He attended Carroll Academy and completed the course in ancient classics under a private instructor.

He was a judge of the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1867 and 1868, one of the judges serving on the highly partisan "apocryphal" court, which was in place in Tennessee between the end of the American Civil War and the enactment of the Constitution of 1870.

Of this group, Harrison is described as one of several "of mediocre ability, who could not by possibility have reached a position of such importance in ordinary times".

[3] Harrison was elected as a Republican to the Forty-third Congress, but was unsuccessful as a candidate for re-election.

On December 20, 1885, at the age of 56 years, 135 days, Harrison died in Nashville, Tennessee.