Horace Capron (August 31, 1804 – February 22, 1885) was an American businessman and agriculturalist, a founder of Laurel, Maryland, a Union officer in the American Civil War, the United States secretary of agriculture under U.S. presidents Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S. Grant, and an advisor to Japan's Hokkaidō Development Commission.

In November 1834, Capron and others gathered suspects and potential witnesses of two recent Laurel railroad murders and brought them to Merrill's tavern.

[3] In 1834, Horace married Louisa Victoria Snowden, whose late father Nicholas had owned Montpelier Mansion.

He spent several months in Texas, and then moved to a farm near Hebron, Illinois where his mother Eunice and sister Louisa Thiers had settled and were taking care of his children.

Armed with the Henry repeating rifle, Capron's 324 soldiers were able to slow and finally halt Jones' brigade before it reached the ford.

[10] Capron's 3rd Brigade joined George Stoneman's XXIII Corps cavalry division on June 28, 1864 during the Atlanta campaign.

[12] Rearmed with infantry rifles, the 14th Illinois was unable to cope with Nathan B. Forrest's hard-fighting Confederate horsemen.

[13] Two new regiments were added to Capron's brigade, bringing its strength up to 1,800 men, and it successfully defended its position at Hardison's Mill on the Duck River on November 28.

His recommendation that wheat and rye be planted in Hokkaidō due to similarities in climate with parts of the United States also led to the establishment of Sapporo Beer, one of Japan's first breweries.

From his journals, it appears that he also admired the Japanese, although he regarded them as semi-barbaric, and firmly believed that rapid adoption of Western culture would be in Japan's best interest.

During his stay in Japan, Capron was honored with three audiences with Emperor Meiji, who took a close personal interest in his work in the development of Hokkaidō.

In 1884, nine years after he departed Japan, Horace Capron was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun (2nd class) for his services in transforming Hokkaidō.

[citation needed] He is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.[17] During his period in Japan, Capron amassed a large collection of Japanese art and antiques.