Born at "Woodlawn," near Newtown, King and Queen County, Virginia, Gresham attended Stevensville Academy and Edge Hill Academy, and graduated from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1863.

He studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1867 and commenced practice in Galveston, Texas.

He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1894 to the Fifty-fourth Congress, and resumed the practice of law in Galveston, Texas.

He died in Washington, D.C., on November 6, 1920, and was interred in Lakeview Cemetery, Galveston, Texas.

This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress