John Leal Haynes (1821–1888) was a military and political leader, born in Bedford County, Virginia. In the early 1840s he became the editor of the Lexington, Mississippi, Advertiser . He volunteered for service in the Mexican War and rose to the rank of lieutenant. Subsequently he lived in the frontier towns of Camargo, Tamaulipas, and Rio Grande City, Texas. After service during 1850 as Starr county clerk, he was in the state House of Representatives from 1857 to 1861. Governor Sam Houston appointed him quartermaster of state troops on the frontier in 1860. During the Civil War Haynes became an officer in Col. Edmund J. Davis's First Texas Cavalry (U.S.). He was promoted to colonel of the Second Texas Cavalry (U.S.) when it was organized in 1863 and commanded the consolidated regiment formed from both units in 1864. Between 1865 and 1868 he lived in Austin and served as internal revenue collector. He campaigned unsuccessfully for Congress in 1869 as a supporter of Andrew J. Hamilton. Haynes was collector of customs at Galveston in 1869–70 and at Brownsville from 1872 to 1884. He was active continuously in the Republican party during the Reconstruction era: he helped lead the conservative faction in the late 1860s, supported the regular party in the 1870s, and ran for lieutenant governor on the "straight-out" Republican ticket in 1884. Haynes was married and had one daughter and four sons. He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Masonic order. He died in Laredo in 1888, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery in that city.
Information taken from the Handbook of Texas Online
From the guide to the Haynes, John L. Papers 86-9., 1846-1945, (Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)
