Adrián Vidal

Adrián J. Vidal (May 9, 1845 – June 14, 1865) was a Mexican soldier who fought in both the American Civil War (for both the Confederate and Union Armies) and the Mexican War against France in the 1860s. He served the Confederate States of America Army from October 1862 to 1863, when he and his troops defected. He was branded a traitor, having killed one Confederate soldier, wounded another, and killed as many as ten or more individuals. He was said to have planned an attack on Brownsville after defecting from the Confederate Army. In the end, General Hamilton P. Bee ordered that Fort Brown and Brownsville be set on fire, destroying large quantities of cotton and military goods under the watchful eyes of 400 Union troops as well as Juan Cortina and his soldiers on the opposite bank of the Rio Grande. The next month, he enlisted in the Union Army, serving just six months. During that time he captured an Army tugboat and its crew. He then fought under General Juan Cortina during the Second French intervention in Mexico. Vidal was captured by the French who executed him by a firing squad in June 1865.

Early life Adrian Vidal was born to an upper-class family in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico on May 9, 1845. His father was Luis Vidal, a man of Greek descent who served as a colonel in the Mexican Army. His mother was Petra (Vela) de Vidal Kenedy, whose father was Gregorio Vela, who was the provincial Governor of the Wild Horse Desert Region in northern Mexico, responsible for the land between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers in what is now the state of Texas. By his late teens, Vidal had acquired "a reputation as a habitual gambler and drunkard.

On October 26, 1863, Vidal disobeyed an order to bring his company to Fort Brown and led his company to defect from the Confederate army. On the way to Brownsville, he forced rancheros to march with him. Two days later, Captain Edmund P. Turner at Fort Brown ordered soldiers from the 26th Cavalry Division and the 33rd Regiment to Brownsville to bring Vidal to Fort Brown. known as "Vidal's Independent Partisan Rangers". They worked along the Texas frontier as scouts. They reported Confederate positions along the Nueces Strip and along the Rio Grande as far upriver as Roma. Vidal disrupted the flow of Confederate goods on the Rio Grande by destroying ships headed downstream to resupply Confederate forces. Frustrated by bureaucracy and discrimination, Vidal sent a resignation request in May 1864 and he and his men returned to Mexico Thompson states that at some point the army issued Vidal an honorable discharge, but the paperwork was delayed and did not arrive until Vidal had already left for Mexico.

Vidal and many of his men were born in Mexico or were of Mexican ancestry. They joined the Mexican army to fight during the Second French intervention in Mexico, serving under General Juan Cortina as Juaristas. or he witnessed his step-son being executed by a French Army firing squad on June 14, 1865, at Camargo.

Personal life Vidal married Anita Chavero (1848–1923) and they had a daughter Anita, whose married name was Anita Cowan. After Adrian's death, his widow married J.P. Putegnat of Brownsville. Anita remained connected with the Vidal-Kenedy family, being at the home of Mifflin Kenedy's son John G. Kenedy at the time of Mifflin's death on March 14, 1895. Identified as a stepdaughter, she traveled with John to be with their family.