Sisson was born on September 22, 1869, near McCool, Attala County, Mississippi.

He attended the common schools and the French Camp Academy, Mississippi.

He graduated from the Southwestern Presbyterian University, now known as Rhodes College, in Clarksville, Tennessee, in 1889.

He then studied law at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi, and was graduated from Cumberland School of Law at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee.

He was admitted to the bar in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1894 and began practicing the Law in Winona, Mississippi.