Hon. Robert U. Hardeman

No man in Georgia is better known than Hon. Robert U. Hardeman, the state treasurer. He is the healthy embodiment of fine sense and good humor, and during his period of service he has made, perhaps, the best record of any treasurer who has ever had charge of the state's money.

The subject of this sketch was born in Macon, Bibb County, Georgia, on Nov. 22, 1838. His father, Thomas Hardeman, was born in Oglethorpe County, near Lexington, in 1800. Moving to Macon he engaged in the commission business, and continued to follow the pursuit of merchandising until his death in 1865. The grandfather of Mr. Hardeman, whose name was John Hardeman, was born in Pennsylvania, but after reaching mature manhood came south with his two brothers, one locating in Tennessee, one in Georgia, and one in Texas.

The boyhood of Mr. Hardeman was spent amid the cultured surroundings of the beautiful city of Macon. He attended the private schools of that city, chiefly the one taught by Gen. James Armstrong, of West Point, and Marvin M. Mason. His father being a man of liberal means felt it to be his duty to give his children a thorough education, and for this reason Robert, as soon as he was sufficiently advanced was sent to Emory College, Oxford, Georgia. He was graduated from this institution with the degrees of A. B. and A. M. in 1859. Among his classmates were Rev. Atticus G. Haygood, bishop of the southern Methodist church; Dr. I. S. Hopkins, formerly President of Emory College, and ex-president of the Technological school, and Col. McArnold, of the Sixth Georgia Regiment of Infantry, who was killed at Petersburg.

Immediately after leaving college Mr. Hardeman was united in marriage to Miss Eugenia Morrelle, the daughter of George W. Morrelle, a successful ante-bellum merchant of Covington, Georgia. He went into his father-in-law’s store as a partner in the business and continued in this enterprise until the war broke out, and he entered the Confederate Army in May, 1861.

He enlisted in the Second Georgia Battalion and went out as a private in the Floyd Rifles, organized in Macon in 1845. This company was known as Company C of the battalion. After a gallant service of twelve months he re-enlisted in the Forty-fifth Georgia Regiment, commanded by his brother, Col. Thomas Hardeman. He served as a private under this command for one year, after which he was made assistant quartermaster. At the time of the surrender he was acting as adjutant of his regiment.

After the war he returned to Covington, but remained for only a short while. He then went to Macon, where he became bookkeeper for Hardeman & Sparks, cotton factors, remaining with them until 1876, when he was employed as bookkeeper in the office of Comptroller W. L. Goldsmith until 1884. He then entered the race for state treasurer and was elected for a term of two years. He has held that position ever since in the full confidence of the eople of Georgia. The popularity of Mr. Hardeman with all classes in the state is explained by his genial and attractive social qualities and by his rugged honesty. He is known from Dade to Chatham as "Uncle Bob," and he seems to enjoy this familiar distinction. Mr Hardeman is the president of the Southern Home Loan and Building Association. His home since 1877 has been at Oxford, Georgia, about forty miles from Atlanta, on the Georgia railroad. He is fond of his home and makes the trip back and forth daily.

Mr. Hardeman has five living children, three sons and two daughters. His friends all over Georgia unite in the wish that his robust health may long continue and that Georgia for many years to come will reap the benefit of his patriotic and jealous guardianship of the people's money.

Source: Memoirs of Georgia, Containing historical accounts of the states civil, military, industrial and professional interests and personal sketches of many of it’s people, Volume II, The Southern Historical Association, Atlanta, Georgia, 1895.

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