THE MEXICAN 

EXPEDITION

1916–1917

THE U.S. ARMY 

CAMPAIGNS OF WORLD WAR I

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CMH Pub 77–1

Cover: Soldiers of the 16th Infantry around a campfire at San 

Gerónimo, Mexico, May 1916 (Library of Congress)

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THE MEXICAN EXPEDITION 

1916–1917

by

Julie Irene Prieto

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Center of Military History

United States Army

Washington, D.C., 2016

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INTRODUCTION

A century ago, the United States joined what was then called 

the “Great War.” The conflict, and America’s involvement that 

helped bring it to an end, cast a long shadow across the twentieth century. In addition to massive destruction and loss of life, 

it shattered the European power system and brought economic 

turmoil, revolutions, collapse of empires, the birth of new nationstates, and the rise of totalitarian movements. 

The war’s outbreak in August 1914 shocked the United 

States. At this time, the Army was a constabulary force, barely 

adequate to police America’s new empire in the Caribbean and 

Pacific, although after the War with Spain in 1898, Secretary of 

War Elihu Root had led important reforms. The United States 

invested in coastal defenses and a fleet to guard its shores, but 

its Army was simply too small to make an impact on European 

battlefields and lacked modern equipment such as motorized 

vehicles, machine guns, rapid-firing artillery, airplanes, and 

tanks. Its largest standing formation was a regiment. Not until 

June 1916 did Congress authorize an expansion of the Army, 

dual state-federal status for the National Guard, and the creation 

of an Army Reserve.

Meanwhile, the United States faced threats closer to home. 

To the south, Mexico was in the throes of revolution. In March 

1916, a cross-border raid on Columbus, New Mexico, caused 

President Woodrow Wilson to declare a partial mobilization for 

a “punitive expedition” and to defend the border.

In early 1917, the president decided that America had run out 

of diplomatic options. In April, he asked Congress to declare war 

against Germany. But the U.S. Army, numbering only 133,000 

men, was far from ready. The president ordered nearly 400,000 

National Guardsmen into federal service, while the War Department built thirty-two cantonments where new divisions could 

be mobilized and trained. On 5 June, 9.5 million men registered 

for America’s first conscription since the Civil War. The Army 

created a new combined-arms formation—the square division—and then corps, field armies, and support units, as well as 

new branches such as the Air Service, the Tank Corps, and the 
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Chemical Warfare Service. By the end of 1918, the Army grew to 

3.7 million men and trained 200,000 new officers to lead them.

In June 1917, the 1st Expeditionary Division deployed to France, 

arriving in time to parade through Paris on the Fourth of July. On 

that occasion, a spokesman for Maj. Gen. John J. Pershing declared 

at the tomb of the hero of the American Revolution, “Lafayette, we 

are here!” In September, the first National Guard division deployed, 

the 26th Division from New England. By war’s end, the American 

Expeditionary Forces had grown to two million soldiers and more 

than forty divisions. Among them were over 200,000 African American soldiers who served in segregated units, including four infantry 

regiments that fought under French command. 

During 1918, American “doughboys” learned to fight in battles 

of steadily increasing scale: Cantigny, the Marne, Aisne-Marne, St. 

Mihiel, and Meuse-Argonne, adding thirteen campaign streamers 

to the Army flag. The soldiers faced machine guns, tanks, and a 

frightening new weapon of mass destruction, poison gas. Overall, in 

little over six months of combat, the American Expeditionary Forces 

suffered more than 320,000 casualties, including 50,280 killed. 

The war that had promised to “make the world safe for democracy” ended with an armistice on 11 November 1918, followed by 

a deeply flawed peace. Although the U.S. Senate refused to ratify 

the Treaty of Versailles, American soldiers served in the Occupation of the Rhineland until 1923, before withdrawing from Europe 

altogether. The war sowed the seeds of future conflict that within 

a generation led to a second and even greater world war.

The United States will never forget the American soldiers who 

fought and died in the First World War. America’s first unknown 

soldier was laid to rest on 11 November 1921 in the Tomb of the 

Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery, where soldiers still 

stand guard. The United States created permanent American 

military cemeteries in France, Belgium, and Britain to bury the 

fallen. To this day, memorials to their sacrifice can be found across 

America. The last surviving U.S. Army veteran of the war did not 

die until 2011. It is to all the doughboys, those who returned and 

those who did not, that the U.S. Army Center of Military History 

dedicates these commemorative pamphlets.

JAMES C. MCNAUGHTON

Director, Histories Division
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THE MEXICAN EXPEDITION 

1916–1917

On 9 March 1916, the forces of Doroteo Arango, better known as 

Francisco “Pancho” Villa, attacked the small border town of Columbus, New Mexico. In response to the raid, President Woodrow Wilson 

authorized Brig. Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing to organize an 

expedition into Chihuahua, Mexico, in order to kill or capture Villa 

and those responsible for the assault. By 15 March, 4,800 Regular 

Army soldiers had assembled in Columbus and Camp Furlong, the 

Army garrison just outside of the town’s center. These men fanned out 

into the Mexican countryside on horseback in small, highly mobile 

cavalry detachments—sometimes led by local guides or by the Army’s 

Apache scouts—that could cover large swaths of sparsely populated 

and rough terrain. Cavalrymen employed skills and strategies developed in the preceding decades on frontier campaigns in the West and 

in warfare against irregular, guerrilla forces in the Philippines. The 

Mexican Expedition, popularly called the “Punitive Expedition,” was 

to be one of the last operations to employ these methods of warfare 

and one of the first to rely extensively on trucks. It also provided a 

testing ground for another new technology—the airplane. 

During the eleven months that Pershing’s expedition was in 

Chihuahua, U.S. troops failed to kill, capture, or even spot Pancho 

Villa, but the impact of the expedition reached far beyond the 

deserts of northern Mexico. The approximately 10,000 regulars 

that served in the Punitive Expedition gained experience in large, 

multiunit field operations at a time when small-unit actions were 

the norm. At the same time, the task tested Pershing as a commander, leader, and organizer. Although he did not always agree 

with Secretary of War Newton D. Baker and President Wilson, 

Pershing proved that he could run an efficient campaign despite 

the difficulties of operating in northern Mexico and the restrictions 

that Washington placed on his operations. In addition, although 

the approximately 110,000 members of the National Guard who 

patrolled the border from May 1916 through February 1917 saw 

little action, they received training that bolstered Army readiness 

just months before the United States declared war on Germany 
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in April 1917. Thus, the U.S. Army was far more prepared for war 

in Europe than it had been in early 1916. Despite this unexpected 

benefit to the Army, the results of the Punitive Expedition were 

not all positive for the United States. Wilson’s invasion of Mexican 

territory and intervention in the Mexican Revolution created an 

environment of suspicion and distrust that took decades to repair 

and caused a general decline in relations between the United States 

and Latin American republics.

Strategic Setting

From 1910 to 1920, revolution gripped Mexico. Since 1876, 

dictator Porfirio Díaz had ruled Mexico with only one interruption. In an attempt to spur economic development, Díaz offered 

incentives and enacted laws that allowed foreign individuals and 

corporations to dominate large sectors of the nation’s economy. 

Although this stimulated some growth, foreign entities came to 

own more than 100 million acres of territory while 90 percent of 

Mexican peasant farmers owned none. By 1910, U.S. interests held 

Pancho Villa, military leader of rebel forces during the Mexican 

Revolution and considered a bandit by Americans in the wake of the 

raid on Columbus, New Mexico (Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 9 ••••

97 percent of mining concerns and controlled 90 percent of the 

petroleum industry in Mexico. Though dictatorial, Díaz maintained 

a façade of elections and constitutional rule throughout the length 

of his regime.

In 1908, Díaz announced he would not seek re-election in 

1910, leading political moderate Francisco I. Madero to campaign 

aggressively for the presidency. After realizing his rival might 

win office, Díaz reversed his position on retirement and arrested 

Madero, who escaped jail into exile. From San Antonio, Texas, 

Madero issued a revolutionary manifesto, the Plan de San Luis 

Potosí, which called for a national uprising against the dictatorship. A brief, popular revolt followed, after which Madero became 

Mexico’s new president in 1911. 

Long-term disaffection with Díaz by the Mexican people, 

coupled with the events surrounding the election of 1910, sparked 

a protracted series of conflicts collectively known as the Mexican 

Revolution. Concerned about the lives, property, and investments 

of U.S. citizens living in Mexico and the border region, the War 

Department sent Army units to the border on several occasions 

during the war. The first major deployment occurred in 1911 when 

President William H. Taft ordered 20,000 soldiers to Galveston 

and San Antonio, Texas, and San Diego, California. Officially designated as the “Maneuver Division” for what the War Department 

described as training exercises, or “war games,” it served to warn 

Mexican authorities that the United States could intervene militarily 

in the conflict to protect its citizens and their interests. While the 

Maneuver Division enjoyed widespread support when it first was 

formed, Secretary of State Philander C. Knox came to distrust the 

measure and expressed fears that moving troops to the border might 

encourage Washington to use invasion before diplomacy as a tool 

for enacting change, resulting in a long and costly occupation south 

of the border. In any case, the United States began withdrawing its 

forces as Madero consolidated his hold on power, and the Maneuver 

Division disbanded on 7 August 1911. 

Secretary Knox was correct that occupying northern Mexico—

particularly the state of Chihuahua where the Punitive Expedition 

ultimately operated—would have been challenging due in part to 

its difficult terrain. Chihuahua, Mexico’s largest state, roughly the 

size of Michigan, consists of a high plateau that rises into the Sierra 

Madre Occidental with elevations of up to 10,000 feet. Although 

the state has a desert climate, the high elevation creates extremes 

in temperature, with blazing hot days in the summer and frigid 
•••• 10 ••••

blizzards in winter and spring. Temperatures can rise or fall thirty 

or forty degrees within the same day, and sand quickly gives way 

to grasslands and forest depending on the elevation. In the early 

twentieth century, this remote area had few roads or telegraph 

lines to link the small towns and ranches that dotted the state. 

