Hanson was born on May 1, 1865, in
San Rafael, California. He graduated thirty-fourth in a class of sixty-four from the
United States Military Academy (USMA) at
West Point, New York, in June 1887. Among his classmates included several men who would later rise to the rank of brigadier general or higher in their military careers. They included:
Charles B. Wheeler,
Edward C. Young,
Richmond P. Davis,
Edgar Russel,
George O. Squier,
Ernest Hinds,
George W. Gatchell,
Charles H. Martin,
P. D. Lochridge,
Nathaniel F. McClure,
William C. Rivers,
William Weigel,
Herman Hall,
Marcus D. Cronin,
Alexander L. Dade,
Charles S. Farnsworth,
Charles Gerhardt,
James T. Dean,
Ulysses G. McAlexander,
Edmund Wittenmyer,
Frederic D. Evans,
Michael J. Lenihan,
Mark L. Hersey and
Frank H. Albright. Hanson was commissioned into the
19th Infantry Regiment, and he did frontier duty from 1887 to 1890. He graduated from the
Infantry and Cavalry School in 1891. During the
Spanish–American War, Hanson served in
Cuba and
Puerto Rico, and he went to the Philippines shortly thereafter. Hanson taught at the USMA from 1901 to 1905 as an assistant professor of modern languages. He then graduated from the Army School of the Line and the Army Staff College between 1910 and 1912. Hanson was promoted to the rank of
brigadier general on August 5, 1917, after the
American entry into World War I. He assumed command of the 178th Infantry Brigade, part of the
89th Infantry Division, first at
Camp Funston and later in
France, where he led it in numerous battles, including the
Battle of Saint-Mihiel and the
Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Hanson briefly commanded the entire 89th Division from December 24 to 27, 1917. Hanson retired on January 4, 1919, at his permanent rank of
colonel. He lived in
San Francisco and died in
Oakland, California, on May 23, 1945, shortly after the
end of World War II in Europe. ==Personal life==