Juan Henestrosa

Juan (Fernández) de Henestrosa y Horcasitas, also recorded as Juan de la Cruz Fernández de Henestrosa Horcasitas, was born in Écija in 1765 and died in Madrid in 1831. He entered military service in 1779 as a cadete de menor edad in the Regimiento de Caballería de Santiago. In that regiment he advanced through the junior commissioned grades to alférez and then teniente. During these early years he served in the operations connected to the siege and blockade of Gibraltar, including trench service during the later phase of the long Great Siege.

In March 1789 he was sent to the Kingdom of Mexico as an officer attached to the Dragones de España (often rendered in administrative documents in the Indies as Dragones de España or as a dragoon regiment in New Spain). In New Spain he served as aide to his relative, the viceroy Juan de Güemes Pacheco y Horcasitas, II conde de Revillagigedo, and in the same year received advancement associated with that posting, including a commission as capitán de Dragones dated 14 October 1789. After returning to the Peninsula he continued in the cavalry arm and held successive field and regimental appointments. By the later 1790s he was comandante de escuadrón in the Regimiento del Infante, a post in which he is recorded in the military state listings for the period 1796 to 1800.

In the early years of the nineteenth century he became teniente coronel in the María Luisa regiment (María Luisa 5º de Húsares), a cavalry unit that had evolved from a carabineros institute, and he remained associated with that regiment in the years 1801 to 1806. In 1797 he married Catalina de Carvajal-Vargas y Brun in Madrid, a union that tied him to the ducal house of San Carlos.

During the crisis that preceded the Peninsular War and in the opening phase of the conflict he is recorded as brigadier and colonel of the Húsares Voluntarios de España in 1807 and 1808. By early November 1808 he was referenced as mariscal de campo and was operating against French forces in the zone of Lerma and Aranda de Duero under the authority of the conde de Belveder, in the broad context of the Spanish reorganization after the defeats of autumn 1808. This places him with field forces in Old Castile during the French advance that followed the fall of Burgos and the campaign leading to the occupation of central Spain.

In early 1809 he was in Extremadura, commanding the vanguardia of the Ejército de Operaciones de Extremadura under Capitán General Gregorio García de la Cuesta. In February 1809 Cuesta reported that Henestrosa’s vanguard seized the Puerto de Miravete without firing a shot, while guerrilla detachments extended toward the surrounding houses; shortly afterward, and again according to Cuesta’s reports, Henestrosa took the Puente de Almaraz, with Spanish cavalry pursuing retreating enemy troops and Spanish artillery inflicting casualties on the withdrawing columns. These operations formed part of the maneuvering along the Tagus communications as Victor’s forces threatened the approaches into Extremadura. Contemporary narrative accounts of the March 1809 movements describe the disposition of Cuesta’s army with Henestrosa’s vanguard of about 5,000 men posted opposite Almaraz, while other divisions held Mesas de Ibor, Fresnedoso, and Deleitosa; when French forces crossed by Puente del Arzobispo and pushed toward the Spanish positions, Cuesta concentrated near Miravete and Henestrosa joined the main body with his vanguard.

In 1809 he obtained the rank of teniente general. With that rank he was given command of the 1ª División de Caballería, and with this formation he was present in the Battle of Talavera on 28 July 1809. In the same operational period he is noted as holding the enemy at the sector of Puente del Arzobispo, in connection with French attempts to force passages and the Spanish and allied efforts to cover crossings and communications on the Tagus during the campaign.

Later in 1809 he was appointed jefe del cantón y plaza of Tarragona by General Joaquín Blake, with the approval of the central governing authority dated 7 December 1809. The Tarragona post placed him in a key Catalan coastal strongpoint as Spain attempted to consolidate defenses in Catalonia during the period when French forces under commanders such as Saint-Cyr, Augereau, and later Suchet maintained pressure on Spanish positions and lines of supply. At the beginning of 1810 he assumed interim command of the armies of Cataluña and Aragón due to the absence of the titular commander, reflecting the unstable command arrangements in the eastern theaters as Spain tried to coordinate regular forces, local juntas, and British support.

From mid-1810 he is recorded in high provincial command in Extremadura. Appointed Capitán General de Extremadura, he arrived in Badajoz on 29 June 1810 and on 30 June took possession of the presidency of the Junta, combining military and administrative authority in a province that was repeatedly contested due to its frontier position and the importance of the Badajoz–Elvas corridor. In this capacity he presided over provincial structures during the period when the French and allied armies contested the Guadiana basin and the approaches to Portugal. During the same span he was sent overseas to Lima as Subinspector General de Tropas del virreinato del Perú, a post that placed him within the Bourbon imperial military administration during the years of the Spanish American independence conflicts, where the crown relied on senior peninsular officers for inspection, organization, and command oversight.

After the conclusion of the main Napoleonic conflict in the Peninsula and the restoration of Ferdinand VII, Henestrosa returned to Spain. In 1814 the king granted him a seat in the Consejo Supremo de Guerra. On 10 July 1815, by the royal decree confirming the Real y Militar Orden de San Hermenegildo and constituting Ferdinand VII as its first chief and sovereign, Henestrosa was named among the initial Caballeros Grandes Cruces. By the same date, in the decree confirming the Real y Militar Orden de San Fernando with the king as its chief, sovereign, and founder, he was also selected as Caballero Gran Cruz. These honors were conferred in the immediate postwar reordering of Spain’s military institutions and decorations.

In the constitutional period he continued to receive court and military appointments. In February 1822 he was named gentilhombre de cámara con ejercicio and assigned to the service of the Infante don Carlos María, an appointment published in the Gaceta de Madrid and granted in consideration of his long service. In the later years of his life he rose to the dignity of Capitán General de los Reales Ejércitos. In mid-July 1825 he was named Subdirector of the Montepío Militar de Huérfanos, an institutional post connected to military welfare and pensions. In 1828 he received the title of Caballero of the Orden de Alcántara. He died in Madrid in 1831, closing a career that had begun in the late Bourbon army of the 1770s, extended through the Peninsular War with field commands in Castile, Extremadura, and Catalonia, included senior provincial captaincy and overseas inspection duties, and culminated in membership in the highest military council and senior court and institutional appointments under Ferdinand VII.

Sources

• CONTANDO HISTORIAS ANTIGUAS... DE MILITARES: CAPITANES GENERALES DEL EJÉRCITO ESPAÑOL (33) JUAN HENESTROSA Y HORCASITAS
• PARES | Archivos Españoles: Fernández de Henestrosa Horcasitas, Juan de la Cruz (1765-1831)
• Historia del levantamiento, guerra y revolución de España (Conde de Toreno) — Project Gutenberg eBook (reference to Henestrosa commanding the vanguard opposite Almaraz, March 1809 dispositions)
• Geneanet: Juan Fernández de Henestrosa Horcasitas (birth and death details; knighthood reference)