Except for connections with the state capital, Chihuahua city, 

telegraph lines did not extend much farther south than the town 

of Namiquipa, about 130 miles south of the border, presenting U.S. 

forces with a major challenge in maintaining basic communication. 

Large-scale cattle ranches, including the one million-acre farm 

at Babícora owned by U.S. newspaper tycoon William Randolph 

Hearst, as well as mining operations divided much of the land. 

The state also fell victim to violent dust storms that periodically 

coated entire regions with a fine layer of silt. Two major railroads, 

the Mexican National and the Northwestern, ran north-south, but 

only a few spur lines covered the rest of the state.

The border between the United States and Mexico remained 

calm again until February 1913 when Madero was assassinated 

during a coup led by General Victoriano Huerta. This touched off 

years of renewed fighting that pitted Huertista forces against rebels 

led by Venustiano Carranza, a shrewd, pragmatic, Coahuilan from 

a well-to-do ranching family, whose supporters were known as 

Constitutionalists. Pancho Villa stood as one of Carranza’s allies. 

Before the coup, Villa had backed Madero until the president decided to arrest him on Huerta’s recommendation that he neutralize 

possible rivals. After escaping from prison in Mexico City prior to 

Madero’s death, Villa fled to the United States and lived for a short 

time in exile until the coup, when he crossed the border again to 

fight against Huerta. Once in Mexico, Villa raised his own army, a 

well-organized force numbering 30,000 to 50,000 men at its peak, 

that became known as the División del Norte after its geographical area of operation. The charismatic Villa led his men to a series 

of victories on the battlefield, compensating for a lack of arms, 

ammunition, and supplies with unpredictable tactics, such as night 

attacks that surprised and terrorized his enemies. As Villa’s army 

rose in prestige in northern Mexico, the sometime-outlaw-turnedpopulist-revolutionary general grew in lore. In the United States, 

he became a well-known, almost romantic figure and even made 

the acquaintance of Pershing and Army Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. 

Hugh L. Scott in 1914. Pershing saw him as a potential ally who 

could protect U.S. interests as revolution consumed Mexico, and 

he gave Villa texts and studies on the art of war. 
•••• 11 ••••

As this renewed wave of violence deepened, President Wilson 

came to believe that the Constitutionalists would be unable to 

remove Huerta from power without aid from the United States. 

Even though Carranza was opposed to U.S. military intervention 

in Mexico, Wilson sought a reason to intervene in the struggle 

between these two powers. The president finally seized upon a 

minor incident that occurred on 9 April 1914 in which nine U.S. 

sailors were briefly arrested in a Tampico fueling station after 

straying into an off-limits area. Mexican officials quickly released 

the sailors and apologized but refused to perform a twenty-one 

gun salute in penance, as requested by R. Adm. Frank Friday 

Fletcher, head of the naval forces there. In response, Wilson asked 

Congress for authorization to occupy the port of Veracruz, about 

280 miles south of Tampico. While Wilson waited for Congress 

to act, the president received a report that a ship, the Ypiranga, 

approached Veracruz with weapons destined for Huerta. Wilson 

ordered the Navy to seize the customs house at Veracruz and 

prevent the arms from reaching their destination. Marines and 

sailors landed on 21 April, followed ten days later by a brigade of 

soldiers. The combined force eventually occupied the entire city 

of Veracruz. Fletcher later received the Medal of Honor for leading 

the successful landing in Mexico. 

Carranza never accepted the presence of U.S. troops. Since 1898, 

the United States had invaded a string of Latin American countries. 

At the time of the seizure of Veracruz, U.S. forces already occupied 

Nicaragua, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. However tempting 

Wilson’s support might have been, Carranza did not want to risk 

Mexico becoming a protectorate of its neighbor to the north. Even 

with his unwillingness to accept U.S. aid, Carranza’s Constitutionalists succeeded in ousting Huerta on 15 July 1914. Brig. Gen. Frederick 

N. Funston administered Veracruz city until 23 November when U.S. 

forces withdrew. By that time, World War I had erupted in Europe, 

capturing the attention of U.S. citizens. 

Soon after Huerta fled into exile, Villa split with Carranza’s 

regime and joined with Emiliano Zapata, a revolutionary leader 

who operated mainly in his native Morelos, south of Mexico City, 

against the Constitutionalists. Villa’s and Zapata’s combined 

forces attacked and briefly held Mexico City in April 1915, but 

that summer Villa suffered a significant defeat against Carranza’s 

armies at Celaya. Villa lost more battles as well as influence 

through summer, and by September mounting casualties reduced 

the once formidable División del Norte to a small guerrilla band 
•••• 12 ••••

of between 500 and 1,000 men. Many of these men had formed 

part of Villa’s elite guard, the Dorados. Young and loyal to their 

general, they mostly hailed from either Chihuahua or Durango. 

Some had been popular leaders in their hometowns and could 

recruit and lead small bands of men through personal sway and 

act semi-independently in the field. Due in part to the U.S. arms 

embargo on Villa, these men had few weapons and lacked adequate ammunition to conduct regular warfare, opting instead 

for quick raids on vulnerable and remote positions followed by 

retreat. 

For Villa, President Wilson’s decision to officially recognize 

the intelligent but uncharismatic Carranza as the legal president 

of Mexico proved the final insult. This move allowed the Constitutionalist leader to legally import arms from the United States to 

use against Villa and other opposing revolutionary forces. In the 

wake of this decision, Villa, embittered by the loss of U.S. support, 

lashed out at his former allies and became convinced that a conspiracy was afoot. He came to believe that Wilson and Carranza 

had entered into a corrupt bargain to sell northern Mexico to the 

United States in exchange for political recognition. Acting from 

his home base in Chihuahua and Durango, Villa charged Carranza 

with treason and railed against Wilson for violating U.S. neutrality. 

With his army just a shadow of its former existence, Villa adopted new tactics to continue his fight against Carranza’s betterequipped forces. In Chihuahua, the general turned to impressment 

for the first time to fill his depleted ranks. Villa also began raiding 

Chihuahua’s small and increasingly disaffected middle class for 

supplies. This represented a marked change, since through 1915, 

Villa had managed to provision his army mostly by confiscating 

goods and money from the wealthiest hacendados in the state. 

Where Villa once had avoided attacking U.S. citizens living and 

working in Mexico, his forces now targeted them in retaliation for 

Wilson siding with Carranza. The deadliest result of this new policy 

came on 10 January 1916 near Santa Isabel, Chihuahua. There, in 

the desert, a detachment of Villistas halted and boarded a train 

that had eighteen American engineers on board. Employed by the 

Cusihuiriachic, or “Cusi,” Mining Company, they were on their way 

to reopen the mines and carried passes of safe conduct issued by 

Carranza’s government. Villa’s men ordered the Americans off the 

train and shot them execution-style, save one who escaped (Map 1).

In response, Carranza’s forces prepared a new offensive to 

stamp out Villa’s remaining troops. The main government force in 
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Chihuahua was led by General Jacinto Treviño, who commanded 

the 1st, 3d, and 5th Divisions of the Army of the Northeast. These 

three divisions consisted of approximately 10,231 troops, led by 6 

subordinate generals and 41 other officers. Unfortunately, Treviño 

and many of his troops were from Coahuila, not Chihuahua. To the 

local population, having forces from outside of the state operating 

within its borders was akin to being occupied by a foreign force. 

Local military leaders and troops alike often refused to follow 

Treviño’s commands, showcasing how weak support for Carranza’s 

regime was in some areas far from the capital. Local antagonism 

toward Treviño only worsened after 12 May 1916, when Carranza 

recalled Governor Ignacio C. Enríquez of Chihuahua, probably at 

Treviño’s insistence. Carranza then replaced Enríquez with the general’s brother, Francisco Treviño, who proceeded to use his office 

for personal enrichment. Beyond the friction that festered between 

Treviño, local military commanders, and the citizens of Chihuahua, 

Carrancista forces suffered from a host of problems including a 

dearth of discipline, high rates of desertion, and a dangerous lack 

of weapons and other supplies. 

