Edmund J . Davis Edmund Jackson Davis ( October 2 , 1827February 7 , 1883 ) was an American lawyer , soldier , and politician . He was a Southern Unionist and a general in the Union Army in the American Civil War . He also served for one term from 1870 to 1874 as the 14th Governor of Texas . Early years . Davis was born in St . Augustine , Florida , a son of William Godwin Davis and the former Mary Ann Channer . His father was a lawyer and land developer in St . Augustine , the oldest permanent settlement in the United States . In 1848 , after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo , Davis moved with his parents to Galveston , Texas . The next year , Davis moved to Corpus Christi , where he was admitted to the bar . He was an inspector and deputy collector of customs from 1849 to 1853 , when he was appointed district attorney of the 12th Judicial District , which included Webb County in south Texas . He then became a judge in that district . The 1850 census has Davis living on Grant Street in downtown Laredo , the seat of Webb County . Davis , three carpenters , and a laborer were residing , apparently in a boarding house , with Tomasa Benavides and her children when the census was taken that year . He subsequently maintained a ranch in Webb County and conducted his law practice in Laredo . For a time he was a judge of the state 29th Judicial District . Civil War years . In early 1861 , Edmund Davis supported Governor Sam Houston in their mutual stand against secession . Davis also urged Robert E . Lee not to violate his oath of allegiance to the United States . Davis ran to become a delegate to the Secession Convention but was defeated . He thereafter refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederate States of America and was removed from his judgeship . He fled from Texas and took refuge in Union - occupied New Orleans , Louisiana . He next sailed to Washington , D . C . , where President Abraham Lincoln issued him a colonel ' s commission with the authority to recruit the 1st Texas Cavalry Regiment ( Union ) . Davis recruited his regiment from Union men who had fled from Texas to Louisiana . The regiment would see considerable action during the remainder of the war . On November 10 , 1864 , President Lincoln appointed Davis as a brigadier general of volunteers . Lincoln did not submit Davis ' s nomination to this grade to the U . S . Senate until December 12 , 1864 . The U . S . Senate confirmed the appointment on February 14 , 1865 . Davis was among those present when General Edmund Kirby Smith surrendered the Confederate forces in Texas on June 2 , 1865 . Davis was mustered out of the volunteers on August 24 , 1865 . Post war . Following the end of the war , Davis became a member of the 1866 Texas Constitutional Convention . He supported the rights of freed slaves and urged the division of Texas into several Republican - controlled states . In 1869 , he was narrowly elected governor against Andrew Jackson Hamilton , a Unionist Democrat . As a Radical Republican during Reconstruction , his term in office was controversial . His opponents accused him of institutionalizing his political opponents , suppressing newspapers in violation of the First Amendment , and denying enfranchisement to regular Republicans . On July 22 , 1870 , the Texas State Police came into being to combat crime statewide in Texas . It worked against racially - based crimes , and included black police officers , which caused protest from former slaveowners ( and future segregationists ) . Davis created the " State Guard of Texas " and the " Reserve Militia " , which were forerunners of the Texas National Guard . Davis ' government was marked by a commitment to the civil rights of African Americans . One of his protégés was Norris Wright Cuney of Galveston , who continued the struggle for equality until his own death in 1896 and is honored as one of the important figures in Texas and American black history . Though Davis was highly unpopular among former Confederates , and most material written about him for many years was unfavorable , he was considered to have been a hero for the Union Army and gained the respect and friendship of Spanish - speaking residents on the Rio Grande frontier . In 1873 , Davis was defeated for reelection by Democrat Richard Coke ( 42 , 633 votes to 85 , 549 votes ) in an election marked by irregularities . Davis contested the results and refused to leave his office on the ground floor of the Capitol . Democratic lawmakers and Governor - elect Coke reportedly had to climb ladders to the Capitol ' s second story where the legislature convened . When President Grant refused to send troops to the defeated governor ' s rescue , Davis reluctantly left the capital in January 1874 . He locked the door to the governor ' s office and took the key , forcing Coke ' s supporters to break in with an axe . John Henninger Reagan helped to oust him after he tried to stay in office beyond the end of his term . Davis was the last Republican governor of Texas until Bill Clements defeated the Democrat John Luke Hill in 1978 and assumed the position the following January , some 105 years after Davis vacated the office . Davis ran for governor again in 1880 but was soundly defeated . His name was placed in nomination for Vice President of the United States at the 1880 Republican National Convention , which met in Chicago and chose James A . Garfield as the standard - bearer . Had he succeeded , he might have wound up in the White House as did the man who received the vice presidential nomination that year , Chester A . Arthur . Davis lost an election for the United States House of Representatives in 1882 . He was nominated to be collector of customs at Galveston but declined the appointment because he disliked U . S . President Rutherford B . Hayes . Edmund J . Davis died in 1883 and was given a war hero ' s burial at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin . A large gravestone was placed there in Davis ' honor by a brother . Davis was survived by his wife , the former Anne Elizabeth Britton ( whose father , Forbes Britton , had been chief of staff to Texas Governor Sam Houston ) , and two sons , Britton ( a West Point graduate and military officer ) , and Waters ( an attorney and merchant in El Paso ) .