149 years ago a small force of 42 confederates successfully defended Laredo against 200 union troops. The 33rd Texas Regiment was commanded by Col. Santos Benavides and the ranks were filled with both white and Hispanic soldiers.

Not sure this is taught in Texas schools...anyone know?

Hard to imagine fighting over Laredo, much less defending it.

Couple of points worth noting:

Santos Benavides was a Colonel, and the highest ranking Hispanic in the Confederate Army. He was a certifiable badass. Just look at him. He's like Cheech meets JEB Stuart:



He was later a Texas State Senator, where he was an ally of Governor Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Even in old age, he looked like he could bench press two or three Reconstruction Republicans:



He has an elementary school in Laredo named after him, so he's not forgotten locally: http://csbs.unitedisd.org/

As for Laredo being royalist/different, bear in mind that Laredo was a thriving, successful town when most of Texas was a backwater. For this reason, when Texas declared independence from Mexico, Laredo promptly declared independence from Texas. Of course, they didn't like Mexico either (this is all about interests, because neither country (Texas or Mexico) was capable of governing Laredo, as distant as it was. However, with a then-navigable Rio Grande/Bravo, Laredo thought it could do better trying to stand alone).

This was known as the Republic of the Rio Grande, and it's why to this day, the Laredo Morning Times honors the seven flags of Texas, including this one:


As for whether it's worth knowing, there is no history that actually happened, that is not worth knowing.



[This message has been edited by aalan94 (edited 3/24/2013 10:15p).]

So to get back to this topic the two men in the picture are Andrew and Silas Chandler. Andrew is the solider and Silas is the slave dressed in a soldier’s tunic. Andrew was the 17 year old son of a Mississippi planter when he enlisted in the 44th Mississippi Infantry after the firing on Ft. Sumter near West Point, MS. Silas was one of the 35 slaves of the Chandler family. He was about age 25 and he accompanied Andrew to the war. Andrew served with the Army of Tennessee and Silas served as his general manservant, groom, launderer and cook. Andrew is listed on the roles of the 44th Mississippi, Silas is not.

One piece of evidence that Silas was not a soldier and was a slave is that he constantly travelled between the Army of Tennessee and the Chandler plantation carrying correspondence home and bringing goods back to Andrew. This was certainly a risky business for Silas. Although the slave catchers had throttled back during the war, because most of them were now in the Confederate Army, but they were still out there and the state militias were picking up some of the slack. If Silas was a soldier, he would not have been permitted to leave the army so often to go home. In one letter home in August 1862 as the Federals moved into north Mississippi and got close to the family home, Andrew wrote a letter home expressing concern for Silas saying, “Do not let them catch Silas.” Indicating he was not with the army at that time.

Andrew was wounded in the ankle at the Battle of Chickamauga and Silas was supposedly with him at that time. The family legend is that Silas pleaded with the surgeons not to amputate and used some money he had to pay them not to cut his leg off. Silas accompanied Andrew to the hospital in Atlanta (again a soldier could not have done this) and stayed with him during his recuperation. Andrew was crippled for life by the wound.

After the war both Andrew and Silas lived 15 miles apart from each other in Clay County, MS both marrying and raising families.
Further strong evidence that Silas was a slave was that in 1916 he filed for a Confederate pension in Mississippi. But he did not file as a soldier but as “an indigent servant of a soldier.” The pension application refers to his “owner.” So that discredits the family lore that Silas was freed by Andrew as they went off to war. To back that further, in 1856 Mississippi passed some draconian laws that made it very burdensome for an owner to free their slaves legally and those laws were still in effect when the war began.

Happy Appomattox Day to everyone .

aalan94 said:

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Couple of points worth noting:

Santos Benavides was a Colonel, and the highest ranking Hispanic in the Confederate Army. He was a certifiable badass. Just look at him. He's like Cheech meets JEB Stuart:



He was later a Texas State Senator, where he was an ally of Governor Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Even in old age, he looked like he could bench press two or three Reconstruction Republicans:



He has an elementary school in Laredo named after him, so he's not forgotten locally: http://csbs.unitedisd.org/

As for Laredo being royalist/different, bear in mind that Laredo was a thriving, successful town when most of Texas was a backwater. For this reason, when Texas declared independence from Mexico, Laredo promptly declared independence from Texas. Of course, they didn't like Mexico either (this is all about interests, because neither country (Texas or Mexico) was capable of governing Laredo, as distant as it was. However, with a then-navigable Rio Grande/Bravo, Laredo thought it could do better trying to stand alone).

This was known as the Republic of the Rio Grande, and it's why to this day, the Laredo Morning Times honors the seven flags of Texas, including this one:


As for whether it's worth knowing, there is no history that actually happened, that is not worth knowing.



[This message has been edited by aalan94 (edited 3/24/2013 10:15p).

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Hmm, looks an awful lot like a qb1 I know of...

cle96 said:

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aalan94 said:

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Couple of points worth noting:

Santos Benavides was a Colonel, and the highest ranking Hispanic in the Confederate Army. He was a certifiable badass. Just look at him. He's like Cheech meets JEB Stuart:



He was later a Texas State Senator, where he was an ally of Governor Lawrence Sullivan Ross. Even in old age, he looked like he could bench press two or three Reconstruction Republicans:



He has an elementary school in Laredo named after him, so he's not forgotten locally: http://csbs.unitedisd.org/

As for Laredo being royalist/different, bear in mind that Laredo was a thriving, successful town when most of Texas was a backwater. For this reason, when Texas declared independence from Mexico, Laredo promptly declared independence from Texas. Of course, they didn't like Mexico either (this is all about interests, because neither country (Texas or Mexico) was capable of governing Laredo, as distant as it was. However, with a then-navigable Rio Grande/Bravo, Laredo thought it could do better trying to stand alone).

This was known as the Republic of the Rio Grande, and it's why to this day, the Laredo Morning Times honors the seven flags of Texas, including this one:




As for whether it's worth knowing, there is no history that actually happened, that is not worth knowing.



[This message has been edited by aalan94 (edited 3/24/2013 10:15p).

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Hmm, looks an awful lot like a qb1 I know of...

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I'd love it if Kellen ran outta the tunnel with that flag