With violence on the border rising, Col. Herbert J. Slocum, 

commander of the 13th Cavalry at Camp Furlong, tried to determine where and when Villa might attack next. The 21 officers 

and 532 soldiers of his regiment patrolled sixty-five miles of 

border, a difficult task made even more complicated by conflicting reports of Villa’s movements. On 7 March, Slocum spoke to 

two Mexican men who claimed to have seen Villa’s camp about 

forty miles south of the border. The colonel offered one of the 

men, Antonio Muñoz, $20 for additional information. Although 

clearly reluctant, Muñoz crossed into Mexico and returned the 

next day, reporting to Slocum that he had seen about 120 Villistas 

at Boca Grande, thirty miles south of the border. Muñoz claimed 

that they seemed to be moving south toward Parral. On the 

same day, Maj. Gen. Frederick N. Funston—in command of the 

Army’s Southern Department, encompassing Texas, Oklahoma, 

New Mexico, and Arizona—alerted Slocum that the Department 

of State had received a report that Villa might go to Columbus, 

about eighty miles west of El Paso, Texas. They reported that 

Villa might either ask for asylum or cause an incident to provoke 

U.S. intervention in Mexico. Pershing, the commander of the 

Army’s 8th Brigade at Fort Bliss, also received a warning from 

Mexico’s General Gabriel Gavira that a Villista force was seen 

moving north toward the border. Slocum dispatched additional 
Map 1

COLUMBUS

9 Mar 1916

GUERRERO

29 Mar 1916

OJOS AZULES

5 May 1916

SANTA CRUZ DE VILLEGAS

11 Apr 1916

LAS CRUCES

25 May 1916

COLONIA DUBLÁN

NAMIQUIPA

SAN GERÓNIMO

P A CIFIC OCEAN 

G u l f o f C a l i f o r n i a

S I E R

R

A

M

Culberson’s Ranch

Gibson’s Ranch

San Miguel de Babícora

Santo Domingo Ranch

Fort Bliss

Fort

 Huachuca

Ciudad Juárez

Casas Grandes

Madera

El Valle

Galeana

Santa Isabel

Hermosillo

Mazatlán

Ascensión

El Paso

San Diego

UNITED STAT

ME

ES

XICO 

NEW 

ARI Z O N A

CALIFORNIA 

General Pershing’s Headquarters

Engagement

 9 March 1916–5 February 1917

MEXICO

THE PUNITIVE EXPEDITION

0 100 200 300

Miles

ELE V A TION IN FEE T

0 1500 3000 6000 and Above
PARRAL

11 Apr 1916

AGUA CALIENTE

1 Apr 1916

CARRIZAL

21 Jun 1916

GLENN SPRINGS

6 May 1916

CASTILLÓN 15 May 1916

SATEVÓ

Rio Grande

GULF OF

MEXI C O

M

A

D

R

E

O

C

C I D

E

N

T

A

L

S I E R R A M A D R E O R I E

N

T

A L 

Fort Sam Houston

Fort Clark

Villa Ahumada

Boquillas

Durango

Celaya

Guadalajara

Tampico

Brownsville

Veracruz

o

Chihuahua

San Antonio Galveston

San Luis Potosí

UNITED STATES

MEXICO 

MEXICO CITY

TEXA S

L OUISIANA

MEXIC O

ARKANSAS
•••• 16 ••••

patrols and strengthened the garrisons at Gibson’s Ranch, twenty 

miles west of Columbus, and at the border gate three miles south 

of town. Only about 120 cavalrymen remained at Camp Furlong. 

In the absence of reliable information, the colonel did not put 

the post on alert.

In fact, Villa had been planning an attack on the United States 

since at least late February. Without informing his men of their 

objective, Villa began marching with his army toward Columbus 

on 24 February. Small and remote with only about 350 residents, 

the town presented a tempting and easy target, despite its location 

adjacent to Camp Furlong. The post was home to one squadron of 

the 13th Cavalry, with four lettered troops, the regiment’s headquarters, and machine gun troops—a total of 274 soldiers and 79 

support personnel. Because the post did not have adequate family quarters, many of the officers lived in private homes in town. 

Columbus

Early in the morning on 9 March, as Villa waited just over the 

border in Mexico, about 500 Villistas organized into small parties 

and crossed into the United States just west of the border gate at 

Las Palomas. They concentrated outside of Columbus, dismounted, 

and divided into two columns. Traveling in opposite directions, 

one of these columns rode to attack Camp Furlong while the other 

headed to downtown Columbus. Both attacked at approximately 

0400, shouting “Viva Villa” and “Viva México” as they advanced 

toward their respective targets. 

Though taken by surprise, the soldiers at Camp Furlong reacted quickly to the attack. The officer of the day, 1st Lt. James P. 

Castleman, assumed command of Troop F. Armed with their M1903 

Springfield rifles, the cavalrymen fought their way to downtown 

Columbus. At the same time, 2d Lt. John P. Lucas heard hoof beats 

and saw men wearing large sombreros running past the window 

of his quarters. He grabbed his pistol and raced barefoot, fighting 

as he went, to the armory where the men of his unit, the machine 

gun troop, retrieved a French-designed Hotchkiss M1909. They 

placed the machine gun by the railroad tracks that ran between 

Camp Furlong and town and opened fire, but the weapon jammed 

after only a few rounds. This was unsurprising since the Hotchkiss machine guns were notorious for jamming even under ideal 

conditions. Fortunately, the soldiers were able to replace the useless gun with four others from the armory. About the same time, 
•••• 17 ••••

a group of Villistas burst into the adobe building that housed the 

post kitchen. The cooks fought back with the shotguns they normally used for hunting along with axes, pots of boiling water, and 

kitchen utensils (Map 2).

The Villista column that advanced on downtown Columbus 

managed to do more damage. One small group detached from the 

main force and went to the Commercial Hotel, where they killed 

four townspeople and then robbed and set fire to the grocery store 

across the street. The flames from the fire spread to the Commercial 

Hotel and other buildings. Raiders systematically plundered the 

Map 2

Barracks

Stables Lt. Lucas’ Billet

Railroad Station

Hoover Hotel

Commercial Hotel

Coots Hill

to Palomas

to El Paso

Columbus

Camp Furlong

SITUATION 0400

9 March 1916

Ground Movement

VILLA’S A T T A CK ON C O L UMBUS

A SKETCH OF
•••• 18 ••••

businesses and private homes 

that were spared destruction in 

the fire. Among the residences 

attacked was the home of John 

J. and Susan Moore, owners of 

a small shop in town. When the 

Moores recognized one of the 

raiders as a customer in their 

store, the intruders shot and 

killed the husband and seriously 

wounded his wife. Next to the 

other hotel in town, at an adobe 

structure named the Hoover 

Hotel, the town switchboard 

operator braved stray bullets 

and shattered glass to dial Fort 

Bliss, ensuring that word of the 

attack would reach Washington, 

D.C., while the emergency was 

still under way. In an action 

for which he later received the 

Distinguished Service Cross, 

Lieutenant Castleman led Troop 

F through heavy enemy fire to 

relieve the beleaguered civilians 

sheltering at the Hoover.

After about two hours of 

fighting, Villa’s forces began 

retreating in the direction of 

the border. Slocum gave Maj. 

Frank Tompkins—commander 

of the 3d Squadron and acting 

regimental executive officer—

permission to pursue the raiders with Troops F and H. A Villista 

rear guard attempted to delay the pursuit from a piece of high 

ground about 300 yards south of the border, but it broke and 

ran when Tompkins led the troopers in a mounted charge. The 

cavalrymen then dismounted with their rifles and engaged the 

fleeing Villistas, killing several before the raiders moved out of 

range. At this point, Tompkins realized that they had skirmished 

inside Mexico and thus had violated international law. He sent 

a messenger to Slocum to ask what to do. Slocum replied that 

Maj. Frank Tompkins, pictured 

as a colonel in the 1930s after 

receiving the Distinguished 

Service Cross for his leadership 

and gallantry as commander 

of the 3d Squadron, 13th 

Cavalry, during the 1916 raid 

on Columbus, New Mexico 

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••
•••• 19 ••••

Tompkins should use his own judgment in making a decision, 

so the cavalrymen remounted and continued the pursuit into 

Mexico. Although outnumbered, the troopers drove the rear 

guard back on the enemy’s main body in a series of four skirmishes and recovered some of the goods Villistas had taken 

at Columbus. About fifteen miles south of the border, the U.S. 

soldiers dismounted and repelled a counterattack. Carrying 

two wounded men, lacking rations, and running low on water 

and ammunition, Tompkins finally led the tired troopers and 

their exhausted mounts back to Camp Furlong. For this action, 

Tompkins later received both the Distinguished Service Cross 

and the Distinguished Service Medal.

Even though the Villistas retreated into the desert, the violence in Columbus did not end with Tompkins’ return. In the 

immediate aftermath of the raid, rumors spread that the Villistas had selectively targeted Anglo American businesses and 

citizens at Columbus, leading to a panic that Mexican Americans 

in town had acted as spies for the Villistas. Even though he 

had no evidence to support these charges, Slocum temporarily 

declared martial law and ordered members of the 13th Cavalry 

to search several area homes. An unknown number of people 

were detained on charges of espionage or theft and forced to 

leave town. Over the course of the next several days, reports 

circulated of extralegal killings of up to twelve Mexicans and 

Mexican Americans. 

When viewed as a military operation, the raid on Columbus 

was a failure. Although they captured about 80 horses, 30 mules, 

and 300 rifles and shotguns, Villa’s army sustained significant 

losses, including about 100 dead. Sixty-seven of these fell in and 

around Columbus, while the rest perished in the retreat. Thirty 

more Villistas were captured, and an unknown number were 

wounded. Some of these losses were the result of poor planning 

and intelligence. Prior to the raid, scouts had reported to Villa 

that only about 50 soldiers were stationed at Camp Furlong 

when in fact more than 300 manned the post. Villa’s troops still 

had the numerical advantage in Columbus, but they were poorly 

armed and dangerously short on ammunition. In order to attack 

swiftly, devastate the town, and withdraw, Villistas would have 

needed to sweep through the town relatively unopposed, but 

Camp Furlong had too many U.S. troops to make this possible. 

In contrast, the United States suffered fewer losses, with eight 

soldiers killed and five wounded. Ten civilians also were killed 
•••• 20 ••••

in town. Authorities learned later that just before the attack, 

while en route to Columbus, Villistas hanged two U.S. citizens 

and shot a third ranch hand they had taken captive in Mexico.

The Villista raid on Columbus may have failed as a military 

action, but it constituted a startling political and strategic victory for the rebel leader. Villa stood in a difficult position in the 

first months of 1916, and he knew that in his weakened state, he 

needed to do something that would destabilize Carranza’s regime. 

