Veteran Bio

The house in which they were married still stands. It is on the left of the Stockdale road one fourth of a mile beyond the city of Seguin Light and Water plant.

One of Flores boys in Seguin's Company

Guillermo M. Sequin, Grandson, Eagle Pass

See Anson Jones' "History of Texas" page 482

"Col. Juan N. Seguin accounts for the naming of the town of Seguin for him from the fact that he caused the first post office to be established there. The place had been called 'Nogales' before. Extract from a sketch of Col. Juan N. Seguin, Northern Standard, Feb. 25, 1887, p. 4, c. 2.

Following is a copy of Comptroller's Military Service Record No. 1292, on file in the Archives of the Texas State Library, Austin:

"War Department, Houston May 17, 1837

I hereby certify that Juan N. Seguin was commissioned on the thirtieth of May one thousand eight hundred and thirty six as Lieutenant Colonel of Regular Cavalry of Texas, and has served as such up to the present date.

William S. Fisher Secretary of War"

The following is a copy of Comptroller's Military Service Record No. 952: "No. 111 $787 97/100

This certificate entitles Juan N. Seguin to seven hundred eighty seven dollars and ninety seven cents, pay for nine months as Captain of Cavalry and Lieutenant Colonel of Cavalry from 21 Dec. 1835 until 17 September 1836.

Velasco 17 September 1836 Geo. W. Poe Pay Master General.

Rec. of A. Brigham auditor seven drafts of the Treasury in full for the annexed certificate.

Velasco 17 Sept 1836 Juan N. Seguin."

Seguin was Lieutenant Colonel of the Second Regiment of Cavalry from May 30, 1836 to April 30, 1837 at $75.O0 per month.

M. Flores was Captain of Company B, Second Regiment of Cavalry.

On October 2, 1874 Colonel Seguin, aged 67, was living on his ranch near Floresville, Wilson County when he applied for a pension. In Pension Claim No. 765, Archives, Texas State Library, he claimed that he was the identical Juan Nepomuceno Seguin who participated in the Revolution for the Independence of Texas in the struggle against Mexico, and further says that he was a Captain of a Company of Mounted Volunteers at the taking of Bexar between the 5th and the morning of the 10th of December A. D. 1835, and remained therein until after the surrender of Genl. Cos. That he remained in the service of Texas and was at the battle of San Jacinto in April, 1836 in command of a part of his Company, the remainder of his Company under command of Lieutenant Salvador Flores, having been sent out from Gonzales by Genl. Samuel Houston, to guard and protect the fleeing Texan families. That he was commissioned in the Regular Army of the Republic of Texas as Lieutenant Colonel, was commander of the Army of the West with headquarters at San Antonio de Bexar in 1836, up to April or May in 1838. That he was a Senator from Bexar County in the Session of Congress of 1838 and 1839. That he has always been a citizen of Texas, but has been temporarily absent at different times in The Republic of Mexico, on business. Born in San Antonio, Texas, October 29, 1806, a son of Erasmo Seguin, a pure Castillian who came to San Antonio from the Canaries. The elder Seguin was a friend of Moses Austin's and was largely responsible for his securing his empressario contract with Spain. In 1837 he was elected Chief Justice of Bexar County by the Congress of the Republic of Texas.

Mr. Juan N. Sequin just prior to the beginning of the revolution was Political Chief of the Department of Bexar. Expoused the cause of Texas he raised, and as Captain, commanded a company of Mexicans at the Storming and Capture of Bexar, December 5 to 10, 1835. On July 31, 1851 he was issued Bounty Certificate No. 1673 for 320 acres of land for having served in the army from November 3 to December 1835. On December 20, 1835 he was elected Captain of Cavalry by the General Council of the Provisional Government. From the Alamo he was sent with a verbal message from Travis to Fannin. Being unable to re-enter the Alamo on his return he proceeded to Gonzales where the army of Texas was being organized by General Houston. He raised a company of Mexicans - native Texans - of which he was placed in command. At San Felipe he assisted Captain Moseley Baker in resisting the advance of Santa Anna and at San Jacinto his company, Ninth Company of the second Regiment of Texas Volunteers, fought gallantly;, He continued in the army and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of the Second Regiment of Cavalry on May 30, 1836, serving as such until May 14, 1838 when he was honorably discharged. On May 18, 1836 he was issued Bounty Certificate No. 3449 for 1280 acres of land for having served in the army from December 1, 1835 to May 14, 1838. On April 13, 1838 he received a Headright Certificate for two-thirds of a league of one labor of land from the Bexar County Board. He was issued Donation Certificate No. 81 on May 15, 1838 for 640 acres of land for having participated in the battle of San Jacinto.

