Colonel John Ireland

John Ireland, a Kentucky-born Texan who came to Texas in 1853, served as a delegate to the Secession Convention in 1861 and entered the Confederate army as a private before winning distinction in the defense of the eight hundred-mile Texas coast in September 1862 and in the repulse of Federal forces at Corpus Christi, where he captured fleet Captain Kittredge, his flag, and arms; though an infantry officer, he also once plunged waist-deep to capture a Federal vessel off Padre Island, and by the end of the war he commanded the 8th Texas Regiment defending Galveston. After the war, Ireland was mayor of Seguin in 1858, a member of the Constitutional Conventions of 1866 and 1875, district judge in 1866-67 until Reconstruction authorities removed him, legislator from 1872-75, and justice of the state supreme court in 1875-76. Called "Oxcart John" for opposing land-grant subsidies to railroads, he supervised plans to oust Governor E. J. Davis in a bloodless conflict that marked the political end of Reconstruction in Texas. As governor of Texas from 1882-86, he responded to the fence-cutting wars by calling a special Legislature that made fence-cutting a felony, ruled that the state capitol be built of Texas stone, urged stricter enforcement of criminal laws, economy in government, and reduced public land sales, and served during the opening of the University of Texas and the state's first labor disturbances. He was buried in the State Cemetery in Austin.

Seguin, Texas · United States