One way to do this was to prompt an invasion from the United 

States, and launching an attack within U.S. territorial boundaries 

would achieve this end. Even if he had wanted to minimize the 

attack, Wilson felt tremendous pressure to act due to the upcoming presidential election, and the president hardly could ignore 

the extensive press coverage of the raid and the genuine popular 

outrage it generated. Villa calculated that military intervention 

from the north would prompt one of two possible outcomes. Either 

Carranza would oppose the presence of U.S. troops, leading to a 

diplomatic break between Mexico and the United States, or Carranza would support U.S. actions in which case patriotic Mexican 

citizens would turn against the regime. Believing in Carranza’s 

“corrupt bargain” with Wilson, Villa also may have seen attacking 

the United States as a way to exact revenge over his former ally 

for what he saw as a betrayal of Mexican sovereignty. 

As Villa expected, the United States did move quickly to send 

troops to Mexico in the wake of the raid on Columbus. On 10 March, 

Trooper of the 13th Cavalry on guard against looting following 

Villa’s raid on Columbus, New Mexico (Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 21 ••••

General Funston sent Wilson a telegram recommending that he 

authorize an expedition to “pursue into Mexican territory hostile 

Mexican bandits who raid American territory.” Funston argued 

in this communication that the inadequately policed border allowed Villa to “harass our ranches and towns” with impunity and 

that sending in an expedition would remedy the situation. After 

meeting with Secretary of War Newton D. Baker and General 

Scott, the president accepted Funston’s proposal. The Southern 

Department commander expected that he personally would lead 

the expedition, but on Scott’s recommendation, the president appointed Pershing. While originally focused only on apprehending 

Villa, Wilson ordered Pershing to capture or disband the Villista 

units that had attacked Columbus and then withdraw from Mexico 

as soon as possible. 

In the spring of 1916, gathering the required number of Army 

regulars to man what was termed the “Punitive Expedition” was 

a major undertaking. Part of the reason for this was that the U.S. 

Army was relatively small, consisting of only 108,399 soldiers. The 

Army stationed most of these soldiers in the U.S.-administered 

Philippines, Hawaii, and the Panama Canal Zone, while 24,602 

others were scattered across the continental United States. Many 

of these men had experience with colonial operations in the Philippines, policing the islands, or fighting the small guerrilla forces 

dispersed throughout the countryside. 

In contrast, European armies expanded rapidly after 1914 

through the use of conscription. Great Britain’s army, comprised 

of just 247,432 regulars in 1910, swelled to nearly 4 million. France 

had averaged 670,000 active troops before the war but called up 2.9 

million for active service when the war broke out in 1914. By the 

end of the war, approximately 8,317,000 Frenchmen had served. 

Germany had a prewar force of about 800,000 men, but roughly 

13,250,000 had served by 1918. The soldiers conscripted in Europe 

fought as members of large, multiunit forces in battles that pitted millions of men against each other for months at a time and 

required massive industrial output to sustain.

While small, by 1916 the U.S. Army already had begun taking steps to turn its relatively understrength fighting force into 

a more efficiently run organization. Reforms—many of them 

pushed through by Secretary of War Elihu Root—were designed 

to catch up to developments in Britain, France, and Germany. 

They focused on promoting professionalism, building a more 

well-defined administrative system, and increasing training 
•••• 22 ••••

for soldiers. The most important of these reforms were the 

creation in 1900 of the Army 

War College and in 1903 of the 

general staff system, which 

was designed to manage the 

Army’s administrative, logistical, and operational needs. 

Despite this change, positions 

and responsibilities were still 

often based more on negotiation and personal relationships than by well-defined, 

permanent administrative 

structures. In 1903, Congress 

also passed the Dick Act that 

reorganized the state militias 

into the National Guard as 

a reserve of the Army and 

mandated that its training, organization, and equipment be 

in line with that of the regular 

force. Notwithstanding these 

reforms, the Army remained in 

flux and had little experience 

as an organization with how to manage, command, and supply 

forces comprised of more than one brigade. 

The initial 1916 expedition into Mexico consisted of 4,800 soldiers 

from the Regular Army. Upon their arrival at Columbus, Pershing 

reorganized these forces into a provisional division with three brigades—two cavalry and one infantry—plus supporting units. He 

divided this force into two provisional columns, an eastern column 

and a western column. The 2,200 officers and men at Camp Furlong 

formed Col. James R. Lockett’s Eastern Column, which included 

the 1st Provisional Cavalry Brigade, consisting of the 11th and 13th 

Cavalry, and the 1st Provisional Infantry Brigade, with the 6th and 

16th Infantry. Supporting units included Battery C of the 6th Field 

Artillery, Companies E and H of the 2d Battalion of Engineers, 

Ambulance Company No. 7, Field Hospital No. 7, Quartermaster 

Wagon Company Nos. 1 and 2, and some of the Regular Army’s Signal 

Corps. Pershing initially traveled with the Western Column, which 

started from Culberson’s Ranch, about sixty miles west of Columbus. 

Elihu Root served as U.S. 

secretary of war, 1899–1904.

(Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••
•••• 23 ••••

Commanded by Col. George A. Dodd, the column consisted of the 

2d Provisional Cavalry Brigade, which included the 7th Cavalry, the 

10th Cavalry—comprised of “Buffalo Soldiers,” African American 

enlisted men, commanded by mostly white officers. Battery B of the 

6th Field Artillery rounded out the column—a total of 1,517 officers 

and enlisted men. 

The Army also called on detachments of U.S. Scouts to accompany each column. Composed of Apache men recruited into the 

Army for their expertise in tracking and operating in the inhospitable terrain of the border region, the scouts had seen extensive 

service during the Indian campaigns of the previous decades. 

Although the number of scouts had decreased following the surrender of Geronimo (Goyaałé) in 1891, twenty-four remained on 

active duty in 1916. The Army attached scouts from Forts Huachuca 

and Apache to the 10th and 11th Cavalry for service with the Western and Eastern Columns, respectively. Although the number of 

scouts increased to thirty-nine during the campaign, they would 

see their last major operation.

Apache members of the U.S. Scouts assigned to the Punitive Expedition

(U.S. Army photo)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 24 ••••

To support the expedition, Pershing’s quartermaster general, 

Maj. John F. Madden, established a support base at Columbus that 

soon dwarfed Camp Furlong. At the expedition’s peak, the Army 

had built 67,025 square feet of storage, 10,266 square feet of offices, 

a hospital that measured 7,512 square feet, a veterinary hospital, 

three bridges, tanks for holding gasoline, corrals for horses and 

mules, and a forge. During the course of the campaign, the depot 

moved more than 5.3 million pounds of subsistence stores, 250,000 

pounds of clothing, 138,000 pounds of mail, and other materials 

for the expedition’s signal, engineer, and medical units. Despite 

the rapid increase in capacity, keeping the supply lines open to 

Pershing’s Chihuahua headquarters at Colonia Dublán, about 

eighty miles south of Columbus, proved a daunting task. This 

problem only compounded as Pershing’s soldiers moved south, 

requiring the quartermaster to move goods to an advanced depot 

at Namiquipa, about 220 miles south of Columbus. A shortage of 

quartermaster soldiers for such a substantial undertaking forced 

the Army to hire a large number of civilian laborers to unload, 

store, and pack materials for shipment to the forward depots, as 

well as a police force of forty-seven to safeguard property from 

theft and to maintain order among the workers.

While Pershing prepared to enter Chihuahua, Wilson turned 

to diplomatic channels to make the case for sending U.S. troops 

into Mexico in the hopes of preventing a break with Carranza’s 

government. In this effort, Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of 

State Robert Lansing justified the Punitive Expedition under 

the diplomatic framework of “hot pursuit.” Enacted during the 

Apache Wars of the 1880s, this concept was a response to the 

Apache tactic of raiding on one side of the border and then escaping pursuit simply by crossing the line into the other country’s jurisdiction. The United States and Mexico signed an agreement in 

July 1882 to allow federal troops from either nation to cross into 

the other if in “hot pursuit” of an Indian band. Neither country 

used this agreement after 1896, but it remained within the living 

memory of both nations. On 10 March, Carranza’s government 

accepted the concept of reciprocal crossings but only if “the raid 

effected at Columbus should unfortunately be repeated at any 

other point on the border.” Wilson and Lansing ignored this authorization of “hot pursuit” only in the event of future raids and 

responded that they understood that Mexico would tolerate U.S. 

troops on its soil in response to the Columbus raid. Pershing’s 

forces carried copies of a telegram guaranteeing safe passage 
•••• 25 ••••

from Mexico’s General Álvaro Obregón in order to justify their 

presence to Mexican troops and civilians, but the issue of the 

legality of the expedition remained far from settled from the 

standpoint of the Mexican government. 

Carranza’s refusal to accept the presence of U.S. troops in 

Mexico made it far more difficult to operate in Chihuahua and to 

move men and materials across the desert than it might have been 

otherwise. Pershing’s men had to contend not just with the desert 

but with government troops that could be hostile to soldiers who 

they saw as violating Mexican national sovereignty. Carranza’s reluctance to authorize the expedition also led him to deny Pershing’s 

troops the use of Mexico’s railroads after 18 March. This meant that 

Pershing had to rely on pack animals, wagons, and later trucks to 

move men and materials. The limitations on transportation led to 

a persistent lack of supplies during the first several months of the 

expedition. Major Tompkins described operating with his squadron for more than a month in the countryside with only 3 days’ 

worth of rations and 120 rounds of ammunition. Soldiers obtained 

provisions beyond these limited supplies either by living off the 

land or purchasing goods from locals. Sometimes soldiers could 

pay in hard currency, often out of their own pocket, which was 

much appreciated by those with food to sell. But the men often 

were forced to pay in promissory notes that the recipient could 

The Army camp at Columbus, New Mexico, which served as the 

Punitive Expedition’s logistical support base (Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 26 ••••

only redeem them through unit adjutants. This almost ensured 

that the unfortunate Chihuahuans would never see compensation. Supply problems also meant that soldiers often went into 

the field with inadequate clothing. Thinking that the men would 

fight in the desert and that the expedition would end quickly, the 

quartermaster made few provisions for heavy winter uniforms, 

coats, or extra blankets. Many men simply had to go without these 

items for the first several months of the campaign. 

