Hispanics in the Confederacy

The Cuban patriot Narciso López approached Mexican War heroes Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee in 1848 with the request to head a liberation army to free Cuba from Spain -- Lee seriously considered the offer, but turned it down.

José Agustín Quintero, a Cuban poet and revolutionary, ably served Confederate President Jefferson Davis as the C.S. Commissioner to Northern Mexico, ensuring critical supplies from Europe flowed through Mexican ports to the CSA.

Santiago Vidaurri, governor of the border states of Coahuila and Nuevo León, offered to secede northern Mexico and join the Confederacy; Jefferson Davis declined, afraid the valuable "neutral" Mexican ports would be then blockaded.

The Spanish inventor Narciso Monturiol offered the Confederacy his advanced submarine Ictineo to smash the Federal blockade. Never purchased, Jules Verne apparently based the Nautilus on this, the world's most advanced vessel of the day.

Ambrosio José González, a famous Cuban revolutionary, served Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard as his artillery officer in Charleston; earlier, in New York, he helped design the modern Cuban and (inversed) Puerto Rican flags.

The Mexican Santos Benavides, a former Texas ranger, commanded the Confederate 33rd Texas Cavalry, a Mexican- American unit which defeated the Union in the 1864 Battle of Laredo, Texas. He became the only Mexican CS colonel.

Thomas Jordan, a Confederate general responsible for early codes used in spying on Washington, after the war led the Cuban revolutionary army as Commander-in-Chief, training its generals and in 1870 routing the Spaniards at two-to-one odds.

Lola Sanchez, of a Cuban family living near St. Augustine, had her sisters serve dinner to visiting Federals, while she raced out at night and warned the nearest Confederate camp. The Yankees thus lost a general, his unit and a gunboat the next day.

Loretta Janeta Velazquez, a Cuban woman, claimed to have fought in the war disguised as a Confederate soldier, Lt. Harry Buford. She chronicled her amazing and harrowing adventures in an account called The Woman in Battle.

James Hamilton Tomb, a Confederate engineer on the innovative semi-submarine ship David, accepted a post-war offer from the Brazilian emperor as technical expert on torpedoes (submarine mines) in the Paraguayan War of 1865-1870.

Hunter Davidson, a Confederate torpedo (submarine mine) scientist, assumed the head of the Argentine Torpedo and Hydrographic Bureau for some years, training its leadership, and retired to Asunción, Paraguay, where he is buried.

John Randolph Tucker, head of the Charleston Confederate Naval Squadron, accepted a post-war position as Vice-Admiral heading the combined Peruvian-Chilean fleets in a Pacific conflict against Spanish coastal incursions.

John Newland Maffitt, who before the war captured illegal slave-trading ships, served the Confederacy as the CSS Florida's commander. Afterwards, he served in the Paraguayan war and commanded the Cuban gun-runner Hornet.

Thomas Jefferson Page, a Confederate naval commander who learned of the war's end in Cuba after sailing the ironclad CSS Stonewall from Spain, settled in Argentina, his son becoming an Argentine naval commander, his grandson an admiral.

Mexican service influenced Confederate general Stonewall Jackson; he often spoke Spanish endearments to his wife, Anna.

After the war, many prominent governors and other Confederates established a colony, Carlotta, in Mexico.

More Info? Check Out These Fine Books:
Richard H. Bradford, The Virginius Affair, 1980

Light Townsend Cummins, Spanish Observers and the American Revolution, 1775-1783, 1991

James W. Daddysman, The Matamoros Trade: Confederate Commerce, Diplomacy and Intrigue, 1984

Ella Lonn, Foreigners in the Confederacy, 1965 (reprint, 1940 edition)

Andrew Rolle, The Lost Cause: The Confederate Exodus to Mexico, 1965

Ronnie C. Tyler, Santiago Vidaurri and the Southern Confederacy, 1973

Frank de Varona (ed.), Hispanic Presence in the United States: Historical Beginnings, 1993

David Werlich, Admiral of the Amazon: John Randolph Tucker - His Confederate Colleagues and Peru, 1990

John O'Donnell-Rosales, Hispanic Confederates, list of several thousand who served the Confederacy, 8 1/2 x 11, 90 pp., paper, (1997), reprint 1998. Clearfield Publishing Co., 200 E. Eager St., Baltimore, MD 21202