Brig. Gen. William Polk “Gotch” Hardeman, (CSA)

"Gotch" Hardeman was born in Williamson County, Tennessee, Nov 4, 1816, and moved to Texas in 1835. He took part in the War for Texas Independence and later in the Mexican War serving under Ben McCulloch.

His first Confederate service was as a captain of the 4th Texas Cavalry in Gen Sibley’s expedition into New Mexico Territory resulting in being commended by his superior for his performance at Valverde. He was promoted to lt. Colonel and in 1862 to colonel. He led his command during the Red River campaign of 1864 and the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill and the resulting pursuit of Union Gen. N P Banks. Upon the recommendation of Kirby Smith, he was promoted to brigadier general to rank from March 17, 1865.

After the end of the war and until 1874, Hardeman was planter. He subsequently served as assistant sgt.-at-arms of the Texas house of representatives, a railroad inspector, and during the last years of his life he was superintendent of public building and grounds which was a position that included supervision of the Texas Confederate Soldier’s Home.

Hardeman was twice [sic: three times] married, first to his uncle Bailey's widow Rebecca, and after her death to Sarah Hamilton.

He had two children by the first marriage and five by the second.

He died of Bright's disease on April 8, 1898, and was buried at the State Cemetery in Austin.

William Polk "Old Gotch" Hardeman has the distinction of having served Texas, in either a military or official government position, spanning a period longer than any other Texan. In 1835, within days after he arrived in Texas at the age of eighteen, he became an active participant in the Texas Revolution. When Hardeman died in 1898 at the age of eighty-one, he was still serving Texas--as Superintendent of the Confederate Soldiers Home in Austin.

Born November 4, 1816, William was raised in Hardeman County, Tennessee, named after his grandfather. After attending a term at the University of Nashville, he moved to Texas with his family in the fall of 1835.

With the Alamo under attack early the following year, Hardeman joined a small group under Philip Dimitt responding to William Travis' call for aid. The group headed toward San Antonio to reinforce the Alamo defenders. They were spared certain death at the Battle of the Alamo, however, when they were cut off by Mexican pickets near Gonzales.

During the period of the Republic, Hardeman helped protect Texas' western frontier in 1837 as part of Deaf Smith's company of early Texas Rangers. Over the next few years, he participated in several Indian fights, including the Battle of Plum Creek in 1840.

By the early years of statehood, Hardeman had married, started a family, and established a successful plantation on the banks of the San Marcos River in Guadalupe County. In 1857 and again in 1858, he led 90-100 man gold hunting expeditions into the trans-Pecos region of west Texas, then controlled by Apache Indians.

With the coming of the Civil War, Hardeman was elected to represent Guadalupe County in the state Secession Convention. After the convention, he raised a company of men from Guadalupe and Caldwell Counties, and joined the Sibley Brigade in an ill-fated attempt to take New Mexico and the American west for the Confederacy. By the war's end, Hardeman advanced to the rank of Brigadier General and commanded a brigade in Louisiana.

Unwilling to take the Union oath of allegiance after the war, Hardeman joined other Confederate leaders in self-imposed exile in Mexico. While there, he surveyed lands for the government of Maximilian and briefly attempted to establish a colony of Confederate sympathizers in a section around Guadalajara.

After losing most of his wealth in the war and in an unsuccessful partnership set up to drive Texas longhorns to northern markets, Hardeman served the remainder of his life as a public servant. As such, he held appointments under every governor of Texas during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. As Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds from 1887 until 1895, he was responsible for installing the power plant that provided lighting for the newly completed capitol.

Hardeman died in Austin on April 8, 1898. He is buried in the state cemetery.

http://www.cemetery.state.tx.us/pub/user_form.asp?pers_id=307

HARDEMAN, WILLIAM POLK (1816-1898). William P. (Gotch) Hardeman, Texas Ranger, soldier, and public servant, was born on November 4, 1816, in Williamson County, Tennessee. His father, Thomas Jones Hardeman, was an officer in the War of 1812 and a prominent Texas political figure. Mary (Polk) Hardeman, his mother, was an aunt of James K. Polk. Hardeman attended the University of Nashville and in the fall of 1835 moved to Matagorda County, Texas, with his father and a large group of Hardeman family members.

Immediately after his arrival in Texas he joined the resistance movement against Mexico. He participated in the battle of Gonzales on October 2, 1835. Shortly afterward he assisted his uncle, Bailey Hardeman, and others in bringing a cannon from Dimmitt's Landing to San Antonio for use against Mexican forces under Gen. Martin Perfecto de Cos. Hardeman and his brother Thomas Monroe Hardeman accompanied a small relief column to the Alamo, but the garrison had fallen to Mexican forces shortly before their arrival. The Hardemans abandoned their exhausted horses and after a narrow escape on foot suffered severe hunger. Gotch was then sent by his uncle Bailey on an errand to summon militia. An illness resulting from exposure on this assignment probably kept him from action in the decisive battle of San Jacinto. He subsequently served for a number of years in the Texas Rangers. He accompanied Erastus (Deaf) Smith for four months of ranger duty on the frontier in 1837 and fought in Col. John Henry Moore's ranger force against the Comanches at Wallace's Creek on February 22, 1839. Three months later he participated in the Cordova campaign in East Texas, an aftermath of the Cordova Rebellion.