Two days before he planned to march into Chihuahua, Pershing 

received intelligence that the commanding officer of the small detachment of Mexican troops charged with guarding the border gate 

at Las Palomas would oppose any move by U.S. forces to pass into 

Mexico. In response, Pershing sent a message to the border guard 

stating his intention to cross whether or not he met resistance and 

arguing that his expedition was legal. This caused some consternation in Washington because it meant that Pershing risked sparking 

an incident with Carranza’s forces before the hunt for Villa had even 

begun. Despite the danger, Pershing did not receive orders to alter 

his march or to bypass Las Palomas. This marked the first of many 

occasions in which Pershing’s and Carranza’s forces clashed or threatened each other with violence during the course of the expedition.

Operations

The Eastern Column crossed the border on 15 March without 

incident. Passing through the Las Palomas border gate, it found the 

guard station deserted and learned that the Mexican detachment 

stationed there had fled earlier that morning. Problems with Pershing’s touring car delayed the Western Column’s departure until the 

following day. It reached Colonia Dublán at 1930 on 17 March, and 

Pershing established his headquarters there. The general chose 

the location for its access to the Casas Grandes River and Mexico’s 

Northwestern Railroad, as well as its proximity to a Mormon settlement. The Mormons welcomed and readily aided the expedition 

by providing a place to camp, access to supplies, and sources of 

intelligence. In return, the U.S. Army provided protection from local 

bandits who preyed on foreigners living and working in Chihuahua 

as well as anti-American revolutionaries operating in the area. Pershing met with his staff to plan the first operations.

Acting on information that Villa had been seen about sixty 

miles to the south in the vicinity of San Miguel de Babícora, Pershing decided to act without waiting for the Eastern Column to arrive. 
•••• 27 ••••

Keeping the 3d Squadron of the 10th Cavalry at Colonia Dublán, 

he formed three forces from the remaining units. One column, 

the entire 7th Cavalry commanded by Col. James B. Erwin, would 

advance mounted south through Galeana and El Valle and then 

move east in the direction of the Sierra Madre Oriental mountains 

in the hopes of catching Villa or his bands if they tried to ride east 

from Babícora. The other two detachments were to proceed to 

Babícora itself. Pershing decided to send these two detachments 

by rail at least part of the way in order to afford the troopers 

and their mounts a much-needed rest after deploying from Fort 

Huachuca, Arizona, to Colonia Dublán. The 10th Cavalry’s 2d 

Squadron, reinforced with the regimental machine gun troop and 

commanded by Lt. Col. William C. Brown, would leave the train 

at El Rucio, a railroad station forty miles north of Babícora, and 

advance south. Meanwhile, the 1st Squadron, commanded by 

Brig. Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing crossing the Río Grande 

into Mexico with the Western Column at the beginning of the 

Punitive Expedition (U.S. Army Military History Institute)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 28 ••••

Maj. Elwood W. Evans, was supposed to unload at Madera, about 

twenty-eight miles south of Babícora, and advance north. Pershing’s plan sought to locate Villa with one column while the other 

two converged to trap him in a pincer movement. This stood as 

the only time during the Punitive Expedition that Pershing used 

the Mexican rails before Carranza’s decree took effect. 

Although Pershing’s decision to use the railroad seemed 

sound, the plan proved to be disastrous. The railroad’s rolling 

stock was in such bad condition that when the train arrived at 

Colonia Dublán, the soldiers had to repair doors, cut ventilation 

holes into the walls, and patch large gaps in the floors caused by 

old cooking fires to make the cars suitable for transporting men 

and horses. After a delay of several hours, the train departed, but 

fearing Villista or Carrancista interference, the conductor refused 

to stop in Casas Grandes, just outside of Colonia Dublán, to load 

firewood for the locomotive. This forced the troops to provide the 

necessary fuel instead by using their camp hatchets to demolish 

a loading pen and to chop down telegraph poles, which the U.S. 

government had to pay for later. The train continued only a short 

distance farther before the locomotive needed water and had to 

return again to the starting point. Once replenished, the conductor 

refused to proceed to El Rucio. Colonel Brown bribed the conductor to settle the matter. Finally, outside of El Rucio, the conductor 

found that the locomotive lacked the necessary power to pull the 

twenty-five loaded cattle and boxcars up the steep grade heading 

into town, and the train gave out short of its first destination. 

About 1200 on 20 March, a frustrated Colonel Brown ordered his 

men off the train and continued the mission on horseback. Major 

Evans’ detachment remained on board the lightened train until 

two cars derailed and plunged down an embankment near Cumbre 

Pass, injuring eleven men. Evans then ordered the 1st Squadron to 

disembark and conducted a night march to Babícora, but shortly 

after he arrived, he received orders to join Brown. The two met 

outside Babícora at 1400 on 24 March. Erwin’s contingent continued to patrol east of Babícora and remained out of contact with 

headquarters for several days.

After their rendezvous, the two squadrons learned that Villa 

had, in fact, not been in Babícora for several months. Suspecting 

he was still somewhere in the region, the squadrons continued 

their search mission for the next thirty-two days. Although the 

troopers relied on Mexican citizens they met along the trails for 

information, they received little useful intelligence. Peasants and 
•••• 29 ••••

townspeople alike often viewed U.S. troops as invaders, whether 

or not they were sympathetic to Villa. Covering the vast Chihuahua wilderness of mountains and plains proved almost impossible given that Villistas knew the terrain and had a much greater 

knowledge of possible escape routes and hideouts. The soldiers 

also understood that while they were restricted to operating in 

Chihuahua, Villa and his men could simply go south beyond their 

reach to the state of Durango if threatened. Hearing Pershing’s 

discussion on the location and operations of these columns at a 

23 March press conference, one scout quipped, “We’ve got Villa 

entirely surrounded . . . on one side.” 

As the Babícora operation continued, the Eastern Column arrived from Columbus to Colonia Dublán. Just as he had with its 

sister force, Pershing divided the cavalry of the Eastern Column, 

this time into four operational detachments. Maj. Elmer Lindsley 

commanded the first, consisting of Troop L and the entire 2d 

Squadron of the 13th Cavalry. Major Tompkins led the second 

detachment, with Troops K and M of the 13th, and Troops I and K 

of the 10th Cavalry. The third and fourth detachments, under the 

command of Maj. Robert L. Howze and Lt. Col. Henry T. Allen, 

respectively, came from the 11th Cavalry. 

Carrancista soldiers board a train while U.S. troops wait on a 

railroad embankment to begin an operation against Villista forces 

in Mexico. (Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 30 ••••

Pershing expected these mobile units, which he called “flying 

columns,” to operate semi-independently with minimum guidance 

as they gathered intelligence to locate and destroy Villista bands. 

Detachment commanders were to stay in communication with 

headquarters, but Pershing allowed them freedom of maneuver 

in their assigned areas without having to wait for specific orders. 

While Army quartermasters worked to forward provisions and 

other supplies, the flying columns mostly lived off the land. Major 

Tompkins recounted that his men frequently subsisted on a diet of 

beef taken from cattle they killed, butchered on the trail, and then 

fried in their mess kits over the campfire. The expedition’s hasty 

assembly caused other problems besides a lack of food. Tompkins’ 

unit, for example, had no maps, while some units used ones that 

dated from the Mexican War of the 1840s (Map 3).

Meanwhile, Pershing merged two of the three detachments 

from the Eastern Column, which now operated in the Babícora 

area. Sixty-three-year-old Colonel Dodd assumed command of his 

old regiment, the 7th Cavalry, as well as the 10th Cavalry. Soon 

after this reorganization, the 7th Cavalry encountered a small 

group of Carrancistas on the outskirts of El Valle, about twentyfive miles east of Babícora and fifty miles south of Colonia Dublán. 

Dodd requested intelligence from the Carrancista commander, Col. 

Enrique Salas. The Mexican officer told him that recent reports 

put Villa near Namiquipa, about forty miles farther south. Dodd 

assumed that Salas was credible and led his men in that direction 

only to discover that Villa had already departed. When he arrived, 

Dodd questioned local federal soldiers, but several people with 

whom he spoke gave contradictory information. Dodd next decided 

to lead Erwin’s men south again through Santa Ana to Bachíniva, 

where he received orders to wait for Howze. But Dodd believed he 

was closing in on Villa and instead chose to press on southwest to 

Guerrero, about 190 miles south of Colonia Dublán.

