Martín Perfecto de Cos

Martín Perfecto de Cos (1800–1 October 1854) was a Mexican Army general and politician during the mid-19th century. Born in Veracruz, the son of an attorney, he became an army cadet at the age of 20, a Lieutenant in 1821, and a Brigadier General in 1833.

Cos is perhaps best known as a commander of Mexican forces during the Texas Revolution in the 1830s. In September 1835, he was sent by President-General Antonio López de Santa Anna to investigate the refusal of Texians to pay duties during the Anahuac Disturbances. General Cos dispersed the legislature of Coahuila y Tejas, then in session at Monclova, landed 300 men at Matagorda Bay, established a headquarters in San Antonio, and declared his intention of ending Anglo-American resistance in Texas. He attempted to arrest several Texian critics of Santa Anna, but his demands were resisted; a force of Texians under Stephen F. Austin and Edward Burleson held the Mexican troops for two months in the siege of Béxar until Cos surrendered after an attack led by Benjamin R. Milam in December 1835. Cos and his men were released on their pledge not to oppose further the Constitution of 1824, which Santa Anna had recently repealed.

Texans believed this pledge was broken when Cos returned in the spring of 1836 to command a column in the attack on the Alamo. On April 21, 1836, he reached San Jacinto with reinforcements and crossed Vince's Bridge just before the Texians destroyed it. He was taken prisoner by Sam Houston in the general surrender and later released, after which he returned to Mexico. Cos later commanded a post at Tuxpan during the Mexican–American War. He died in Minatitlán, Veracruz, in 1854, while serving as commandant general and political chief of the Tehuantepec territory.