Secession and the Civil War deeply divided the Mexican Americans of Texas (Tejanos). Accusations of subversion and disloyalty before the war resulted in a reluctance by many of them to become involved in the conflict.
Those who joined militia units in South Texas and on the frontier frequently did so out of a fear of being sent out of the state and away from their families.
Some were able to avoid conscription by claiming to be residents of Mexico. Tejano frustrations during the Civil War are exemplified by the case of Capt. Adrián J. Vidal, who joined the Confederacy but deserted and enlisted in the Union Army, only to desert again and join the liberals in Mexico, where he was captured by the French and executed.
At least 2,500 Mexican Texans joined the Confederate Army. The most famous was Santos Benavides, who rose to command the Thirty-third Texas Cavalry as a colonel, and thus became the highest ranking Tejano to serve the Confederacy.
Though it was ill equipped, frequently without food, and forced to march across vast expanses of South Texas and northern Mexico, the Thirty-third was never defeated in battle.
Other Texas Mexicans, resentful of growing non-Hispanic political dominance of their communities, enlisted in federal blue.
Many joined the Union Army for the bounty money offered upon enlistment, but some enlisted because they opposed slavery or to satisfy grudges against landowners, attorneys, and politicians who had used the American legal system to take valuable land from Tejanos during the preceding decade.