It began when the revolutionary Catarino Garza launched a campaign into Mexico from Texas to start an uprising against the dictator Porfirio Diaz.

In September, Garza issued a statement, declaring that the citizens of Mexico were "treated like 'despicable slaves,' that the Mexican government was plagued by 'frightful corruption,' that freedom of the press had been squashed, and that the Constitution of 1857 had been betrayed."

The war began on the night of September 15 when 60 to 80 Garzistas, as they were called, crossed the Rio Grande near Fort Ringgold, Texas to "overthrow the Mexican government."

A record of the war was created by American military and civil personnel in letters, telegrams and official reports, much of which has been preserved in a collection by the United States Army.

Over the course of two campaigns in three years, the Mexican military and the American army engaged in several small skirmishes, all of them occurring within the vicinity of the Rio Grande Valley.

This was largely due to the fact that the Americans had to search for a small group of locals in sparsely populated wilderness stretching hundreds of miles.

[4] Intelligence gathering was poor; Mexican civilians employed as guides were known for being unreliable because of their sympathies with the rebels, as were local peasants the army encountered.

The United States Army also employed 35 Black Seminole Scouts, from Fort Clark, Texas Rangers and local sheriffs to help track the Garzistas.

[4][5] The first campaign occurred between September 1891 and April 1892, by the end of which the Mexican and American militaries were successful in suppressing the rebellion and forcing Garza into hiding in Texas.

According to a letter from Captain Bourke dated March 2, 1892, Chase found what he thought to be Garza's shoeprint leading away from Gonzales' house, but heavy rains helped the rebel escape.

Let us leave the plough to grasp in hand the sword and, guided by love of our Fatherland, let us re-conquer upon the field of battle the rights which have been usurped from us under the specious pretext of consolidating that abominable peace which has shed so much blood….

The commander of American forces, Brigadier General Frank Wheaton, wrote the following in his annual report of military affairs in Texas; "[At] about 11 a. m. on the 10th of December, 1892, one hundred and thirty-one bandits [rebels] attacked the troop of the Sixth Mexican Cavalry, under Capt.

"[4][6] Shortly after learning of the attack, General Wheaton ordered troops of the 3rd Cavalry to ride to the country opposite of San Ygnacio, Coahuila, and begin searching for the rebels.

On January 21, 1893, a squad from the 3rd Cavalry, under Lieutenant J. T. Dickman, arrested Benavides and another leader named Prudencio Gonzales without a fight on the Mexican side of the border.

According to General Wheaton, Lieutenant P. G. Lowe, 18th Infantry, was out scouting with a former sheriff named Washington Shely and two Black Seminoles when they came across Las Muias Ranch, held by "the most desperate of all the bandits", Eusabio Martinez, alias Mangas de Agua.

"[4][6] The United States Army continued making arrests of suspected rebels from April to August, but after September, the scouting operations had ceased.

General Wheaton reported the capture of 132 individuals during the second campaign, 86 of whom were found to have participated in the massacre at San Ygnacio and 71 of them were convicted in an American court.