Isham Green Harris - Tennessee State Museum

Tennessee State Museum

Record No:	76.43
Subject:	Harris, Isham Green
Artist:	Cooper, Washington
Date:	Unknown.
Media:	Oil on canvas.
Dimensions:	35.50 X 28.50
Location:	TN State Museum 505 Deadrick Street. Nashville, TN 37243 Web Contact: TN State Museum

History:	The artist is Washington Cooper.
Notes:	Isham Green Harris (1818-1897) was born near Tullahoma, grew up to clerk in a store and later opened his own business. He studied law and in 1847 was elected to the state senate. After serving that term and two in the state house he was elected governor in 1857, and re-elected in 1859 and 1861. Under his administration TN seceded from the Union, the last state to do so. When Abraham Lincoln asked for soldiers to force the Confederate states back into the Union, Harris refused. When Lincoln appointed Andrew Johnson military governor in 1862, Harris, still nominally governor, served on the staffs of Confederate generals Albert Sidney Johnston and Joseph H. Johnston. After the war, he fled to Mexico, then England, returning to serve in Congress for twenty years and he died in 1897. The Tennessee Blue Book.
Categories:	Portrait paintings; Civil War; Governors; Generals; Men.