{{Short description|American businessman, agriculturalist and Army officer (1804–85)}} {{for|his son, the American soldier and Medal of Honor recipient|Horace Capron Jr.}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Horace Capron | image = Horace Capron.jpg | caption = Capron {{circa}} 1860–65 | office = 2nd United States Commissioner of Agriculture | president = Andrew Johnson<br />Ulysses S. Grant | term_start = December 4, 1867 | term_end = July 31, 1871 | predecessor = Isaac Newton | successor = Frederick Watts | birth_date = {{birth date|1804|8|31}} | birth_place = Attleboro, Massachusetts, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1885|2|22|1804|8|31}} | death_place = Washington, D.C., U.S. | resting_place = Oak Hill Cemetery | spouse = | children = 6, including Horace | awards = Order of the Rising Sun | branch = United States Army<br>{{*}}Union Army | service_years = 1862–1865 | rank = Brevet Brigadier General (after active service) | commands = 14th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Cavalry | battles = {{tree list}} * American Civil War ** Battle of Chancellorsville {{tree list/end}} }}
'''Horace Capron''' (August 31, 1804 – February 22, 1885) was an American businessman and agriculturalist, a founder of Laurel, Maryland, a Union officer in the American Civil War, the United States secretary of agriculture under U.S. presidents Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant, and an advisor to Japan's Hokkaido Development Commission.<ref name="laurel">{{cite web|url = http://www.laurelhistory.org/exhibits/capron/caproninto.htm|title = A Laurel Founder's Life|website = The Laurel Historical Society|access-date = 2007-04-25|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061112000116/http://www.laurelhistory.org/exhibits/capron/caproninto.htm <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = 2006-11-12}}</ref> His collection of Japanese art and artifacts was sold to the Smithsonian Institution after his death.<ref name="smithsonian">{{cite book|url = https://archive.org/details/smithsonianmisc16instgoog|title = Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections|publisher = Smithsonian Institution|year = 1901|author = Smithsonian Institution|author-link = Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>
==Early life== Horace Capron was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts, the son of Seth Capron and his wife Eunice Mann Capron.<ref name="laurel"/> His sister was Louisa Thiers (1814–1926), who in 1925 became the first verified person to reach age 111. His father, a doctor of medicine, opened woollen mills in New York including Whitesboro, and from this experience Horace went on to supervise several cotton mills including Savage Mill in Savage, Maryland. He was also an officer in the Maryland Militia in the 1830s. In November 1834, Capron and others gathered suspects and potential witnesses of two recent Laurel railroad murders and brought them to Merrill's tavern. Some 300 railroad workers were questioned at the Baltimore county jail.<ref>{{cite book |title=Niles' Weekly Register |volume=47 |author1=Hezekiah Niles |author2=William Ogden Niles |author3=George Beatty |author4=Jeremiah Hughes |page=272 |publisher=H. Niles |year=1835 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FhMbAAAAYAAJ |access-date=November 9, 2013 |quote=They ... recommended the apprehension of all persons employed on the line of the rail road, near where the murders ... had been committed. ... On the morning of the 26th, captain Bouldin ... marched to the Savage factory, and thence to that part of the railroad which was near the place of the recent murders, and ... apprehended many suspicious persons, whom, with several prisoners taken by major Capron, they brought to Merrill's tavern.... I submitted the whole of our prisoners, upwards of 300 ... to Baltimore county jail.... }}</ref>
In 1834, Horace married Louisa Victoria Snowden, whose late father Nicholas had owned Montpelier Mansion. This marriage brought lands and property. They had six children before Louisa died in 1849:<ref>{{cite book|title=Historic Graves of Maryland and the District of Columbia|author=National Society of the Colonial Dames of America|pages=89}}</ref> Nicholas Snowden Capron, who died in infancy; Adeline Capron, who died at age 17 in Illinois; Horace Capron, Jr., who received the Medal of Honor after being killed in the Civil War;<ref>{{cite news|newspaper=The Washington Post|title=Courage Remembered; Medal of Honor Winners Recognized|date=June 22, 2000 |author= Eugene L. Meyer}}</ref> Albert Snowden Capron; Elizabeth Capron Mayo; and Osmond Tiffany Capron.
Capron was involved in the mechanization of cotton mills beginning in 1835, having worked in mills from boyhood in Massachusetts and New York. In 1836 he was a major force in forming the Patuxent Manufacturing Company, which operated the Laurel Mill, a cotton mill on the Patuxent River, and with this effort he and associates started what became the town of Laurel Factory, later Laurel, Maryland. In 1851 the mill failed, and Capron declared bankruptcy. Soon after, he obtained an appointment from the President to assist in removal and resettlement of Native Americans from Texas following the Mexican–American War.{{sfn|Hirano|2017|pp=329-330}} He spent several months in Texas, and then moved to a farm near Hebron, Illinois where his mother Eunice and sister Louisa Thiers had settled and were taking care of his children. Here, he built an imposing mansion. In Illinois, he was remarried to Margaret Baker and took up farming in earnest, experimenting with farming improvements, writing articles, participating in events and receiving awards for his work.
