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441
WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1812
to Galveston; and assure him of the kind of disposition of this government towards the French immigrants as well as towards the French nation and King. Sam Houston. 1 Exec11tive Record Book, No. 40, p. 213, Texas State Library. 2 George T. Howard· (September 2, 1814-August 6, 1866), son of Samuel Howard of Revolutionary fame, was born at Washington, D. C. He re- ceived a good academic education. In early manhood he received appoint- ment as Indian Agent and saw much service among the redskins. On one occasion he was severely wounded by the spear of an Indian, a wound that he carried to his death, at times unhealed. He came to Texas in 1836. He landed at Galveston, and for a while lived in an old ship fitted out as a hotel. On May 10, 1837, he was nominated by Houston a captain in the regular infantry, and the Senate confirmed the appointment on May 22; again on January 28, 1839, President Lamar nominated him for the rank of captain in the First Regiment of Infantry. He was second in command on the Santa Fe Expedition, was captured and carried to Mexico along with the other men of the Santa Fe Expedition. He managed to get away, thus escaping the imprisonment that most of the Santa Fe prisoners and Mier prisoners had to endure at Perote. He fought under Zachary Taylor in the Mexican War. After that war he returned to San Antonio and for many years was a government contractor. During the Civil War he served in the Confederate Army, a member of Albert Sidney Johnston's staff. At the close of the war he returned to San Antonio and took up his old busi- ness in partnership with Captain Ogden. He was married in Washington, D.C., in October, 1848, to Mary Frances McCormick, daughter of Hugh McCormick and Isabel (McCauley) his wife. He brought his sixteen year- old bride to San Antonio, which was their home for many years. They had seven children, six daughters and one son. George T. Howard died and is buried in Washington, D. C. His wife survived him forty-three years, but she, too, died in Washington, D.C., in 1909. 3 Henry Castro was born in France (Landes Department) in July, 1786. The Castros were Portuguese; Henry's great-grandfather, Zoao Castro, hav- ing been the fourth viceroy of the Indies for the king of Portugal. In 1806, at the age of nineteen, Remy Castro was selected by the Prefect of his native department to welcome the Emperor Napoleon on the occasion of his visit to that part of France; and he was one of the guard of honor that accompanied the Emperor on his journey to Spain. After the fall of Napoleon, Castro emigrated to the United States; in 1827, he beeame a naturalized citizen of the United States, and in the same year was ap- pointed by the King of Naples, consul at the port of Providence. He re- turned to France in 1838, and became a partner in the banking house of Lafitte and Company. While with that firm, he was active in trying to negotiate a loan for the Republic of Texas, and thus became much inter- ested in Texas and its welfare; in 1842, out of gratitude for his influence and kindness to the young Republic, President Houston appointed him Con- sul General for Texas at Paris. (See E. W. Winkler (eel.), Sec,·ot, Jounials
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