Murrah's birth date and birth location vary from source to source. Some have him born in 1824; others give his birth year as 1826. According to his 1850 and 1860 entries in the U.S. Census, Murrah was a native of
Alabama. His birthplace is sometimes listed as
South Carolina, but more recent sources indicate he was born in
Bibb County and was the illegitimate son of Peggy Murrah, a daughter of Charles and Avarilla Jones Murrah. He was raised and educated in a Baptist orphanage, and graduated from
Brown University in 1848. He then studied law and was admitted to the bar in Alabama, before moving to Texas in 1850, opening a law practice in
Marshall. Murrah first ran for a seat in the
Texas House of Representatives in 1855, but lost. He was then successfully elected to the state legislature in 1857, and also served on the executive committee of the
Texas Democratic Party. Following the secession of Texas from the United States, in 1861 he considered running for a seat in the
Confederate Congress, but declined because of ill health. Murrah suffered from
tuberculosis which affected him all of his adult life. At the outbreak of the
American Civil War, he accepted a commission in the
14th Texas Infantry, a
Confederate Army unit commanded by former governor
Edward Clark, but he had to resign his commission due to his poor health. ==Texas governor==