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Civil War skirmish at Las Rusias
On this day in 1864, a skirmish between Confederate and Union forces was fought at Las Rusias, a colonia located one mile north of the Rio Grande in southwest Cameron County. Confederate officer Refugio Benavides of Laredo led a company and joined John Salmon (Rip) Ford to overrun Union forces. Ford, a colonel of the Second Texas Cavalry who engaged in border operations protecting Confederate-Mexican trade, praised Benavides for his gallant conduct during the battle. Las Rusias had also been the site of a skirmish on April 25, 1846, when Mexican troops ambushed an American patrol; the shedding of “American blood upon American soil” sparked the Mexican War.
- Links to Related Handbook of Texas Online Articles
- LAS RUSIAS, TX
- BENAVIDES, REFUGIO
- FORD, JOHN SALMON [RIP]
- MEXICAN WAR
- CIVIL WAR
- CAMERON COUNTY
- Other Texas Day by Day Articles for This Date
- General Custer, once stationed in Texas, meets his Waterloo in Montana (1876)
- Ma Ferguson dies (1961)
- Spurs are champions! (1999)
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