==Military service== In the American Civil War, Capron was called upon to establish and later lead the 14th Illinois Cavalry regiment. He was the oldest cavalry officer in the Union Army. Seeing action in a number of skirmishes and battles, ranging from Kentucky to Georgia, and losing his eldest son in battle, he left the army with an injury in 1864 and was later given the rank of Brevet Brigadier General dated to February 13, 1865.<ref>{{cite book | year= 1983 | title= The Photographic History of the Civil War: Three Volumes in One | publisher= Random House Value Publishing, Inc. | location= New York | id=0-517-20155-0 | pages= 308}}</ref>
thumb|left|upright=0.7|alt=Sepia toned photo shows a seated man with a bushy moustache. He wears a dark military uniform and holds his hat in his lap.|Capron in uniform Capron was appointed lieutenant colonel of the 14th Illinois Cavalry on December 3, 1862, and promoted to colonel of the regiment on February 6, 1863. Later, Capron commanded the 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division, XXIII Corps; 1st Brigade (then 3rd Brigade), Cavalry, XXIII Corps; Dismounted Brigade, Cavalry Division, XXIII Corps; Cavalry Division, XXIII Corps; 3rd Brigade, Cavalry, XXIII Corps; 5th Division, XXIII Corps; and 1st Brigade, 6th Division, Cavalry Corps, Military Division of the Mississippi.{{sfn|Boatner|1988|p=122}}
Capron served in the Knoxville campaign from August–December 1863. He led his regiment at the Battle of Walker's Ford on December 2. While Colonel Felix W. Graham's cavalry brigade confronted two Confederate cavalry brigades at Walker's Ford, Capron's unit was sent to the next ford to block a third Confederate brigade under William E. "Grumble" Jones. Armed with the Henry repeating rifle, Capron's 324 soldiers were able to slow and finally halt Jones' brigade before it reached the ford.{{sfn|Hess|2013|pp=186–189}} Capron led a brigade in the Battle of Bean's Station on December 14. His brigade was driven off a hill on the left flank by Confederate infantry under James Longstreet.{{sfn|Hess|2013|pp=209–215}} Capron's brigade consisted of the 14th Illinois, 5th Indiana, and 9th Ohio Cavalry Regiments and the 65th Indiana Mounted Infantry.{{sfn|Hess|2013|p=262}}
Capron's 3rd Brigade joined George Stoneman's XXIII Corps cavalry division on June 28, 1864 during the Atlanta campaign. The brigade included the 14th Illinois and 8th Michigan Cavalry Regiments and McLaughlin's Ohio Squadron. After Stoneman was captured, Capron assumed command of the cavalry division.{{sfn|Battles & Leaders|1987|p=289}} Capron also served in the Franklin-Nashville campaign in late 1864. In early November, Capron's 800-man brigade was assigned to watch the area near Waynesboro, Tennessee.{{sfn|Sword|1992|p=81}} Rearmed with infantry rifles, the 14th Illinois was unable to cope with Nathan B. Forrest's hard-fighting Confederate horsemen. On November 24, Forrest's soldiers drove Capron's brigade back, though one of Capron's troopers managed to miss Forrest himself with a pistol shot from point-blank range before being captured.{{sfn|Sword|1992|pp=91–93}} Two new regiments were added to Capron's brigade, bringing its strength up to 1,800 men, and it successfully defended its position at Hardison's Mill on the Duck River on November 28. Capron reported to John Schofield that the Confederates were "crossing in force".{{sfn|Sword|1992|p=103}} Capron's brigade was involved in a scuffle with Sul Ross' Confederate brigade that afternoon in the lead up to the Battle of Spring Hill.{{sfn|Sword|1992|p=105}} By the time the Battle of Nashville was fought on December 15–16, Capron was no longer leading a cavalry brigade.{{sfn|Sword|1992|p=451}}
His earlier experiences led to an appointment in 1867 as a Commissioner in the Department of Agriculture for the United States Government.{{sfn|Roden|1986|pp=550–551}}{{sfn|Mieczkowski|Mieczkowski|1974|pp=487–488}}{{sfn|Hirano|2017|pp=329-330}}
==Japan== Capron was asked by Kuroda Kiyotaka, a vice-chairman of the {{nihongo|Hokkaidō Development Commission|開拓使|Kaitakushi}} visiting the United States, to be a special advisor to the commission, and aid in the colonization of Hokkaido.{{sfn|Hirano|2023a|pp=140–141}} Capron agreed and travelled to Hokkaidō 1870–71 as a foreign advisor. The Japanese government paid him $10,000 plus expenses to undertake this mission, which was a tremendous sum for the time.{{sfn|Lu|2019|p=533}}{{sfn|Mieczkowski|Mieczkowski|1974|p=488}}{{sfn|Hirano|2023a|p=140}} Capron needed the money, as his son Osmond had been blinded in a hotel fire, and now depended on Capron for support.
