Hilliard, Henry W.

Born: 1808-08-04 Fayetteville, North Carolina

Died: 1892-12-17 Atlanta, Georgia

Hilliard graduated from South Carolina College in 1826. He studied law and moved to Athens, Georgia, where he earned admittance to the bar in 1829. Hilliard married Mary Bedell in 1830 and they had three sons. He worked as a professor at the University of Alabama in 1831, until he resigned in 1834. He moved to Montgomery, Alabama and practiced law. Hilliard won election to the Alabama House of Representatives serving from 1836-38. He served as a member of the Whig National Convention in 1839 and a Whig presidential elector in 1840. He was an unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Congress in 1840. Hilliard served as chargé d’affaires to Belgium from 1842-44. He won election, as a Whig, to the U.S. House of Representatives serving from 1845-51. Hilliard served as a presidential elector on the National American ticket in 1856. Hilliard served as a brigadier general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He moved to Augusta, Georgia and resumed practicing law in 1865. Hilliard earned appointment by Jefferson Davis as confederate commissioner to Tennessee.

Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 1216; Gravestone, Oakwood Cemetery, Montgomery, AL; Paul M. Pruitt, Jr., "Hilliard, Henry Washington," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 10:815-17.