Unknown to Dodd, Villa and his forces were in Guerrero at the 

time and were on the cusp of suffering a major reversal. Soon after 

crossing back into Mexico, Villa had ordered his men to move to 

Boca Grande and then to Ascensión and Galeana, about 150 miles 

south of Columbus. There, he attempted to reinvigorate support for 

his cause in the countryside and enlist recruits by giving speeches 

in which he promised to only attack U.S., not Mexican, citizens going forward. In one of these speeches in El Valle, he predicted that 

U.S. troops would soon invade Mexico with Carranza’s knowledge 

and approval, and he warned of the damage to Mexican sovereignty. 
Map 3

COLUMBUS

9 Mar 1916

SANTA CRUZ

DE VILLEGAS

11 Apr 1916

PARRAL

11 Apr 1916

AGUA CALIENTE

1 Apr 1916

GUERRERO

29 Mar 1916

COLONIA DUBLÁN

NAMIQUIPA

SAN GERÓNIMO

SATEVÓ

Culberson’s Ranch

San Miguel

 de Babícora

Cum bre Pas s

Gibson’s Ranch

Nor thwestern RR

Mexican National RR

Fort Bliss Camp Furlong

San Andrés Bustillos

Valle de Zaragoza

Santa Isabel

San Francisco de Borja

Cusihuiriachic

Ciudad Juárez

Ojo de Federico

Pearson

Santa Ana

San Isidro

El Rucio

El Valle

Las Cruces

Galeana

Boca

 Grande

Carrizal

Villa Ahumada

Miñaca

Bachíniva

Madera

Palomas

Ascensión

Casas Grandes

El Paso

CHIHUAHUA

N E W

MEXI C O

TEXAS

SINAL O A DURANGO

SONOR A

UNITED STATES

MEXICO

General Pershing’s Advance

General Pershing’s Headquarters

Engagement

 9 March–11 April 1916

CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO

THEATER OF OPERATIONS

0 50 100 150

Miles
•••• 32 ••••

Shortly afterward, Villa attacked the Carrancista garrisons at Guerrero, Miñaca, and San Isidro. It was during this attack on 27 March 

that Villa was shot in the leg, probably by one of his own men. His 

followers immediately took him to the nearby home of Dr. Lyman 

B. Rauschbaum for treatment. Rauschbaum advised Villa to have 

surgery to remove bone fragments from his wound, but the general 

refused to stay for the procedure. Realizing that U.S. and Carrancista forces would soon learn of his injury and come looking for 

him, Villa ordered Brig. Gen. Nicolás Fernández, his principal subordinate on the Columbus raid, and a small escort to take him into 

the mountains to hide. Although a teetotaler who seemed immune 

to physical discomfort, Villa numbed the pain with alcohol. After 

taking shelter in a cave, Villa sent Fernández ahead to Durango to 

await further orders. Completely out of touch with the rest of his 

command—during which the rumor circulated that he had died 

of complications from an amputation—Villa relied on relatives to 

bring him food and water.

While this was unfolding, Dodd had made the decision to cross 

the mountains to Guerrero, but to do this efficiently, he needed a 

guide. At first, no one in Bachíniva was willing to help U.S. troops, 

but after much searching, Dodd convinced a reluctant local to 

lead his unit along the winding mountain trails. Whether out of 

fear of reprisal or loyalty to Villa, the man led the troopers on a 

circuitous route that doubled the actual distance between the 

two towns to about fifty-five miles. Then, when the 7th Cavalry 

finally neared Guerrero, the local guide refused to advise on the 

best approach to town, so Dodd had no choice but to surround 

it and wait for daylight to advance. Because Dodd approached 

Guerrero in daylight, his movements were highly visible to the 

approximately 200 or so Villistas who remained in town, and they 

quickly retreated, scattering in several directions. The cavalrymen 

pursued, and Dodd led one small contingent on a chase of about 

ten miles through an arroyo before U.S. troops set up a rifle and 

a machine gun position. U.S. forces killed about thirty Villistas 

as they tried to escape through the narrow canyon. At the same 

time, another troop of the 7th Cavalry spotted a group of armed 

men whom they initially suspected of being Villistas. Before they 

could engage, the cavalrymen noticed that the suspects moved in 

an orderly column with a large Mexican flag, so the U.S. troopers 

held their fire concerned they might attack Carrancistas in error.

After the engagement, Dodd returned to Namiquipa to rest 

the exhausted men and horses and to file his report. The colonel 
•••• 33 ••••

noted that because many of 

the Villistas in Guerrero were 

Yaqui Indians, making an accurate count of enemy casualties was difficult. The Yaqui 

tended to carry their dead 

off the battlefield in order 

to obscure their true losses. 

He concluded that his men 

therefore probably killed or 

wounded more of the enemy 

than the corpses left behind 

indicated. Dodd did not know, 

but at the time of the skirmish, 

Villa rested only a few hours’ 

ride outside of town and was 

moving slowly due to his injuries. Dodd’s attack and pursuit 

at Guerrero proved the closest 

anyone in the Punitive Expedition came to capturing Villa. 

The clash at Guerrero further convinced Dodd that 

questioning Mexican soldiers 

and citizens was unlikely to 

yield useful intelligence. Not only were local people unwilling 

to help in many cases, but Villa often kept his location a carefully guarded secret, even from his own officers. Often, neither 

locals nor Villista soldiers knew where Villa was operating. 

Carrancista forces experienced similar problems trying to get 

reliable intelligence, but even when they came across credible 

information, they were reluctant to share it for fear that U.S. 

operations would hamper their own. Pershing likened it to “interfering in a family quarrel; they would fight each other when 

we were not about, but when we appeared frustration of our 

plans was the common objective.” 

Pershing’s forces had to develop alternatives to gathering 

intelligence on the ground from Mexican citizens. Maj. James A. 

Ryan, Pershing’s intelligence officer, led this effort, and during the 

first several months of the expedition, he assembled a network of 

trusted local informants and civilian scouts. Their work helped to 

compensate for the shortage of reliable maps and supplemented 

Col. George A. Dodd, 

pictured after his promotion 

to brigadier general

(National Archives) •••••••••••••
•••• 34 ••••

the tracking efforts of U.S. Scouts, not only in locating Villa’s men, 

but in finding animals, fodder, and water to add to their meager 

supplies. Ryan also transmitted numerous reports by telegram to 

the War College Division of the General Staff and its Military Information Section, although no evidence exists that anyone acted 

on or even read them. 

Parral

Hearing that Villa had gone into hiding due to his injuries 

several days after the clash at Guerrero presented Pershing with 

a serious dilemma. It now seemed like it would be even more 

difficult to find information on Villa’s whereabouts because 

the general left few clues indicating where he might be holed 

up, and when asked, the answers locals provided “would have 

indicated Villa’s departure in almost any direction and his presence in several places at once.” Knowing his men would have to 

push farther south to continue the search, Pershing moved his 

headquarters from Colonia Dublán to San Gerónimo, 140 miles 

to the south. He arrived there on 27 March during a sandstorm 

that coated the camp and all the equipment in a layer of fine 

sand and grounded all of the 1st Aero Squadron’s planes. In the 

absence of any concrete intelligence, Major Tompkins suggested 

to Pershing that Villa could be in the vicinity of Parral, about 150 

miles south of Guerrero, near the border with Durango, because 

he had used that town as a base before the revolution. Pershing 

concurred and planned an advance using parallel columns from 

Guerrero to Parral. Colonel Brown led his column along the route 

farthest east with Tompkins in the center and Major Howze on the 

westernmost trail. When Tompkins set out, he took twelve pack 

mules to carry supplies, 500 pesos worth of Mexican silver, and 

rations for five days. Before leaving San Gerónimo, the columns 

supplemented their austere supplies through local purchase and 

foraging. Meanwhile, Pershing sent Colonel Allen from Colonia 

Dublán to Namiquipa. His mission was to ride another 175 miles 

south and east to Satevó to look for Villa’s subordinate, General 

Pablo López.

The advancing detachments encountered both Carrancistas 

and Villistas. On 1 April, Brown’s men unexpectedly ran into a 

group of 150 Villistas commanded by Col. Francisco Beltrán in 

the mountains near Agua Caliente and forced them to retreat 

after a brief skirmish. Maj. Charles Young of the 2d Squadron, 
•••• 35 ••••

10th Cavalry, one of the few 

African American officers in the 

Army, led a charge against one 

of the groups of retreating Villistas, then pursued them for seven 

miles in an action that killed 

two enemy with no U.S. losses. 

The day after their skirmish in 

Agua Caliente, Brown’s men 

encountered Carrancista General José Cavazos, who warned 

them to proceed no farther into 

Chihuahuan territory. Three 

days later, Howze’s column also 

encountered Cavazos as it traveled south over the mountains 

through the Gabilana trail. The 

approximately 200 Carrancistas under Cavazos’ command 

drew their rifles in preparation 

to charge when Howze rode 

between the lines and identified 

his men as U.S. Army. Cavazos’ 

men halted, and the U.S. troopers continued south. Meanwhile 

at headquarters, General Luis 

Herrera visited Pershing. The 

Carrancista officer told the 

U.S. general that he felt certain 

Villa was dead, making the 

expedition’s continued presence unnecessary. When Pershing 

indicated that he would continue pursuing Villa and his bands, 

Herrera warned him not to continue farther south lest it result in 

a confrontation between Carrancistas and U.S. cavalry. Pershing 

believed that Herrera came to his headquarters at San Gerónimo 

less to caution him and more to gather intelligence about U.S. 

forces. He therefore ignored the Carrancista’s warning and moved 

his headquarters even farther south to Satevó.

Moving toward Parral on 5 April, Tompkins’ 100 men also 

encountered Cavazos and his troops. The general told Tompkins he believed Villa was dead and buried in the vicinity of 

Santa Ana, and he warned Tompkins to stop advancing south. 

Maj. Charles Young 

commanded 2d Squadron, 

10th Cavalry, on the Punitive 

Expedition. Pictured 

shortly before promotion to 

lieutenant colonel, Young was 

the third African American 

to graduate from West Point. 

(National Archives)

•••••••••••••
•••• 36 ••••

Cavazos added that the danger was not only that Carrancistas 

would clash with U.S. troops but that he would not be able to 

prevent hostile civilians from attacking U.S. soldiers. Believing 

Villa was still alive, Tompkins simply bypassed Cavazos’ position and continued south despite the warning. Riding through 

Rancho Cienegitara, the major learned that Villistas had robbed 

the town of 2,500 pesos the day before, confirming to him that 

he remained on their trail. Tompkins’ troopers further validated 

his suspicions when they surprised a group of Villistas in the act 

of robbing a small factory in Valle de Zaragoza on 10 April. They 

intervened, gave chase, and then returned the goods the Villistas 

had discarded in flight. 

