José de los Santos Benavide

When 200 Union cavalrymen rode toward Laredo on March 18, 1864, their mission seemed straightforward. Destroy 5,000 bales of Confederate cotton stacked at San Agustín Plaza, worth millions of dollars at wartime prices, and cripple the South's economic lifeline to Mexico. What stood between them and their objective was a garrison of just 42 men commanded by a Mexican American…