During a period of 1864, Colonel Harrison was in command at Florence, S. C., where he built a stockade for twenty-five thousand federal prisoners, who were so humanely cared for by the young commander, as to excite the attention of General Sherman, who, when he captured Savannah, ascertained where the Harrison home was, as the family was now residing in that city, and issued a general order to his troops respecting its special protection. In 1864 the brigade which Colonel Harrison commanded was sent, together with that of General Colquitt's, to turn back the invasion of the federal General Seymour, in Florida, the object of Seymour being to isolate Florida from the rest of the Confederacy. Colonel Harrison shared in the honors won by General Colquitt in the decisive battle at Olustee, and was at once commissioned a brigadier, being, it is said, the youngest general in the army. He was not quite twenty-three years old when he received his commission as a brigadier general. His brigade became a part of Walthall's division, Stewart's corps. On the retirement of the Confederates before Sherman into the Carolinas, the task was assigned to General Harrison of covering the retreat of Hardee. General Harrison shared in the closing scenes of the drama in the Carolinas, was twice wounded, and once had a horse killed under him. He had just passed his twenty-fourth birthday when his command surrendered at Greensboro, N. C. While in camp General Harrison applied himself to the study of the law as his prospective profession, to the practice of which he was admitted soon after the close of hostilities. Removing to Alabama, he located first at Auburn, and later removed to Opelika, where he has since resided. Elected commandant at the Alabama University, he accepted, after first declining the position, after retiring from which he was made commandant at the state agricultural college, as it was then called, at Auburn. After a year of service there he abandoned all else and devoted himself to his practice. His service for the public was soon in demand, and in 1875 he was chosen a member of the constitutional convention of Alabama, serving in the same capacity, in his adopted state, in which his honored father was serving at the same time in Georgia. Then followed his election to the state senate, in 1880, he becoming the president of that body in '82, serving two years. In '92 he was chosen a delegate to the national Democratic convention, and in '94 was chosen to fill the unexpired term in congress of the Honorable W. C. Oates, who had become governor, the district indicating at the same time his choice to succeed himself two years later.