Biographies - Dr. Robert Henry Harrison, Sr.

.             Robert Henry Harrison was born in Gainesville, Georgia, November 13th, 1826. He is the son of Dr. Jesse Harison and Margaret Hulci. His father was from Fairfax, Virginia, and his mother a Georgia lady by birth. He received his literary education at Clarksville, Tennessee, and at John Tyler's high school in Logan county, Kentucky. He studied medicine with his father in Nashville, Tennessee, and at Hickman, Kentucky; attended three courses of medical lectures in Cincinnati in 1845-6-7 and 8. He did not take out his degree at that time, however, but continued to read under his father's instruction. He engaged in practice in Troy, Clarksville and Memphis, Tennessee, from 1846 to 1855. He came to Texas in 1869 and located at Columbus, his present place of residence. He attended lectures again and graduated at the Alabama Medical College, in 1873.

         Dr. Harrison has never taken a specialty, but has done a general practice of medicine and surgery. He is a member or the Texas State Medical Association, of which body he was President in 1876. He has repeatedly represented the Association as delegate to the American Medical Association.

         On the breaking out of the war in 1860, Dr. Harrison entered the Confederate States service and raised a company of heavy artillery in Shelby and Tipton counties, Tennessee, which company was disbanded after the fall of Island No. 10, and its members recruited into other arms of the service. Was elected Captain of Company B, 9th Tennessee Infantry, and served with that command until after the battle of Murfreesboro, in 1863. He was then recommended for promotion and ordered to report to General Pemberton in Mississippi. He was then placed in command of a regiment of conscripts and ordered to operate in West Tennessee, then occupied by Federal troops. He was captured in June of that year and lay in a Federal prison twenty-one months, during which time he did regular volunteer hospital service to his fellow prisoners. While in prison promotion to the rank of Colonel of cavaly was conferred upon him and upon being exchanged he was ordered to report to General Forrest in Mississippi. On his way to General Forrest he was put on duty by General Adams at Montgomery, Alabama, and was assigned to the command of a brigade of Alabama reserves. They fell back to Columbus, Georgia, before the Federal General Wilson with his twenty thousand troops, and fought 800 muskets against him at Girard, Alabama. This was the last battle of the war east of the Mississippi river. Eighteen months of his prison life was at Johnson's Island at Sandusky City.

         Dr. Harrison has been a liberal contributor to medical literature. Among his published papers may be mentioned "A Brief Review of the Practice of Hydropathy, with some remarks on the Use of Water as a Therapeutic Agent," -in the Memphis Medical Journal, Nos. 8, 9 and 10; "A History of the Epidemic of 1876 in Columbus, Texas;" "Report of a Plan for a State Board of Health," 1874; "Report of Committee on the Epidemic of 1873 in Calvert, Denison and Columbus, and an additional report on a Plan for a State Board of Health," in 1875, published in the Transactions of the State Medical Association.

         He was married May 5th, 1855, to Miss Martha V. Towell; has two sons, Dr. R. H. Harrison, Jr., and John Whitworth Harrison, both of whom reside in Columbus; and four daughters, three of whom are married, to-wit: Mrs. M. V. Sandmeyer, Columbus, and Mrs. Nell D. Knox, Hallettsville, Mrs. Maggie Littlefield, Columbus ; and Miss Marry L,. Harrison, who lives with her father.

         Though quite advanced in years, Dr. Harrison is still hale, hearty and capable of an immense amount of work. He is one of the most active and useful members of the State Medical Association.