Colonel Seguin served as Senator from the district of Bexar County in the Second, Third and Fourth Congresses of the Republic, September 25, 1837 to February 5, 1840, an interpreter being employed for him. He was elected mayor of San Antonio, January 4, 1841 and served for two terms. In 1842 Colonel Seguin turned traitor. Claiming that he had been mistreated and his life threatened by some of the Anglo-Americans, he left for Mexico. The Telegraph and Texas Register (Houston) stated in its issue of June 15, 1842,. that it was rumored that Seguin had deserted to Aristo and was then at Monterrey endeavoring to raise a force to plunder San Antonio. The rumor proved a reality for when General Adrian Woll entered San Antonio, September 11, 1842, Seguin with the rank of Major was in command of the Cavalry. Mrs. Samuel A. Maverick in her published memoirs wrote on September 15th: "Juan Seguin killed Dr. (Lancelot) Smithers, McDonald and McRea." A correspondent at San Antonio writing to the "Crescent City," New Orleans soon after Woll's invasion offered the following reason for Seguin's actions: "It seems that the late expedition of the Mexicans against San Antonio is not of the general character supposed - but the work of Juan N. Seguin, the traitor, who it appears had mortgaged his landed property to Col. D. C. Ogden, formerly a merchant of Bexar, as security for about $10,000 worth of merchandise purchased by his. Seguin, it will be remembered, on his expedition to the Rio Grande, was robbed by the Mexicans - returned to San Antonio, raised a party and in retaliation robbed a party of Mexican traders on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. The authorities of Texas not sanctioning this robbery by Seguin, he deserted the country with his followers from San Antonio and joined Vasquez and his party. Now the court, which was in session at Bexar when the last (Woll) Expedition of the Mexicans surprised them, would have decided a suit which Col. (D. C.) Ogden had instituted against Seguin; and Seguin, knowing this, was instrumental in raising the last expedition for the purpose of capturing and carrying off the archives of Bexar County, in which he succeeded, and has also taken Col. Ogden among the prisoners captured. There is little hope for the life of Col. Ogden in the hand of this traitor. Dr. Smithers and others whom he had shot are supposed to have been witnesses to the mortgage."

Col. Ogden was not executed. He was taken prisoner to Mexico and was eventually released.

Seguin, with the rank of Colonel, commanded a regiment in the Mexican army at the battle of Buena Vista in the war between the United States and Mexico. Colonel Seguin was on March 26, 1887 living with son Santiago, and a grandson Guillermo Seguin. Santiago served two terms as the mayor of the city. The elder Seguin published a pamphlet in which he attempted to justify his actions in deserting to Mexico and he succeeded in winning the sympathies of some Texans.

On March 25, 1837, the ashes and charred bones of the martyrs of the Alamo were gathered together and buried in three long and deep trenches under the direction of Colonel Seguin then in command of the area around San Antonio. A full account of the military funeral was published in the "Telegraph and Texas Register" of Houston and the lengthy orations of Seguin, in Spanish and Major Thomas G. Western, in English, delivered on the occasion, were printed in full. Years later, after the burial place had been lost, Colonel H. P. Bee of San Antonio wrote to colonel Seguin and asked if he remembered where the heroes were buried. Seguin, then in his dotage, replied that the remains of the men were placed in a single urn and buried in San Fernando Cathedral. Today many San Antonians point out the old church to visitors as the last resting place of the heroes of the Alamo.

Close