Hardeman fought the Comanches in the battle of Plum Creek on August 11, 1840. In February 1842 he engaged in harassment of invading Mexican forces led by Gen. Rafael Vasquez. Nine months later he joined the Somervell expedition against Mexico. After the annexation of Texas by the United States, Hardeman served as a member of Benjamin McCulloch's Guadalupe valley rangers in Gen. Zachary Taylor's army. He engaged in the exploration of the Linares, China, and Cerralvo-San Juan River routes to the Mexican stronghold of Monterrey and scouted ahead of Taylor's main invading force. Hardeman's last Mexican War engagements were in the scouting expedition to Encarnacion and the ensuing battle of Buena Vista. Subsequently he went to his Guadalupe County plantation, where he farmed with as many as thirty-one slaves.

Fifteen years later he returned to military life. After voting for secession in 1861 as a member of the Secession Convention, he raised a force from Guadalupe and Caldwell counties, forming the 800-man Company A of Col. Spruce M. Baird's Fourth Texas Cavalry Regiment, part of Henry H. Sibley's New Mexico Brigade. He fought and was twice wounded at Valverde, where he participated in the successful charge against Alexander McRae's battery of artillery (the Valverde Battery), after which he was promoted to regimental major. In April 1862 Hardeman commanded the successful defense of the Confederate supply depot at Albuquerque against Col. Edward R. S. Canby's much larger force and was credited with saving the artillery. After the defeat of Sibley's column, Hardeman was reassigned to the Gulf theater of war. He participated in Gen. Richard Taylor's Red River campaign, which turned back the numerically superior army of Union general Nathaniel P. Banks, and eventually rose to the command of the Fourth Texas Cavalry. After successful campaigns at Yellow Bayou and Franklin, Hardeman was promoted to brigadier general.

After the surrender of Gen. Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, Hardeman, like his cousin Peter Hardeman and thousands of other Confederates, became an exile. He joined a company of fifteen high-ranking officers, eluded Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, and escaped to Mexico. There he served briefly as a battalion commander in Maximilian's army and became a settlement agent for a Confederate colony near Guadalajara. In 1866 he returned to Texas, where he served as inspector of railroads, superintendent of public buildings and grounds, and superintendent of the Texas Confederate Home in Austin. He also helped avert bloodshed in the Coke-Davis controversy of 1873-74 and was one of the founders of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University). Hardeman was twice married, first to his uncle Bailey's widow Rebecca, and after her death to Sarah Hamilton. He had two children by the first marriage and five by the second. He died of Bright's disease on April 8, 1898, and was buried at the State Cemetery in Austin.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth6725/m1/1/ John Henry Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas (Austin: Daniell, 1880; reprod., Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1978). Nicholas P. Hardeman, Wilderness Calling: The Hardeman Family in the American Westward Movement, 1750-1900 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977).

Nicholas P. Hardeman

"HARDEMAN, WILLIAM POLK." https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/hardeman-william-polk The Handbook of Texas Online. [Accessed Fri Feb 14 15:09:23 US/Central 2003].

https://michalfarmer.com/hardeman/page112.html

Children of Thomas Jones Hardeman and Mary W. Polk:

+139. ii. William Polk “Gotch” Hardeman, born 4 November 1816, Williamson County, Tennessee, died 8 May 1898, Austin, Travis County, Texas.558

He married first, in 1840, to Rebecca Wilson Hardeman, widow of his Uncle Bailey Hardeman.

He married second, 29 December 1857, Caldwell County, Texas, to Sarah Ann Hamilton.559

He married third, 5 February 1874, Harris County, Texas, to Mary Collins Campbell.

References

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Polk_Hardeman
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10888/william-polk-hardeman
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_Civil_War_generals_(Confederate)
• http://www.txmosb.org/hardeman.php
• https://www.facebook.com/TracesofTexas/photos/this-is-a-photo-of-wi...
• https://youtu.be/Stac5XZZr2M
• https://michalfarmer.com/hardeman/page112.html cites:
  • 558 Tombstone, State Cemetery, Austin, Texas, Republic Hill Section, Section 1, Row K, Number 28: Gen. William P. Hardeman, born in Williamson County, Tennessee, November 4, 1816, died April 8, 1898.
  • 559 Caldwell County, Texas, Marriage Book C-D, p. 23. Wm. P. Hardeman to Sarah Ann Hamilton, 29 December 1857.
• https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/KNHP-K6X