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President Jefferson Davis and his State Dept outmaneuvered Lincoln and his, in Mexico. As Secretary of War, Davis understood why the President Buchanan never appointed a US Mexican Ambassador. As Senator he knew the Europeans were on the verge of intervening to collect debts. Davis, having served in Monterrey and done extensive business with the Spanish Creole, understood their culture and history far better than the Springfield Lawyer who thought they were a race of “mongrels.” Unlike Lincoln, Davis had no designs on Mexican territory and while he couldn’t match the Union’s offer of cash, he did offer trade-agreements. Davis knew tangible things that would benefit the Confederacy, like the richest man in South Texas was born in Cadiz Spain and largest Export Company in the region was managed by the Son-in-law of the Governor of Nuevo Leon. Soon Hundreds of Cargo Ships, at a time, from around the World, waited just off the Mexican Coast to load, as cottons prices sky-rocketed.Lincoln of course realized his mistake and shifted his focus in 63, but he and his agents were again outmaneuvered, this time, by General Santos Benavides, both diplomatically and militarily. Instead of an a Unionist Mexican Army opening a second front against Texas as Lincoln envisioned, the Confederacy opened a trade route to Mexico that accounted for over 1/5 of Southern Cotton exported during the War and enough munitions for a sustained defense of the Mississippi and a successful one of the Trans-Mississippi.Lincoln finally pried an extremely powerful Congressman, Thomas Corwin, a GOP insider, loose from his House Seat to carry his proposal for a military Alliance to Mexican President Benito Juarez. The appointment was made on March 12th but Corwin did not accept it until the 24th , after his two sons were given high paying Government jobs and Secretary of State Seward gave him carte blanch to deal with Juarez.Corwin had opposed the 1846 War with Mexico and was willing to return territory taken in the treaty of Hidalgo, including the Nueces Strip, in South Texas, so he was well received by Juarez. Had Congress approved Corwin’s Lincoln supported loans, without needing Mexican Territory as security, Lincoln may have realized his dream of Mexican Armies invading Texas.Corwin approved the plan for war if the Cotton States did not return by April 1861 and started it, by promising to return General Juan Cortina’s Texas property if he could seize Fort Brown & Confederate authorities along the Rio. Corwin’s agent Leonard Pierce Jr a Federal employee from Massachusetts who had been stationed at Fort Brown, before it was surrendered, was the intermediary. While Texas Ranger Captain Benavides was enforcing Border Security on Cortina’s men, at the Battle of Redmond’s Ranch, May 21st 1861, Pierce was sworn in as the US Consul to Matamoros. Despite this setback, Pierce would continue to serve Union Interests in Mexico until Cortina was bribed to change sides and chased him out of town. Cortina became Governor of Tamaulipas in 1864.Davis sent Colonel John T Picket, previously US Consul at Vera Cruz, to open a dialogue with Juarez, in May 61. Corwin got to Juarez first and persuaded him to allow Union Armies to operate in Mexico against the Confederates and to arrest the Confederate Ambassador. Picket was asked if he was trying to gain Confederate recognition. He responded, "to the contrary. My business is to recognize Mexico--provided I can find a government that will stand still long enough." This also exemplifies why Buchanan removed the American Minister, Mexico City was in chaos. Juarez headed an Army, not a country. Corwin even convinced Juarez the Confederacy wanted Northern Mexico, even though Davis wanted no part of that confusion.Pickett's never did manage communicate with Richmond as his letters were intercepted by the commandant in Matamoros. who was working with Pierce. Cortina sabotaged US Lt Colonel Robert E Lee’s Mission with US 2nd Cavalry, with agents in the Express Office, the year before. This seems insignificant in view of Picket’s over-all failure, but the Union alliance with Cortina would doom Union plans, especially after Santos had enough cotton receipts to bribe the wily Mexican Nationalist.Undeterred by crickets from Picket, CSA Secretary of State Robert Toombs recruited Colonel José Agustín Quintero, a Cuban, in the Texas Quitman Guards, a New Orleans lawyer, Emissary of the Confederate government to Governor Vidaurri of Nuevo Leon. Quintero arrived in Monterrey on 17 June 1861 and saw Vidaurri in an official status on the twentieth and twenty third of that month. In these meetings, Vidaurri expressed friendship and a desire to maintain peace along the border. As proof of his sincerity, Vidaurri gave Quintero a copy of a decree he had issued in April that called for the arrest of Mexicans raiding in Texas. The Benavides Rangers had requested the assistance of Nuevo Leon Troops to quell the Cortinistas. Vidaurri also stated that he would never agree to allowing Union troops to cross northern Mexico.On 26 June, Quintero and Vidaurri had met in a private interview. Vidaurri told Quintero that he had wanted to form a "Republic of Sierra Madre" of northern Mexican states. The formation of the Confederacy now led him to seek annexation of the Mexican Federalist States into the Confederacy. “Federalists” in Mexican meant “Confederates” when translated into Southern and shouldn’t be confused with Unionist “Federals.” Vidaurri wanted negotiations to begin immediately. Vidaurri was still loyal to the Mexican Republic, but his relationship with Juarez was strained. Therefore, the confidentiality of these communications