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.
