Laredo Defended

Hispanic Confederate Officers

Founded in 1755, Laredo is not your typical Civil War battle site.  A Texas border town with a Hispanic majority, it was culturally more Tejano than Southern.  After becoming a republic in 1838, Texas did not extend jurisdiction over Laredo until almost a decade later.  During that time, the land between Laredo, on the Rio Grande, and north, to the Nueces River, was a veritable no man’s land; a land filled with Comanches, Lipan Apaches and bandits from both sides of the Rio Grande.  Referred to as the “Nueces Strip,” it effectively isolated Laredo from the rest of Texas.  The War with Mexico brought in the Texas Rangers; who raised the U.S. flag over the Laredo courthouse in 1846.  The city was divided in two by the Rio Grande:  Nuevo Laredo on the Mexican side and Laredo on the U.S. side.   Because of its Mexican heritage and distinctly southwest culture, it would seem Laredo would be a neutral city, showing little support for either side.  Nuevo Laredo, its sister city to the south, provided a handy sanctuary for those who wanted to leave Texas and avoid the Civil War altogether.  Confederate logistics and an amazing local leader would prove otherwise.

To bypass the Union naval blockade, the Confederacy turned to Mexico to procure arms and military supplies.  In return for arms, Confederate cotton was shipped to Brownsville, across the Rio Grande to Matamoros, then routed east to the the boomtown, ramshackle port of Baghdad. Waiting ships, anchored offshore, carried the cotton to Europe after they dropped off the military supplies.  To protect the shipments, on both sides of the border, the Confederacy turned to Laredo native Colonel Santos Benavides. 

A former mayor of Laredo, Benavides commanded a mostly Hispanic, Confederate cavalry regiment to patrol for any Union activity.  Despite his Mexican heritage, he was an ardent supporter of the Southern states’ rights doctrine.  In 1841, many residents along the Rio Grande, who favored a Federal government, revolted against Mexico’s central government in faraway Mexico City.  Insurgents established the sort-lived “Republic of the Rio Grande,” consisting of the “Nueces Strip” and portions of northern Mexico.  Laredo was its capital.  Within the year, Centralist troops put down the revolt, executing one of the insurgent leaders by firing squad.  The Benavides’ family supported the insurgents, harboring a deep mistrust of powerful central governments in both Mexico and the United States.

The U.S. Federal government was kept informed on Texas’ arms-for-cotton shipments from

 U. S. consulates in Mexico and Texas Unionists in Brownsville.  During November, 1863, the Union Army invaded South Texas to shut down the Mexican border.  A force of over 6,000 troops from New Orleans, under Major General Nathaniel Banks, landed on the Texas coast and occupied Brownsville.  However, the line of Union occupation troops didn’t extend over the entire length of the Rio Grande.  Bypassing Union held Brownsville, the Confederate government sent their cotton further upriver to Laredo.  Laredo residents favored the trade and the economic opportunities that came with it.  Five thousand cotton bales were piled into Laredo’s St. Augustine Plaza to be shipped across the border.  Tipped off about the shipment, General Edmund Davis, commander of the Texas Unionist regiments, dispatched two hundred cavalrymen to Laredo.  Under the command of Major Alfred Holt, their objective was the destruction of the 5,000 bales. 

Not one to be taken by surprise, Benavides had established an extensive network of spies and scouts to keep him informed of Union activity coming out of Brownsville.  Holt’s troopers, however, managed to elude his scouts by riding south of the Rio Grande.  To make matters worse, Benavides was sick in bed.  Weeks in the saddle and sleeping in the open air had taken their toll.  On March 19, 1864, former Webb County mayor, Cayento de la Garza, rode into town with startling news; a large Union cavalry force was approaching the city.   Rising from his sickbed, a half-awake Benavides began issuing orders.  He had only forty-two men to defend his hometown.  A rider was dispatched to bring in one hundred men at a grazing camp 25 miles north of town.  Benavides told his brother Cristobal, “There are five thousand bales of cotton in the plaza.  It belongs to the Confederacy.  If the day goes against us, fire it.  Be sure to do the work properly so that not a bale of it shall fall into the hands of the Yankees.  Then you will set my new house on fire, so that nothing of mine shall pass to the enemy.  Let their victory be a barren one.”  Benavides was barren of energy.  Totally spent, he fell off his horse and suffered a concussion.  Their leader barely conscious, civilians and military alike set up barricades consisting of cotton bales.  On Laredo’s outskirts, the Confederates waited for Holt at a stone coral along Zacate Creek.  From the town rooftops, Laredo residents cheered them on. 

Holt was met with a withering fire as he approached his objective.  Benavides’ men held off three assaults for three hours.  Reinforcements arrived from the grazing camp that evening, forcing Holt to retreat.  The 5,000 bales were saved!  The victory was secured weeks later with the arrival of General John “Rip” Ford’s Cavalry of the West.  Ford was advancing toward Brownsville to drive out the Union forces.  He would recapture Brownsville in July 1864.  Benavides latter wrote, “This would not have happened had I not been confined to bed for some days.  I would have known all about their advance and would have gone below and attacked them.  As it is I have to fight to the last; though hardly able to stand, I shall die fighting.  I won’t retreat, no matter what force the Yankees have - I know I can depend on my boys.”

Texas could depend on Santos Benavides.