Wednesday, April 06, 2011

Balerio led Union raiders during the Civil War

Cecilio Balerio, a Nueces County rancher and horse-trader, commanded 120 men in an irregular Union cavalry outfit that rustled cattle and attacked Confederate wagon trains carrying cotton down the Cotton Road. Balerio's raiders lived in the brush and prowled the remote Wild Horse Desert. Before the war, Balerio traded horses and mules around Corpus Christi. He also had a reputation for stealing horses. Maria von Blucher in a letter to her parents in Germany wrote that the Blucher remuda of horses was stolen by Balerio, "a noted horse thief. Among them was my pretty chestnut mare; so probably she is gone, along with the rest." When the Civil War broke out, E.J. Davis, former Corpus Christi judge who became a Union leader, enlisted Balerio to attack wagon trains carrying cotton down the Cotton Road between Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande. Balerio's outfit was, nominally, under the command structure of John Haynes' Second Regiment of Texas Cavalry (Union). But Balerio operated on his own, committing what the Confederates considered subversive activities and opportunistic marauding. Balerio was 65 in 1861. He was assisted by two sons: an older son named Juan and 19-year-old Jose Mario. Balerio was in contact with Union commanders in Matamoros and later in Brownsville. He supplied Union forces with beef cattle rounded up from South Texas ranches. He also was in contact with Union blockade ships standing to off the Aransas Pass channel. The ships supplied Balerio with Burnside Carbines, Colt revolvers, blankets, and paid him in gold for his guerrilla activities against the Confederacy...more

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