Benavides Brothers

The river war around Laredo was fought largely among Tejanos and their Mexican neighbors. In December 1862 Mexican revolutionaries killed three of Refugio Benavides's men near Roma, and other raiders hanged the Zapata County judge, Ysidro Vela. Refugio led fifty-five riders across the river, stormed a corral near Camargo and killed eighteen of the raiders, losing two men. The cotton these companies guarded kept a government afloat that existed to protect slavery. The Handbook of Texas still calls Santos the highest-ranking Mexican American in the Confederacy, and in 1864 he arranged cotton's safe passage to Matamoros.

What the plaque says

Benavides Brothers Members of a prominent Laredo family, the three Benavides brothers were the descendants of Tomas Sanchez, who founded the city in 1755. Santos (1823-1891) and Refugio Benavides (b. 1824) and their half-brother Cristobal (1839-1904) were best known for their service in the Confederate army during the Civil War (1861-1865). Santos commanded a regiment in the 33rd Texas Cavalry and rose to the rank of colonel, the highest rank achieved by a Mexican-American in the Confederate army. Both Refugio and Cristobal earned the rank of captain. Stationed along the Texas-Mexican border, the brothers encountered both bandits and Union forces. In May 1862, they defeated a large raiding party led by Juan Cortina at Carrizo (now Zapata). In March 1864, although their troops were badly outnumbered, they defended Laredo against an army of Texas unionists. Their victory helped insure continuation of the vital Confederate cotton trade between Texas and Mexico. The Benavides brothers also distinguished themselves as political, commercial, and social leaders in Laredo. Santos and Cristobal operated one of the city's most prosperous mercantile companies. Santos also served in the state legislature, 1879-1884. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Agustín Plaza — steps away
  The shaded square at the center of Laredo's 1755 town, where Carrizo families, Spanish ranchers and a century of border politics shared the same ground.
• Republic of the Rio Grande Museum — steps away
  A stone-and-adobe Laredo house, by tradition the capitol of a federalist republic that lasted ten months in 1840, now a museum of life in a mid-nineteenth-century home.
• San Agustín Cathedral — steps away
  Laredo's Gothic Revival parish church, finished in 1872 on a parish older than Texas statehood, and the mother church of the Diocese of Laredo since 2000.
• Fort McIntosh Historic District at Laredo College — 1.0 mi
  An 1849 Army post on the Rio Grande above Laredo, its barracks, officers' quarters and 1895 chapel still standing on a college campus that took over the site in 1947.

More markers nearby

• Laredo Election Riot, 1886 — steps away
• Republic of the Rio Grande — steps away
• The Ramón Family — steps away
• Laredo's Washington's Birthday Celebration — steps away