Santos Benavides





Santos Benavides (November 1, 1823 – November 9, 1891) was a Confederate colonel during the American Civil War. Benavides was the highest-ranking Tejano soldier in the Confederate military.

Biography
Benavides was born in Laredo, the seat of Webb County, a descendant of Don Tomas Sanchez de la Barrera y Garza, the founder of Laredo. Benavides also served as county judge in Webb County in 1859. He was the captain of the 33rd Texas Cavalry, also called Benavides' Regiment, until he was promoted to colonel in November 1863.

On May 22, 1861, at the Battle of Carrizo (also called Battle of Zapata), Benavides engaged the local Tejano leader Juan Cortina (who had invaded Zapata County, an event usually referred as the Second Cortina War), and drove him back into Mexico. Probably his greatest contribution to the Confederacy was securing passage of Confederate cotton to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, in 1863. On March 18, 1864, Major Alfred Holt led a force of about two hundred men from the command of Col. Davis near Brownsville, Texas to destroy five thousand bales of cotton stacked at the San Agustín Plaza in Laredo. The next day, Benavidez defended Laredo against the Union's First Texas Cavalry, whose commander was Colonel Edmund J. Davis, a Florida native who had previously offered Benavides a Union generalship, and defeated the Union forces. Colonel Santos Benavides commanded forty-two men and repelled three Union attacks at the Zacate Creek in what is known as the Battle of Laredo. Davis was elected in 1869 as the first ever Republican governor of Texas. In May 1865 Benavides' regiment was in the last battle of the Civil war-Battle of Palmito Ranch

After the American Civil War ended, he resumed his merchant and ranching activities and remained active in politics. He died in Laredo and was buried there.