was critical. Today they would be called Classified Top Secret.Communications flowed smoothly to and from Monterrey and seemed to take only about a week to 10 days, roundtrip. Texas had telegraphs from the early 1850s, but the lines went no closer to Monterrey than San Antonio and Galveston. A Steamer from via Brownsville or a relay of fresh mounts along Military roads could carry a dispatch to the Telegraph lines in 3-4 days. Santos’s Uncle, Basilio Benavides, still in charge of the Benavides Ranger Company HQ in Laredo, while his nephews gallivanted about the countryside, must get credit for ensuring the security of these vital communications. Corwin could not interfere with Quinteros’s communiques, as he had with Picket’s.Davis instructed Quinteros to advise Vidaurri that President Davis reciprocated Vidaurri's expression of friendship and goodwill. Davis also stated that while commercial and social ties would be maintained "it would be imprudent and impolitic in the interest of both parties" to annex the states in northern Mexico. Quintero was also instructed to determine the chances of purchasing war supplies, and to find the best route to ship supplies from Mexico to the Confederacy. Quintero was ordered keep his status secret.Annexation could have also angered the European countries who agreed to the Convention of London, to collect their money from Mexico. The United States was asked to join, US Secretary of State William H. Seward declined. On 8 December 1862, the Spanish landed troops at the port of Veracruz. The British and the Spanish discovered that France planned to send its Army inland, so they withdrew from the London agreement. The subsequent French alliance with Conservatives, like the Catholic Church, evicted Juarez from Mexico City and created the Second Mexican Empire. Corwin’s efforts were for naught. The French Fleet confined the Union Blockade to American Waters.The Spanish Creole were by the 1800s devoted to the same Federalism as the Author of the Constitution of the Republic of Texas, Manuel Lorenzo Justiniano de Zavala y Sáenz, its first Vice President. They were also just as opposed to the Centrist Dictatorship of President Lopez de Santa Anna.Santiago Vidaurri became Governor in 1855, by leading an Army to expel Santa Anna’s Forces from Monterrey. "Vidaurri had become one of the champions of Mexican liberalism during the first years of his cacicazgo [political area of control] over the northeast, especially its most radical faction, the puros.” Explains Mexican Historian Juan Mora-Torres.Vidaurri had sent 2000 of his Elite Nuevo Leon Cavalry and a Regiment of Infantry, to serve The Second Republic when he thought they were defending “The Plan of Ayutla.” But Juarez did not always honor this Constitution. It was written by New Orleans Spanish Lawyers using their Jesuit Neo-Platonic philosophy, to say the same thing as the US Declaration of Independence said in Deist. The plan established a Government on the Federalist model that would characterize the Confederate Constitution. Spanish Governor Bernardo de Gálvez, 1st Viscount of Galveston, played a pivotal role in the American Revolution so Spanish Creole passion for Republican Government is not Mexicans aping Americans. It could be said, as easily, that Anglos, on the East Coast, were parroting the Spanish Creole desire for, and expressions of, autonomy.Vidaurri and other Republican Generals received most of their arms through New Orleans in the 1850s. Nuevo Leon had much closer ties economically and politically to the Southern Gulf Coast and Caribbean, than it did with the Capitol of Mexico. Which explains why CSA Secretary of State Toombs chose a Cuban New Orleans Lawyer as the Second Confederate emissary.CSA Lt Atanacio Vidaurri, in Benavides company, was, like the Governor of Nuevo Leon, a Great Grandson of Empresario, Spanish Captain Juan Antonio Vidaurri. The Political, Church, and Military Leaders of the Rio Grande-Bravo Valley antebellum all seem to be cousins or in-laws. Santos adopted several children and the practice was quite common generally, inbreeding was not as big a problem as we might imagine. Santos kinship with the De la Garza family, in control of much of western Tamaulipas, thwarted Cortina’s espionage efforts. These Land Grant holding families were well educated, skilled fighters, multi-lingual, and devoted Catholics. The Spanish Creole, of which they were a part, were well represented in trading houses and professional offices through-out the South.They may have been elitist but were certainly not racist, as many were Blackish and Indigenous. Equality was their mantra, but Citizenship required literacy and came with responsibility. Supporting schools and churches, they felt, was far more prudent, in establishing Republican Government, than the redistribution of wealth and property favored by the Centrists. Santos went to great lengths to see that his daughters were getting a quality education, even during his busiest times. He and Vidaurri conferred on the issue of Women’s education, as armies campaigned and millions of dollars and pesos, in gold and cotton, flowed through their domain.Understanding this, gave Davis and new Secretary of State Judah Benjamin, tremendous advantage over Lincoln. Until Juarez Agent Matias Romero showed up on his porch, after he was elected President, Lincoln doesn’t seem to have met a Mexican. Benjamin replaced Toombs as CSA Secretary of State, in part, because Benjamin was NOLA Lawyer, who was born in the Caribbean. The Nuevo Leon alliance and trade through the “Spanish Main” was most important to the Confederacy. Speaking their languages kept the munitions coming.The ports of Tampico and Soto la Marina