CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY: THOS. J. DEVINE  - Bexar Co, TX

***************************************************************** 
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm

Submitted by Doris Peirce - ginlu@charter.net 
20 January 2002 
************************************************************** 
TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson 
THOS. J. DEVINE

Thomas J. Devine, of San Antonio, was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 
Feb. 28, 1820, and was of Irish parentage.  He was educated in 
Tallahassee, Florida, and then for three years studied law in the 
celebrated Transylvania University at Lexington, Ky., graduating 
in the same class with Frank Blair and James B.  Clay, in 1843.  
Receiving a law license from the supreme court of Kentucky he came 
to Texas and located at LaGrange, but a few months later removed 
to San Antonio where he resided ever afterward.  He was city 
attorney of San Antonio from 1844 to 1851; resigning the latter 
year he was elected district judge and re elected in 1856.  Upon 
the outbreak of the war in 1861 he was appointed Confederate 
States Judge for the western district of Texas.  He had been a 
delegate to the Secession Convention and on the committee of 
public safety.  He was one of the committeemen who demanded of and 
received from Gen. Twiggs of the U. S. Army the surrender of 
government arms and ammunition and the removal of federal troops 
from Texas.  In 1863, at the request of Gen. E. Kirby Smith, he 
proceeded to Mexico and amicably arranged in the interest of the 
Confederate government the threatened troubles with the Mexican 
government.  He was one of the most efficient judges and 
diplomatists the Cionfederacy had.  After the war he was twice 
indicted by the U. S. government for high treason and confined 
for several months in the federal prison at Fort Jackson, La.  He 
was afterward a justice of the Supreme Court of Texas for several 
years.  In Nov. 1844 he married Miss Helen Ann Elder of LaGrange.  
Their son, Col. Albert E. Devine, was captain in First Texas 
Infantry, U. S. Volunteers, during the Spanish American war, and 
is now Qurartermaster General of Texas, with headquarters in the
capitol building in Austin.  Judge Devine died many years ago and 
is buried in San Antonio.