Civil War Confederate Brigadier General, Texas Governor. Born Bentonsport, Iowa, he relocated to Texas with his parents when he was an infant. After he graduated from Wesleyan University in Alabama, Sam Houston appointed him a Captain of a company of Texas Rangers. At the start of the Civil War, he joined the Confederate Army as a Private and quickly rose through the ranks to Colonel in command of the 6th Texas Cavalry. He took part in numerous western campaigns, including Pea Ridge, Corinth, Vicksburg, was promoted Brigadier General in December, 1863 and commanded a brigade in the Atlanta Campaign. After the war, he served as Sheriff of McLennan County and was a member of Texas State Senate in 1880. In 1886, he was elected Governor of Texas and served until 1891.
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Lawrence Sullivan Ross, familiarly called "Sul" Ross, was one of the distinguished citizens of Texas. He was born at Benton's Port, Iowa, in 1838, and was quite small when his parents came to this state. He was educated in Baylor University at Waco and in Wesleyan University at Florence, Alabama. In 1858 he returned from the latter institution, being prompted by a desire to take part in the conflict against the Indians, who were then becoming very hostile in northwestern Texas. He assembled a company of one hundred and twenty-five men and hastened to the support of Major Van Dorn, who was leading the Second United States Cavalry against the Comanches; and, with Van Dorn, played a prominent part in the battle of Wichita, in which both he and Van Dorn were wounded. After his recovery young Ross went back to Florence and resumed his studies in the University and graduated in 1859. Returning home and still anxious to fight, he joined the Texas Rangers. He was elected captain, and in 1860 with a company of sixty rangers, in an action at the head of Pease River, he severely defeated the Comanches, killing Peta Nocona, the last of the great Comanche chiefs, and capturing all the effects of the red men, including a captive white woman. Cynthia Ann Parker (mother of Quanah Parker), who had been stolen by the Comanches in 1836 and had become the wife of an Indian chief. This woman was restored to civilization. For his achievement in this engagement he was by Governor Houston made aide-de-camp, with the rank of colonel.
In 1861 he entered the Confederate service as a private in Company G, Sixth Texas Cavalry, his company being commanded by his brother, Captain (later Colonel) P. F. Ross. Soon afterward Sullivan Ross was made a major in this regiment, and in May, 1862, was elected its colonel. Following brave and distinguished services in turning back, while at the head of about a thousand men, a force of over ten thousand Union soldiers on a raid just after the battle of Corinth, Mississippi, Colonel Ross was, on October 3, 1863, on the recommendation of General Joseph E. Johnston, made a brigadier-general, in which capacity he served till the close of the war. In 1875 General Ross was elected sheriff of McLennan county, Texas, and was a member of the Texas Constitutional Convention which was held that year. He was a member of the state senate from 1881 to 1883, and in 1886 was elected governor. To this high office he was re-elected in 1888, and early in 1891, on retiring from the governor's chair, he was made president of the A. and M. College, he being the first to occupy that position, which he held until the time of his death. He married Elizabeth D. Tinsley, of Waco, and they became the parents of seven children: Mervin (deceased), Florine, Lawrence S., Harvey R., Frank, Bessie and Neville. (A History of Central and Western Texas, Vol 1, Captain B. B. Paddock, The Lewis Publishing Company, New York, 1911