William Steele

Steele graduated thirty-first of forty-two at West Point in 1840 and joined the Second Dragoons. In Mexico he fought at Palo Alto and Monterrey under Zachary Taylor and won a brevet to captain for gallant conduct at Churubusco. In 1850 he married Anne Elizabeth Duval. In the New Mexico campaign he commanded the troops holding El Paso and Mesilla, and after Sibley left he served as civil governor and military commander of Arizona Territory. After the war he was a merchant in San Antonio from 1866 to 1873. He died there in 1885 and lies in Austin's Oakwood Cemetery.

What the plaque says

William Steele Born New York. Graduate West Point. In Seminole and Mexican Wars. Resigned U.S. Army to serve Confederacy. Colonel 7th Texas Cavalry. In New Mexico campaign General. Commander Indian Territory 1863 and Galveston defenses 1864. Led cavalry division Red River campaign. Gave distinguished service various Louisiana actions against invasion of Texas. As Texas Adjutant General after reconstruction rebuilt Texas Rangers to restore order and control Indians. Erected by the State of Texas, 1963

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mount Bonnell — 1.1 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.
• Harry Ransom Center — 2.1 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 2.4 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• LBJ Presidential Library — 2.5 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.

More markers nearby

• Major John B. Jones — steps away
• Texas in the Civil War - Adjutants General — steps away
• Camp Mabry — steps away
• Texas in the Civil War - Federal Forces — steps away