Colonel Rogers, Mrs. Houston's “cousin”?

Recently, a Sandbar column told of the Sam Houston son, William “Willi” Rogers Houston, and that he was named after a “favorite cousin of his mother.” That “favorite cousin” was Colonel William P. Rogers, a well-known Texas lawyer, soldier, law professor at Baylor University and Sam’s personal attorney.

It is easy to say you have a “favorite cousin.” Trying to prove that Mrs. Houston and Colonel Rogers were “favorite cousins” has, at this time, turned out to be a genealogical zero. Another source also claimed they were “first cousins.” Even the Portal of Texas, who has an early book on Rogers’ speech at Baylor claiming they were “first cousins,” could not find any familial connection. Searches of Ancestry.com and Family Search have come up blank.

So, it would not be unlikely for the two to strike up a friendship wherein they called each other “favorite cousins” and the phrase became historically stuck.

A quick review of Rogers life in Texas makes him stand out among early Texans. Rogers was born Dec. 27, 1819 in Georgia during a visit there by his parents who were living in Alabama. The family later settled on a plantation in Monroe County, Mississippi.

Young Rogers first attended and graduated from a Kentucky medical college and began practicing medicine in Mississippi. He soon began studying law on his own and editing a pro-Whig Party newspaper.

In January 1840 he married Martha Halbert from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and in 1842 was admitted to the Mississippi state bar to begin practicing law. With the onset of the Mexican War, Rogers was eager to get involved and became a captain in command of Company K of the 1st Mississippi Volunteer Infantry Regiment, known as the Mississippi Rifles, that was commanded by Jefferson Davis. Soon he was in northern Mexico with General Zachary Taylor’s army seeing action at Monterrey.

Rogers soon tired of a soldier’s life, but then President Taylor’s appointed him as United States Consul at the Port of Veracruz. His wife with six children refused to go to Veracruz and he soon resigned to rejoin his family at Washington-on-the-Brazos. He quickly gained prominence as a defense attorney. About 1857, at nearby Independence, Rogers began to donate time teaching law at Baylor University. His children eventually became Baylor graduates.

During these years Rogers became a close friend of Sam Houston representing him as a lawyer. By 1859 he moved his family to Houston where he became a Democrat fearful of the North’s growing anti-slavery movement. He supported Houston in his governor’s race of 1859 and Houston’s presidential ambitions for 1860.

With Abraham Lincoln’s presidential election in 1860 it prompted Rogers to join the radical pro-slavery secessionists. He was among those demanding Houston’s compliance to secede. As we know, Governor Houston defied secession and was deposed as governor.

Rogers would serve the Confederacy as a Lt. Colonel of the 2nd Texas Infantry. After the Battle of Shiloh, he was promoted to full Colonel. At the strategic railroad hub at Corinth, Mississippi, Rogers was killed by multiple rifle shots in 1862. He was buried on a hill overlooking the battlefield where a United Daughters of the Confederacy later dedicated a white marble obelisk in 1912.

(Written by Betty Dunn, Two Rivers Heritage Foundation. See www.tworiversheritagefoundation.org for more info and membership).