Capron spent four years in Hokkaidō, suggesting numerous ways that the frontier island could be developed. He introduced large-scale farming with American methods and farming implements, imported seeds for western fruits, vegetables and crops, and introduced livestock, including his favorite Devon and Durham cattle.{{sfn|Hirano|2023a|p=142}}{{sfn|Lu|2019|pp=535–537}} He established experimental farms, had the land surveyed for mineral deposits and farming opportunities, and recommended water, mill, and road improvements.{{sfn|Hirano|2023a|p=142}}{{sfn|Lu|2019|pp=535–537}} His recommendation that wheat and rye be planted in Hokkaidō due to similarities in climate with parts of the United States also led to the establishment of Sapporo Beer, one of Japan's first breweries. He contributed to the urban planning for Sapporo city with an American-style grid plan with streets at right-angles to form city blocks.
Capron's tenure in Japan was not without controversy. Articles appeared in both Japan and the United States by former associates attacking his work and his personal competency. He was often frustrated with delays in the implementation of his suggestions, or on occasion the rejection of his suggestions by more conservative members of the government. However, Kuroda Kiyotaka, future Prime Minister of Japan, was a close and trusted friend. Capron admired the Ainu of Hokkaidō, whom he compared favorably to his experiences with Native Americans. From his journals, it appears that he also admired the Japanese, although he regarded them as semi-barbaric, and firmly believed that rapid adoption of Western culture would be in Japan's best interest.
Frustrated with obstacles to his efforts, Capron returned home in 1875,{{sfn|Capron|1884|pp=268–272, 281–282}} though believed he had set Japan on the path of an agricultural revolution.{{sfn|Roden|1986|p=553}}
During his stay in Japan, Capron was honored with three audiences with Emperor Meiji, who took a close personal interest in his work in the development of Hokkaidō. In 1884, nine years after he departed Japan, Horace Capron was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun (2nd class) for his services in transforming Hokkaidō.<ref name="smithsonian"/>
==Later life== thumb|upright|right|Grave of Capron at Oak Hill Cemetery After his time in Japan, Capron continued his contacts with the country, including acting as a purchasing agent for livestock and military equipment, and selling his house on N Street in Washington, D.C. to be the site of Japan's first embassy. He was also engaged in writing his memoirs during this period.
Capron attended the dedication of the Washington Monument on February 21, 1885. The extreme cold of the day, recorded at 12° Fahrenheit (−11° Celsius), was too much for the 80-year-old Horace Capron; he suffered a stroke, and died the following day.{{citation needed |date=August 2022}} He is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.oakhillcemeterydc.org/app/themes/oakhill/assets/records/360e.pdf |title=Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown, D.C. (Henry Crescent) - Lot 360 East |website=oakhillcemeterydc.org |access-date=2022-08-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220302053404/https://www.oakhillcemeterydc.org/app/themes/oakhill/assets/records/360e.pdf |archive-date=2022-03-02 |url-status=live}}</ref>
During his period in Japan, Capron amassed a large collection of Japanese art and antiques. After his death, his widow Margaret sold the collection to the Smithsonian, where it became one of the foundations of the Smithsonian's Asian collection.
