Civil War Union Hispanics and the Execution of Private Garcia
Sunday, August 23, 2015 6:00 am
By NORMAN ROZEFF
The story of Lower Rio Grande Valley Hispanics in the Civil War on the Union side is not well known. It begins with South Texans who chose to side with the Union rather than with the majority of Texans who aligned with the Confederate States of America. They were to go on to form two Union army units, the First Texas Cavalry and the Second Texas Cavalry.
Associated with the First Texas Cavalry is the story of Edmund J. Davis ... After secession he refused to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy ... President Lincoln commissioned Davis a colonel in the Union army. Davis then recruited and led the First Texas Cavalry ... After the special Texas convention had met and instigated a referendum on secession and which passed 46,129 to 14,697, individual citizens and federal military men had to decide to swear allegiance to the Confederacy or not. Robert E. Lee, a lieutenant colonel of the 2d Cavalry stationed in Texas, was one of those ... Davis told Lee that he was the ablest man in federal service, and begged him to stand by the Union ... Colonel Lee ... told the judge that his arguments were “correct and unanswerable” ... But Lee said quietly that his higher loyalty must be to his own people ...
http://www.valleymorningstar.com/life/article_c829a58c-4861-11e5-99f6-f7daecfb4d91.html
