ROBERTS, Oran Milo, governor of Texas, born in Laurens district, South Carolina, 9 July, 1815. He was graduated at the University of Alabama in 1836, studied law, began to practise, and served in the Alabama legislature in 1839-'40. Removing to Texas in 1841, he was appointed district-attorney in 1844 and district judge in 1846, holding this office for five years. In 1857 he was elected to the supreme bench as associate justice, which post he held until the beginning of the civil war in 1861. He was elected president of the Secession convention, and was colonel of a regiment in the Confederate army from 1862 till August, 1864, when he was called from the field to become chief justice of the supreme court. In 1866 he was elected to the United States senate, but was not allowed to take his seat. From 1868 till 1874 he taught law in private schools. In 1874 and 1876 he was again elected chief justice of the Texas supreme court. He was governor of Texas from 1879 till 1883, in which year he was made professor of law in the University of Texas, which post he now (1888) holds. He has published a description of Texas entitled "Governor Roberts's Texas" (St. Louis, 1881).