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
===Works cited=== {{refbegin}} * {{cite book |ref={{harvid|Battles & Leaders|1987}} |title=Battles and Leaders of the Civil War |volume=4 |year=1987 |orig-year=1883 |publisher=Castle |location=Secaucus, N.J. |isbn=0-89009-572-8}} * {{Civil War Dictionary}} * {{cite book |last=Capron |first=Horace M. |author-link=Horace Capron |date=1884 |title=Memoirs of Horace Capron |volume=1: Autobiography |publisher=Special Collections, United States National Agricultural Library |url=https://www.nal.usda.gov/sites/default/files/speccoll_guides/CAT30983447_Capron_Memoirs,%20Vol%201.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241001210527/https://www.nal.usda.gov/sites/default/files/speccoll_guides/CAT30983447_Capron_Memoirs%2C%20Vol%201.pdf |archive-date=1 October 2024}} * {{cite book |last=Hess |first=Earl J. |title=The Knoxville Campaign: Burnside and Longstreet in East Tennessee |year=2013 |publisher=University of Tennessee Press |location=Knoxville, Tenn. |isbn=978-1-57233-995-8}} * {{cite book |last=Hirano |first=Katsuya |date=2017 |chapter=Settler colonialism in the making of Japan's Hokkaidō |title=The Routledge Handbook of the History of Settler Colonialism |publisher=Routledge |editor1-first=Edward |editor1-last=Cavanagh |editor2-first=Lorenzo |editor2-last=Veracini |editor2-link=Lorenzo Veracini |pages= |doi=10.4324/9781315544816_22 |doi-broken-date=17 September 2025 |isbn=978-1315544816}} * {{cite book |last=Hirano |first=Katsuya |date=2023a |chapter=Settler-Colonialism, Ecology, and Expropriation of Ainu Mosir: A Transnational Perspective |title=Migrant Ecologies: Environmental Histories of the Pacific World |editor1-first=James |editor1-last=Beattie |editor2-first=Ryan Tucker |editor2-last=Jones |editor3-first=Edward Dallam |editor3-last=Melillo |chapter-url=https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/read/migrant-ecologies/section/b03b25af-b873-47e5-9417-dce686ed0a37 |publisher=University of Hawai'i Press |isbn=978-0824892258}} * {{cite journal |last=Lu |first=Sidney Xu |date=August 2019 |title=Eastward Ho! Japanese Settler Colonialism in Hokkaido and the Making of Japanese Migration to the American West, 1869–1888 |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |volume=78 |number=3 |pages=521–547 |doi=10.1017/S0021911819000147}} * {{cite journal |last1=Mieczkowski |first1=Bogdan |last2=Mieczkowski |first2=Seiko |date=November 1974 |title=Horace Capron and the Development of Hokkaido a Reappraisal |journal=Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society |volume=67 |number=5 |pages=487–504 |jstor=40191142}} * {{cite journal |last=Roden |first=Donald |author-link=Donald Roden |date=1986 |title=In Search of the Real Horace Capron: An Historiographical Perspective on Japanese-American Relations |journal=Pacific Historical Review |volume=55 |number=4 |pages=549–575 |doi=10.2307/3639494 |jstor=3639494}} * {{cite book |last=Sword |first=Wiley |title=The Confederacy's Last Hurrah: Spring Hill, Franklin, and Nashville |publisher=University Press of Kansas for HarperCollins |year=1992 |isbn=0-7006-0650-5 |location=New York, N.Y.}} {{refend}}
==Further reading== *[https://web.archive.org/web/20080612035333/http://www.laurelhistoricalsociety.org/capron/caproninto.htm Laurel Historical Society] * Horace Capron, ''Memoirs of Horace Capron '' 2 vols., typed copy, National Agricultural Library, U.S. Department of Agriculture * Horace Capron. ''Reports and Official Letters by Horace Capron, Commissioner and Advisor and His Foreign Assistants '' (Tokyo: 1875) * Fujita Fumiko. ''American Pioneers and the Japanese Frontier: American Experts in Nineteenth-Century Japan'' Greenwood Press (1994) * Harold S. Russell, "Time to Become Barbarian: The Extraordinary Life of General Horace Capron", Univ. Press of America (2007). * Merrit Starr. "General Horace Capron, 1804–1884" ''Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society'' 18 (July 1925): 259–349. [https://books.google.com/books?id=D-h_0l22fboC&dq=%22+Horace+Capron%22&pg=PA254 online]
==External links== *{{commons category-inline}} *[https://web.archive.org/web/20061112000116/http://www.laurelhistory.org/exhibits/capron/caproninto.htm Detailed external biography] *[http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20090320073209/http://naldr.nal.usda.gov/NALWeb/Agricola_Link.asp?Accession=CAT30983447 Memoirs of Horace Capron; Autobiography] *[http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20100101055327/http://naldr.nal.usda.gov/NALWeb/Agricola_Link.asp?Accession=capron2 Memoirs of Horace Capron; Expedition to Japan, 1871–1875] *[http://hdl.handle.net/10079/fa/mssa.ms.0128 Horace Capron papers] (MS 128). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
{{s-start}} {{s-off}} {{s-bef|before=Isaac Newton}} {{s-ttl|title=United States Commissioner of Agriculture|years=1867–1871}} {{s-aft|after=Frederick Watts}} {{s-end}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Capron, Horace}} Category:1804 births Category:1885 deaths Category:American expatriates in Japan Category:Burials at Oak Hill Cemetery (Washington, D.C.) Category:Foreign advisors to the government in Meiji-era Japan Category:Foreign educators in Japan Category:People from Attleboro, Massachusetts Category:People from Laurel, Maryland Category:People of Illinois in the American Civil War Category:Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 2nd class Category:Secretaries of agriculture of the United States Category:Union army generals Category:Colonisation of Hokkaido