His father was a lawyer who served as a Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court.

[1] After graduation from law school, he was admitted to the bar and practiced in Louisiana before becoming involved in politics.

[1] During the U.S. Civil War, he was a Confederate Military Aide to Louisiana Senator John Slidell and was captured along with Slidell and James Murray Mason aboard the steamer RMS Trent by Union Navy Captain Charles Wilkes in what became known as the Trent Affair.

[6] Together, they were the parents of two sons and a daughter: He died in of tuberculosis in Cannes, France, on March 15, 1872.

[17] Through his daughter Louise, he was a grandfather of Celestine Eustis Hitchcock (1892–1935), who married New York City architect Julian Livingston Peabody and died with him aboard the SS Mohawk;[18] Thomas Hitchcock Jr. (1900–1944), who married Margaret Mellon (daughter of William Larimer Mellon Sr.);[19][20] Francis Center Eustis Hitchcock, who married, and divorced, Mary Atwell;[21][22][23] and Helen Hitchcock (d. 1979), who married James Averell Clark,[24][25][26] (son of George Crawford Clark, a founder of Clark, Dodge & Co.)[27] in 1919.