As Tompkins’ men made camp the night of 10 April, Capt. 

Antonio Mesa approached and identified himself as a member 

of the federal army garrison at Parral. He offered to notify his 

commander that Tompkins’ troops were coming, so that he could 

escort the U.S. cavalrymen into town. Mesa also promised that 

the cavalry could camp, graze their horses, and replenish their 

supplies at Parral. Tompkins accepted, but when the cavalry arrived on the outskirts of town, they saw no welcome party from 

the garrison. Wary, Tompkins approached a guard post and asked 

for an escort to go see the garrison commander. These men took 

him to General Ismael Lozano, who expressed surprise that the 

10th Cavalry was in Parral and denied hearing anything about their 

arrival from Mesa. Lozano then told Tompkins he should not have 

come so far south and warned that the local population, hostile 

to the expedition, might present a danger to his men’s safety. The 

major dismissed these concerns but declared he would leave the 

next day if Lozano designated a place for his men to camp for the 

night. He also mentioned that he needed supplies, and Lozano 

sent for an English-speaking merchant to provide provisions and 

fodder. As they spoke, Tompkins watched through a window to 

the street below as someone turned loose a mule to charge into 

his troops. By the time he had finished with Lozano and prepared 

to leave, a crowd had gathered in the plaza as a woman whipped 

them into a frenzy shouting, “Viva Villa!” and “Viva México!” Led 

by a man whom Tompkins at the time suspected was German 

without any particular foundation, the crowd followed the U.S. 

cavalrymen out of town. Though no evidence exists that foreign 

agents incited the mob, the presence of this man caused the major 

to suspect Germany of a covert plan to cause a wider diplomatic 

rift between the United States and Mexico. 
•••• 37 ••••

Lozano next led Tompkins and his detachment to a campsite 

east of town, but Tompkins rejected it. Hemmed in by a horseshoeshaped ridge, he deemed it impossible to defend. As a precaution, 

Tompkins sent a group to occupy the hill to their west. He then 

realized that someone in the crowd that had followed them from 

town was firing on his rear. At the same time, a force of about 

550 Mexican soldiers began assembling on the hills across the 

road about 600 yards away. Tompkins demanded an explanation 

but saw Lozano’s pistol still in its holster, and he decided that the 

general was not to blame. The Carrancista officer tried to halt the 

advancing crowd but demanded that Tompkins leave immediately. 

Tompkins again refused but saw the Carrancistas moving against 

his left flank and sent a patrol to intercept them while yelling at 

the Mexican mob to stay back. Someone fired another shot in the 

major’s direction, killing Sgt. Jay Richley, and an exchange of 

gunfire followed. After two more men were wounded, Tompkins 

ordered the men to withdraw. 

Once his men reached the Parral–Santa Cruz de Villegas road, 

Tompkins decided to ride north to Santa Cruz, about three hours 

away. The Mexican soldiers followed and fired on the withdrawing 

U.S. cavalry, while Lt. Clarence Lininger and an eight-man rear guard 

returned fire. As the enemy drew closer, Tompkins ordered Lininger 

and his men to dismount and take positions behind a stone wall to 

slow the enemy advance. Staying with them to observe and hold the 

reins of his men’s horses, Tompkins suffered a gunshot wound in the 

shoulder. Meanwhile, the lieutenant braved enemy fire to ride back 

and rescue a dismounted trooper before the enemy could capture 

him, an act for which he later received the Distinguished Service 

Medal. When his men crested a ridge as they withdrew, Tompkins 

saw an opportunity to put some distance between them and the 

Carrancistas. He ordered twenty troopers to dismount and form 

a skirmish line on the reverse slope. They opened fire and killed 

forty-five Mexican soldiers as they crossed over the top and came 

into view. The stunned Carrancistas ended their pursuit, and the 

cavalrymen continued without incident to Santa Cruz, having suffered two dead and six wounded. In his report, Tompkins attributed 

the light losses to poor enemy marksmanship due to their paucity 

of serviceable firearms, inadequate training, and shortages of ammunition resulting from years of war and revolution. 

From Santa Cruz, Major Tompkins sent messengers north to 

find and bring reinforcements from the 10th Cavalry. They encountered Capt. George Rodney, who at first suspected the messengers 
•••• 38 ••••

were deserters, but after they explained the situation, Colonel 

Brown ordered Major Young and the 2d Squadron to Tompkins’ 

relief. Lozano arrived in Santa Cruz later that day and sent Tompkins an official note that stated, “I beg you to retreat immediately, 

in order to avoid hostilities. Otherwise, I will be obliged to attack 

you with the forces in my command.” Major Tompkins stalled for 

time and replied with a written protest over the Parral skirmish. 

He agreed to withdraw from Santa Cruz only if guaranteed safe 

passage. Colonel Brown and Major Young arrived with the reinforcements about 2000 on 12 April and bivouacked outside of town. 

Accompanied by General Luis Herrera, General Lozano rode out 

to see Brown and warned that he should return north because his 

continued presence just strengthened popular support for Villa 

in the region. When Brown refused to make any commitments, 

Herrera became angry and stated that U.S. forces would only be 

allowed to move north, not east, west, or south. Brown defiantly 

responded, “That flag does not move one step north until I have 

orders from my commanding general to move it.” 

Pershing heard about the skirmish two days after the clash 

when Capt. Benjamin D. Foulois of the 1st Aero Squadron delivered 

a communiqué from the U.S. consulate in Chihuahua. Lozano had 

sent a notice to the consulate soon after the skirmish, but it was 

translated poorly, leading to temporary confusion in Pershing’s 

headquarters. After receiving clarifications from Dodd, Pershing 

decided to withdraw Dodd, Brown, and Young’s forces from the 

Santa Cruz area north and to move his headquarters north to 

Namiquipa in order to better communicate with Washington via the 

wireless relay at Casas Grandes. In the days after this withdrawal, 

Pershing sent General Luis Gutiérrez a written protest concerning what happened at Parral and submitted his revised plan of 

operation to General Funston. Pershing argued that his troops 

found “obstruction, changing more and more to open hostility the 

farther south we progressed,” and he recommended “the immediate capture of the city and state of Chihuahua and the seizure of 

all railroads therein.” 

Pershing had some support in the Army for escalating the 

conflict. Maj. Gen. Tasker H. Bliss, assistant chief of staff of the 

Army, thought that Pershing’s limited intervention into Mexico 

was unlikely to produce results, and he urged President Wilson 

to prepare a full-scale invasion to pacify the country. General 

Scott recommended that the president at least call the National 

Guard into federal service and position several thousand men on 
•••• 39 ••••

the border to deter future raids. The president rejected both recommendations. He had become anxious about committing more 

forces to capture Villa when involvement in the war in Europe 

seemed more likely. The most recent plans that Wilson could reference—written in 1911, by then-president of the Army War College 

Brig. Gen. William W. Wotherspoon—for a hypothetical invasion 

of Mexico estimated that an occupation of the whole country 

would require a force of up to 200,000 troops. Wilson knew that 

the United States could not do this and still send troops to Europe 

at the same time, so instead the president chose to use the Parral 

crisis to call for negotiation with Mexico. Secretary Lansing sent 

Carranza a proposal for negotiations on 22 April, and Generals 

Scott and Álvaro Obregón began talks in Ciudad Juárez six days 

later. Although neither side wanted the conflict to escalate, the 

agreement that the generals outlined collapsed when Obregón 

refused to accept a promise of U.S. withdrawal without a definite 

date specified. Negotiations ended amicably, however, leaving hope 

that talks would resume in the near future. 

After reestablishing his headquarters at Namiquipa, Pershing 

again reorganized his forces. The 5th and 17th Cavalry, and the 

24th Infantry, had recently joined the expedition, and Dodd’s and 

Brown’s detachments were moving north and needed to be assigned new areas to patrol. The general decided to divide northern 

Chihuahua into five districts, each centered on a principal town 

garrisoned with a regiment of cavalry, reinforced with artillery 

and infantry. Pershing noted that the Villistas no longer operated 

as a large, cohesive body led personally by their general but were 

organized into small, scattered, quickly moving bands commanded 

by Villa’s subordinates. The organization of districts allowed the 

cavalry to conduct sustained patrols that ranged in size from units 

of 20 to 300 men who would become more familiar with the terrain, 

cultivate intelligence sources, and create relationships with local 

government and military leaders. The five districts were Namiquipa, 10th Cavalry; Guerrero, 7th Cavalry; Bustillos, 13th Cavalry; 

Satevó, 5th Cavalry; and San Francisco de Borja, 11th Cavalry.

Cusihuiriachic

As Pershing’s operations continued, Villa’s forces launched 

a series of small-scale attacks. On 4 May, Generals Julio Acosta 

and Cruz Domínguez led an assault on the Carrancista garrison at 

the largely Mennonite silver mining town of Cusihuiriachic, near 
•••• 40 ••••

present-day Ciudad Cuauhtémoc. The next day, the local Carrancista commander requested assistance from the U.S. cavalry to 

aid in dealing with the emergency. Major Howze led a reinforced 

squadron of six lettered troops, a machine gun platoon, and a 

detachment of Apache scouts from the 11th Cavalry, a total of 333 

officers and men, on a night march to Cusihuiriachic. The 140 Villista raiders left before Howze arrived, but the detachment pursued 

the enemy into the mountains with the assistance of local guides. 

As the retreating Villistas approached Ojos Azules ranch, they 

stopped and opened fire on Howze’s men. Troop A then drew pistols 

and charged, while the rest of Howze’s force circled the objective 

and took blocking positions to prevent the enemy’s escape. The 

U.S. cavalry freed four Carrancista prisoners and killed forty-two 

Villistas in the fight, but General Acosta, General Domínguez, and 

most of their men scattered into the desert. Howze’s detachment 

lost a few horses but suffered no casualties in the lopsided victory. 

