Warlords, gun battles and dead Americans in Mexican border towns. The story may sound like a headline from the newspapers or cable news networks but it actually happened nearly 100 years ago during the Mexican Revolution which was endured by our neighbors south of the border. The spill over effect of the war brought the United States Army into northern Mexico and made Pancho Villa, Black Jack Pershing and George Patton household names.
Francisco “Pancho” Villa, was born in 1877 in San Juan del Rio, State of Durango, Mexico. Villa was reputed to be a ruthless killer, having killed his first man at the age of 16.
Villa and his band of men began raids along the U.S.- Mexico boundary states of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona border towns and in the process became the first foreign army to invade the US since the British burned Washington during the War of 1812.
Soon panic spread all along the border and citizens began to demand the politicians do something to protect them from the Mexican raids. Therefore President Wilson ordered the War Department to deploy troops to the lawless border region.
In April, 1915, Brigadier General John J. “Blackjack” Pershing and his 8th Infantry Brigade deployed to Fort Bliss, Texas to guard the U.S.- Mexico border. The troops were tasked with defending a stretch of territory which extended from Arizona to an isolated outpost in the Sierra Blanca Mountains ninety miles southeast of El Paso, Texas.
This may have stopped Villa from raiding US territory but Mexico remained a dangerous place for Americans. On January 11, 1916, Villa’s bandits stopped a train at Santa Ysabel and killed 17 Texas mining engineers who had been sent to assist the Mexican government with reopening a mine at Chihuahua City. Only one of the engineers escaped.
As the people of El Paso heard of the massacre, the area became a powder keg of rage. Local authorities placed the town under martial law to prevent angry Texans from crossing into Mexico at Juarez to burn the town.
Even with the savage killing of the Texas engineers, President Wilson refused to send troops into Mexico to halt the violence. Villa, sensing the indecisiveness of Wilson, now planned to up the stakes and invade New Mexico.
The invasion began at 2:30 a.m., on March 9, 1916, as Villa and 500 bandits attacked the 13th U.S. Cavalry at Camp Furlong at Columbus, New Mexico. American intelligence reports had warned that Villa and his men were moving towards the border, yet the US commanders took no efforts to interdict the raid and were caught completely by surprise. Most of the cavalry had been drinking earlier that night and the rifles were chained and locked in gun racks therefore few were aware they were under attack until it was late.
Even though they faced several problems, the cavalry managed to fight off the bandits and killed many of their number in flight. The bandits took time during their retreat to stop in the town of Columbus, New Mexico and looted the town. Shouts of “Viva Villa! Viva Mexico! Muerte a los Americanos!” (death to the Americans) could be heard echoing off the brick walls of the downtown. Then the town was set afire with the terror continuing until 7 a.m. As Villa finally left the town, the smoke blackened buildings of Columbus were littered with dead American citizens hanging from the windows and wounded residents crawling along the streets. Fourteen American soldiers and ten civilians were killed in the raid.
Villa had now aroused the anger of the US Army and the cavalry pursued his men relentlessly through the New Mexico highlands.
Colonel Frank Tompkins had managed to gather 32 cavalrymen and was ripping into Villas rear guard. American troops sighted Villa’s rear guard and mercilessly killed 15 men and 30 horses. The running battle kept up for eight hours as a number of the bandits were killed. Lacking supplies, Tompkins and his cavalrymen were forced to break off the pursuit and return to Camp Furlong.
To prevent repetitions of the Columbus raid, President Wilson called out 15,000 militia and stationed them along the border. Accompanying these troops were National Guard soldiers from several southern states including Alabama. Wilson also informed President Carranza of Mexico that he intended to invade northern Mexico and capture Pancho Villa. Carranza reluctantly agreed to the punitive raid.
President Wilson then appointed Brigadier General John J. Pershing to lead the 4,800 troops (mostly cavalry), supported by aircraft and motorized military vehicles on a punitive expedition into Mexico to capture the elusive Villa.
The aircraft used in the expedition was only one layer of evolution removed from experimental and the 6 bi-planes soon had all crashed in the desert and this was only the beginning of the troubles Pershing’s troops (along with the Alabama National Guard) were to face in the deserts of northern Mexico.
Pershing’s men were mostly new recruits with little military training. The high mountains and rugged terrain seemed to be allied with Villa in that his men knew which canyons and ravines provided the best hiding places from the Americans. The towns were few and far between and the roads between them were only dusty pig trails which turned to muddy quagmires upon the arrival of rain.
To further complicate matters, the political situation in Mexico was equally perilous for the Americans. Wilson wanted to prop up the Mexican government against the ongoing revolution which was rapidly eroding the credibility of President Carranza’s regime. American troops were ordered not to fire on Carranza’s troops and the Mexican President agreed to assist the Americans. Yet on more than one occasion, Carranza’s troops fired on the Americans who had orders not to return fire. In one instance, the Americans were close to capturing Villa until they were ambushed by their supposed Mexican allies which allowed Villa to slip away into the night.
Even with the difficulty of the raid, some American officers made a name for themselves in the dusty heat of northern Mexico. In May, 1916, a young Lieutenant named George S. Patton saw combat for the first time in Mexico. With information about the whereabouts of one of Villa’s top aides, Patton set off with a group of soldiers traveling in three Dodge automobiles and conducted a surprise raid on a ranch house at San Miguelito. In the fire-fight, Patton and his men killed three men. One was identified as a top confidante of Pancho Villa named Julio Cardenas.
With the dead bodies strapped to the hood of the Dodge, the convoy blew into Pershing’s headquarters as war correspondents crowded around the cars to get pictures of the dead Mexican bandits. Newspapers around the country carried accounts of the battle and soon Patton was a household name.
Yet even with such bravery, the search for Pancho Villa proved futile. In January, 1917, the Punitive Expedition was recalled from Mexico as the black clouds of World War I threatened the peace loving United States.
No sooner had the Villa mission had came to an end than the war in Europe began to draw in the United States. The war had raged for more three years when on January 19, 1917 (one hundred years ago, at the printing of this article), the British Intelligence services intercepted a telegram sent by Arthur Zimmermann in the German Foreign Office to the German embassies in Washington, DC and Mexico City.
Its message outlined plans for an alliance between Germany and Mexico against the United States. According to the proposed plan, Germany would provide support and Mexico would regain territories lost to the United States in the Mexican War nearly 80 years earlier. The Zimmermann telegram was passed along by the British to the Americans and is then released to the US media which in turn made the information public.
The American public began to demand the US enter the war with such outspoken advocates of action as former President Teddy Roosevelt leading the charge for American military entry into the war.
Soon the US would be at war, after the Germans announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare against merchant ships in the Atlantic on January 31, 1917. On February 22, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war. In late March, Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships, and on April 2 President Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. On April 4, the Senate voted to declare war against Germany, and two days later the House of Representatives endorsed the declaration. With that, America entered World War I.
The Alabama National Guard, which had been involved in the chase for Pancho Villa, now became part of the Rainbow Division and headed to Europe as the dawning of American dominance in world affairs began.
Shadows and Dust Volumes I and II and Canoe: History of a Southern Town are available for purchase. The books are $20 each or all three for $50. Send your check or money order to PO Box 579 Atmore, AL 36504.
