J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton

Joseph Grégoire de Roulhac Hamilton was born in Hillsborough. He was educated at home, then entered the Sewanee Academy in Tennessee. He attended the University of the South and received an M.A. degree in 1900. In 1901 he taught at the Horner Military School in Oxford. In 1902 he attended Columbia University, and received a Ph.D. degree in American history in 1906.

In 1906 he became associate professor of history at The University of North Carolina, where he stayed until his retirement in 1948. In 1908 he became Alumni Professor and head of the History Department. Also that year, he married Mary Cornelia Thompson, with whom he had two sons, and with whom he coauthored The Life of Robert E. Lee for Boys and Girls (1917). In 1914, his first book, Reconstruction in North Carolina, was published. During World War I, he participated in the educational programs of the War Department. In 1920 he became Kenan Professor of History and Government. In 1930 he resigned as head of the History Department in order to establish the university's Southern Historical Collection. In 1932, he was awarded the Columbia University Medal of Honor. In 1936, he retired from teaching and worked on the collection full-time.

Over the course of his career, he wrote hundreds of articles and biographical sketches. In addition to his own books, he wrote chapters for other books, and edited fourteen volumes of documentary sources, including the correspondence and papers of Jonathan Worth, Thomas Ruffin, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Randolph A. Shotwell, and William A. Graham. From 1908-1924 he was the editor of the James Sprunt Historical Publications.