His participation in the Mexican Army leading to the Battle of Coleto was instrumental in the surrender and demise of Colonel James Fannin and the Texian forces.

Carlos was both a Tejano (Mexican born in Texas, or Tejas) and a Labadeño, or Badeño, (a descendant of a Presidio La Bahía soldier).

His Carlos Rancho and his Ferry Crossing at the San Antonio River became a hub for local commerce, as well as a crossroads for several communities of both immigrants and Labadeños.

Along the Gulf Coast in what are now the counties of Goliad, Refugio, San Patricio and Victoria, Tejano involvement in events of the Texas revolution were partially influenced by the empresario colonization contracts.

Over the objections of Mexican rancheros (ranch owners) in the area without legal titles, Irish immigrants James Power and James Hewetson were granted an empresario colonization contract in 1828 (amended in 1831) to settle four hundred Irish families on secularized land once belonging to Nuestra Señora del Refugio Mission and Mission La Bahía.

The command to slaughter the prisoners of war came directly from General and President of the Centralist Republic of Mexico, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

Carlos Rancho survived an 1845 legal attempt by Louisiana resident Thomas Taylor Williamson to seize the land from Garza.

[14] Garza died at the age of 75 on December 30, 1882, apparently from an old arrow wound received in a Karankawa Indian fight, possibly in 1852 at Hynes Bay.