Pictured. Colonel Santos Benavides, CSA, and his wife Augustina Villareal de Benavides, 1864-65.

Colonel Santos Benavides is reported to have been the highest ranking Mexican American to serve in the Confederate Army. An experienced indian fighter and loyal Texan he was so valuable he was given the opportunity to be given a generals rank in both the Union and Confederate armies.

When the Union army was reported on the coast of Texas and was marching on Brownsville, Major Benavides called his men together and informed them what had happened, stating that if any of his men did not want to continue fighting he would issue them a discharge. Viva la Confederacion! Viva Major Benavides!, was the answer, not a man left him.

When the war ended Benavides was still in the field fighting Mexican raiders and Indians. He was so busy he could not report to be paroled. Finally in July of 1865, while on a scouting expedition against the indians, he recieved a polite letter from Union officers in Brownsville asking that he sign and forward his parole papers.

In May of 1869 he answered the call by Union authorities to help form a companies to fight angainst Indian raids in the Laredo area. Santos Benavides was one of many ex-Confederates that answered the call to assist the military.

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/BB/fbe47.html
___________________
David Upton