John Robert Peace, Jr. (1917-1974) was a Texas lawyer and public official. Born and raised near Wharton, Texas, he moved to San Antonio soon after receiving his law degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1939. He married San Antonio native Ruby McGee and, together, they raised three children. In 1967, Governor John B. Connolly named Peace to the University of Texas Board of Regents, where he served as chairman from 1971 until the expiration of his term in 1973. He is credited with being a driving force in the establishment of the University of Texas at San Antonio. Peace also was an avid collector of Texana, and he amassed a collection of about 900 books and 500 manuscripts, some dating back to the 1700s.
Peace was associated with several of the rare book and manuscript dealers of Texana, including Ray Walton, Fred White, Ben Whitehead and John Jenkins.
The manuscript of José Enrique de la Peña, popularly known as the De la Peña diary, first appeared publicly in 1955 under the title La Rebelión de Texas . The manuscript was edited and published by Jesús Sánchez Garza, a Mexico City antiquities dealer. Peña served as a Mexican Army officer under General Antonio López Santa Anna's 1836 campaign in Texas, and his papers provide a first-person account of the Texas Revolution. The original manuscript and subsequent publication were practically unknown in the United States, until the 1975 publication of an English-language edition, translated by Carmen Perry, under the title With Santa Anna in Texas: A Personal Narrative of the Revolution (Texas A&M University Press).
From the guide to the John Peace Collection MS 296., 1800-1973, (University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections)
