William Edgar Hughes

William Edgar Hughes (March 15, 1840 – July 29, 1918) was an American politician from Texas.

Biography Hughes was a Jacksonville, Illinois, native, born to parents John and Eliza on March 15, 1840. He graduated from Illinois College and started reading law.

In 1859, Hughes drove 3,000 sheep from Missouri to Texas, and chose to stay. He settled in Dallas County, raising sheep. Hughes was visiting family in Illinois when Texas seceded from the Union in 1861. Upon his return to Texas, Hughes enlisted in an artillery battery led by John Jay Good, and later by James Postell Douglas. Fighting alongside the Confederate Army of Tennessee, Hughes's battery saw action throughout the Western Theater of the American Civil War. He was injured in the left hand during the Battle of Chickamauga. By the Atlanta campaign, Hughes had been promoted to captain, and transferred to the cavalry brigade led by Benjamin J. Hill. In January 1865, Hughes became commander of the Thirteenth Confederate States Cavalry. Following the end of the American Civil War, Hughes settled in Weatherford, Texas.

Hughes was a schoolteacher for five months, then ran a salt works in Shackelford County. He continued his legal studies, and was later admitted to the bar. Hughes married Fort Worth native Annie C. Peete on November 21, 1867, and they had one daughter.