Born in Caroline County, Virginia, Coleman left home at the age of sixteen, his father's death having reduced the family to poverty.
[1] taught school for a year at the Kanawha Salt Works in Kentucky, and used the money thus obtained to attend Transylvania University in Lexington.
[1][2] He then obtained employment as a scribe at a court in Frankfort, Kentucky, and read law under the supervision of Judge Jesse Bledsoe.
[1][2] In June 1851, Governor Henry W. Collier appointed Coleman to a seat on the Supreme Court of Alabama vacated by Silas Parsons.
[1] However, he only served for six months, and "declined a candidacy before the Legislature, feeling that his enfeebled health would not permit him to undergo the labors of the post".