Luis Zertuche Castañon was born on March 18, 1820, to Jesus Castañon, a soldier stationed in Bexar, and Guadalupe Zertuche Castañon. According to 1830 census records, Luis spent his early years at San Jose Mission in San Antonio playing alongside his brother Pedro and sister Maria. Other siblings would come later. By age thirteen he had moved to Laredo, TX, but two years later he was back in Bexar and in the middle of the Texas Revolution! He was recruited by and served under the well known Captain Juan Seguin. Along with the rest of Seguin’s Company, Luis participated in the Siege of Bexar in the fall of 1835.
By February, Luis was behind the Alamo walls awaiting the arrival of General Santa Anna. Now under the command of Lt. Salvador Flores, Luis, along with the rest of Flores’s company received orders to leave the Alamo and provide the rear guard to the retreating families escaping Bexar, an event that would come to be known as the Runaway Scrape. The company would provide protection to those families and secure the ranches south of San Antonio. They were to escort the families and provide protection all the way to the Lavaca River and camp at Williamson Daniels where they remained anxiously awaiting orders to attack Sesma’s troops who had reached the nearby Colorado River. The order from Houston was instead to wait.
He continued to fight for the citizens of Texas serving as a spy under Deaf Smith. In 1841 he became a Texas Ranger serving under Captain Antonio Perez. He would ride with such notable Rangers as Captain Jack Hayes and Captain Henry Karnes.
Luis married Rumalda Garcia in 1852, and the two moved to Rossville, Texas. He once again served, this time in the Civil War in an Atascosa County Cavalry unit led by 1st Lt. Joseph A. Durand.
He died in Rossville on October 26,1899 and is buried at the Rossville Cemetery beside his wife and several of his children.
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