. In 1841 he moved to Texas and opened a law office in Marshall. In 1849 he married Martha Melissa Evans, with whom he had four children.

In 1845 he was a delegate in Texas and a member of the House of Representatives and State Senator during the second term. Clark fought under James Wilson Henderson Tex- Mexican War, and also in the Battle of Monterrey. 1853 to 1857 he was Secretary of State under Governor Elisha M. Pease, then vice governor. On March 18, 1861, he was the successor of Sam Houston governor of Texas and remained until the 7th of November of the same year in office. His successor was Francis Lubbock.

After leaving his post as governor, he was Colonel in the Confederate Army and leader of the 14th Texan Infantry Regiment. At the battle of Pleasant Hill he was wounded in the leg and took the rank of brigadier-general retired from the army, which, however, was not confirmed by the military leadership in Richmond. With the end of the Civil War, he fled, like many other civilian and military leaders from the Southwest, to Mexico. He stayed there only for a short time and returned to Marshall. After several business ventures, he worked until his death in 1880 in his law practice.