also shipped considerable Cotton, such was the overflow at Matamoros. Cotton came from as far away as Arkansas and West Louisiana to Houston or San Antonio by rail where it was loaded on intercoastal boats that could operate beyond the reach of the larger ships of the Blockade, or more likely onto the hundreds of wagons that formed trains many miles long, for transport to any number of crossings. The Eagle Pass Road, while the longest route, also had the most water and the easiest road. The Piedras Negras Custom House just across the river, regularly collected fifty thousand dollars a month on a one cent per hundred pounds of cotton. Laredo, Rio Grande City and Carrizo were also popular crossings.Davis seemed to understand the history of Northern Mexico, In the 1500s Spanish Officers facing an over-population problem with feral cattle, requested and received Imperial Land Grants to import and settle Spanish Stockman in Nuevo Leon. Captain José Vázquez Borrego, Juan Antonio’s father-in-law, established the first permanent Spanish settlement in South Texas in 1750. The Cattle ranching methods they developed, along with their horse breeding, gave us the Cowboy culture and lingo. The Brilliant Statesman, Author and Cowboy, Will Rogers, confirmed It was here, Spanish ranching equipment and methods adjusted to create the most popular riding style in America. There are English and Portuguese Stock Saddles, but the typical American saddle is Neo-Spanish. Saying it is Mexican is technically incorrect, which Davis understood, while Lincoln did not.Madrid directed Kingdoms of its Empire separately. The Military and Church expanded in the wake of the first explorers, well into Texas and beyond. The New Kingdom of León was created 1569, independently from New Spain in Mexico City and its citizens wanted retain that independence. Spanish immigrants Families were firmly established many years before Jamestown. They occupied a sparsely populated grass lands and maintained Spanish Reconquista Culture in its pure form, more than the Spanish who assimilated into densely populated farming areas in Southern Mexico. They were first class cavalry when they arrived, but clearly continued to hone their equestrian skills, in this challenging environment. Despite growing up in a privileged family, it was rumored Santiago Vidaurri had been raised by Indians, so well did he ride.Silver Mines during 1600s sustained the Kingdom and established markets and trade through Tampico to the Caribbean and beyond for their mineral and bovine goods. In 1753 Captain Juan Antonio Vidaurri brought Spanish settlers to the colony established just three years before by Borego, receiving the Corralitos and San Ygnacio land grants for them, in what is now Zapata and Webb counties. The Vidaurri were Governors, Mayors (Alcaldes) and military leaders along with the Benavides, their cousins. Santos descends from Laredo founder Captain Tomas Sanchez de la Barrera y de la Garza who built the strategically located river town, two years after the arrival of the Vidaurri Colony. The arranged marriages among Land Grant holding families made for a tightknit group who owned and tenaciously defended their territory.Colonel Quinteros blamed Leonard Pierce Jr for the Cortinistas attack on Zapata Texas, April 11th, 1861. Quinteros arrived six weeks later but got his information from insiders. Local Newspapers reported Cortina’s Pro-Lincoln declarations a week before they reported Sumter. So far, I have not been permitted to see the Leonard Pierce Jr. papers in the Brownsville achieves to link Corwin to Pierce in late March or the first week of April 1861 but is very hard to believe Cortina acted on Pierce’s authority alone. Pierce had to have been speaking for Corwin or Seward, if not Lincoln, directly.CSA General Hamilton Bee and his 200 men were forced to abandon Fort Brown in face of six thousand Union Troops and hundreds of Union Naval Guns. Bee in overall command evacuated Brownsville leaving Santos the sole Confederate Military Authority, in the Rio Grande-Bravo Valley. Texas Ranger Colonel Ford made several diplomatic mistakes by aiding enemies of Vidaurri, that required Santos intersession. Santos prevented a communication between Banks men at Fort Brown and US General Carleton’s advanced pickets in the Trans-Pecos, by intercepting their couriers. The San Antonio Herald said in February 64, “Benavides deserves the thanks of every true man in the State for his faithful and efficient services,” in something of an understatement.A successful disinformation campaign, by Benavides, through CSA Intelligence Operative Henry Skillman kept Union Units in West Texas on the defensive, fearing a Confederate attack. Union forces in Brownsville in late 1863 and early 64, frequently raided farms and ranches in South Texas and were often ambushed and killed. Pierce attempted to form numerous companies from Unionist refugees, Confederate deserters and Cortinistas in Mexico, but the Benavides Brothers usually managed to disrupt them before they organized.Bruce M Fielder “The Mexican Connection: Confederate and Union Diplomacy on the Rio Grande, 1861-1865”, UNT Theses and Dissertations, Digital Library by the UNT Libraries.Kathryn Abbey Hanna, "The Roles of the South in the French Intervention in Mexico," Journal of Southern History 20 (February 1954)Burton J. Hendrick, “Statesman of the Lost Cause: Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet” (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1939)Thomas T Orum “The United States and Mexico 1861-1865” thesis, University of ArizonaJeffery Thompson “Tejano Tiger” TCU Press 2017.This story can be found in Confederate Cavalry Intelligence Service FB group