Glenn Springs and Boquillas

One day after the Cusihuiriachic raid, a group of about a 

hundred Villistas led by Lt. Col. Natividad Álvarez crossed the 

border into the Big Bend region of Texas. Álvarez divided his force, 

personally leading one division toward the town of Boquillas, 

Mexico, and sending the other under the command of one of his 

lieutenants to attack Glenn Springs, Texas. In Boquillas, Álvarez 

and his men met no resistance. After looting several buildings, the 

soldiers robbed and captured Jesse Deemer, a U.S. citizen living 

in Mexico and manager of the local general store, and his AfroSeminole clerk, Monroe, or Maurice, Payne. Across the border, 

Glenn Springs sat as an isolated village of about eighty inhabitants, 

mostly Mexican Americans, fifty of whom worked in a local wax 

extraction factory. The town was also home to Sgt. Charles E. 

Smyth and his nine-man squad from Troop A of the 14th Cavalry. 

As the attack began, they rushed from their tents and took cover in 

an adobe building before engaging in a night-long gun battle. They 

only vacated their position when Villistas set the building on fire. 

The troopers then continued to fight from a nearby hill and suffered three dead and four wounded. Sergeant Smyth later received 

the Distinguished Service Medal for this action. During the clash, 

the Villistas ransacked the wax factory, looted the general store 

and several homes, and set part of the town ablaze. About 0300, 

they gathered their wounded and dead, except for two, and rode 
•••• 41 ••••

off to Boquillas to meet the other division. The two detachments 

met up outside of Boquillas at 1000 and moved south, but in the 

confusion of the withdrawal, some miners managed to capture 

Álvarez. Moving further into Mexico, one small group of soldiers 

halted to rob the payroll and company store of the U.S.-owned Del 

Carmen Silver Mine. There they took four U.S. citizens prisoner, 

but the captives escaped after they purposely crashed their vehicle 

into a ditch. Scott ordered Funston to pursue the Glenn Springs 

raiders and to rescue the remaining two hostages. 

On 7 May, Col. Frederick W. Sibley of the 14th Cavalry left Fort 

Clark, Texas, along with his regiment’s headquarters, machine 

gun troops, and Troops H and K. He arrived at Glenn Springs on 

11 May and was joined by Maj. George T. Langhorne, with Troops 

A and B of the 8th Cavalry from Fort Bliss. The major led the two 

8th Cavalry troops, with two wagons and a touring car, across the 

Río Grande at 2000 that night, while Sibley followed with the 14th 

Cavalry units at 0600 two days later. After a 24-hour march, one 

of Langhorne’s troops encountered a group of Villistas near the 

village of El Pino, where Deemer and Payne, the two remaining 

captives, were being held. The U.S. troopers charged, and the Villistas fled without firing a shot. The two hostages were recovered. 

The Machine Gun Troop, 8th Cavalry, conducting a charge during 

a training exercise near its post in Texas near the Mexican border 

(Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 42 ••••

Pursuing units continued searching for Villistas, and on 15 

May a patrol from Troop B of the 8th Cavalry, commanded by Lt. 

Stuart W. Cramer Jr., killed five Villistas and wounded two without 

suffering any casualties in a firefight near Castillón. Cramer’s men 

recovered nineteen horses, mules, and a wagon full of weapons, 

saddles, and other goods. With their mission to rescue the hostages complete and with Carranza complaining to Wilson through 

diplomatic cables that this second expedition could trigger a war 

between the two nations, General Scott ordered Sibley to return 

to the U.S. side of the Río Grande.

Beyond the disruption of the incursion itself and Sibley’s expedition across the border, the Glenn Springs raid led Wilson to 

implement two major changes that each had a far-reaching effect 

on the Punitive Expedition. First, Wilson realized that far from 

being secure due to the large presence of U.S. troops, the border 

remained vulnerable to attack from the south. As a result, on 9 

May he called the National Guard from three border states to guard 

the boundary between the United States and Mexico. In response 

to the call-up, Carranza declared his government would view any 

increases in the number of U.S. soldiers within the borders of 

Mexico as a deliberate act of war. The second action that Wilson 

took in the wake of Glenn Springs was to order Pershing to move 

Soldiers of the 24th Infantry guarding Villista prisoners in Mexico 

(Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 43 ••••

his headquarters from Namiquipa back to Colonia Dublán, about 

120 miles to the north. The cavalry remained responsible for patrolling its districts, but moving the headquarters to the far north 

of the state meant that it would be much easier going forward for 

both Carrancistas and Villistas to avoid U.S. forces in the field. 

Pershing registered his discontent with the War Department 

over this withdrawal to the north and repeated his request for 

authorization to establish a U.S. military government for all of 

Chihuahua. This would have drastically altered the mission of the 

Punitive Expedition. Since Carranza’s forces at least nominally 

controlled Chihuahua, a U.S. takeover of the state would have 

transformed Carrancistas into the expedition’s primary belligerents, taking focus off of the Villistas responsible for attacking 

Columbus. Pershing’s forces already had clashed with Carrancistas 

at Parral, and Mexico’s federal forces increasingly were seen as 

secondary opponents, but President Wilson balked at declaring 

war against the officially recognized government of Mexico.

Carrizal

Despite the move to the north, Pershing’s men continued to 

engage in minor clashes with Carrancistas and Villistas in Chihuahua. On 14 May, Lt. George S. Patton Jr. led a fifteen-man detail 

in three automobiles to purchase corn. When Patton and his men 

arrived at San Miguel Ranch, twenty-five miles south of Colonia 

Dublán, a party of horsemen rode through an arched gateway and 

fired on them without warning. The U.S. cavalrymen returned fire 

and killed three of the attackers, one of whom turned out to be 

one of Villa’s principal subordinates, Col. Julián Cárdenas. Later 

in the month, Sgt. James M. Mayson led a detail of ten men from 

the 17th and 24th Infantry at Namiquipa on a mission to map the 

Santa María Valley and hunt for cattle. About six miles from the 

town of Las Cruces, a party of thirty Villistas rode toward a group 

of the surveyors and started shooting. Mayson sent one man for 

reinforcements while he and Cpl. Earl Philips stayed with the other 

eight men and fought until troopers of the 11th and 13th Cavalry 

arrived, and the enemy retreated. U.S. forces lost one dead and 

three wounded but killed Col. Candelario Cervantes, yet another 

chief Villa subordinate.

Recognizing the strained relations between his forces and 

Carrancista troops operating in the area, Pershing invited General Gabriel Gavira, the Carrancista commander responsible for 
•••• 44 ••••

the Ciudad Juárez area, to meet with him at Colonia Dublán. On 

1 June, the two men talked for two hours in Gavira’s railway car, 

and the Mexican general agreed to reduce the number of Carrancistas posted along the Northwestern Mexican Railroad from 

the border to Colonia Dublán. Fewer Mexican troops in the area 

further reduced the likelihood of clashes between the two forces. 

General Treviño, the Carrancista commander of the 1st, 3d, 

and 5th Divisions of the Army of the Northeast, was less conciliatory. On 16 June, he relayed a terse message to Pershing’s camp 

that read:

I have orders from my government to prevent, by the use of 

arms, new invasions of my country by American forces and also 

to prevent the American forces that are in this state from moving to the south, east, or west of the places they now occupy. 

I communicate this to you for your knowledge for the reason 

that your force will be attacked by the Mexican forces if these 

instructions are not heeded. 

Pershing replied, “I shall use my own judgment as to when and 

in what direction I shall move my forces in pursuit of bandits or 

in seeking information regarding bandits.” Treviño already had 

begun his offensive against Villistas in Chihuahua, moving his 

headquarters to Chihuahua city on 16 May. Thus, he was motivated 

to restrict Pershing’s movements because he did not want U.S. 

forces to interfere with his operations. 

In late June, Pershing received reports that a large group of 

Carrancista soldiers had assembled near Villa Ahumada, about 

seventy miles east of Colonia Dublán. Pershing sent Capts. Charles 

T. Boyd and Lewis S. Morey, commanding Troops C and K of the 

10th Cavalry, respectively, to investigate. Troop C moved from 

Colonia Dublán east to Ahumada, while Troop K marched from 

Ojo de Federico, about fifty-five miles north of Colonia Dublán, 

southeast to Ahumada. Boyd assumed overall command when 

their paths crossed at Santo Domingo ranch. There, W. P. McCabe, 

the U.S.-born ranch foreman, told them about recent Carrancista 

movements in the local area. 

Pershing had warned Boyd of the delicate state of relations 

between the United States and Mexico before he left headquarters 

and advised him to avoid clashes with Carrancistas at all costs. This 

was to be a reconnaissance mission only. Once on the trail to Ahumada, however, Boyd confided to Lem Spilsbury, his Mexican-born 
•••• 45 ••••

Mormon guide, that if Carrancista troops fired on them, Pershing 

was ready to move south, and General Funston would send more 

troops into Chihuahua. To Spilsbury, Boyd seemed to be hinting 

that the scouting mission had a greater purpose. Pershing later 

explained that Boyd must have believed that if he engaged with 

Mexican troops they would withdraw rather than fight. In Pershing’s 

view, Boyd simply underestimated the Carrancista army.

With Troops C and K combined, Boyd ordered the entire force 

of three officers and eighty enlisted men to march to Villa Ahumada through the town of Carrizal. Spilsbury stood skeptical of 

the idea. McCabe warned against the plan because of the town’s 

many bulletproof adobe buildings, which provided an advantage 

to the Carrancista defenders in case of a battle. Morey voiced his 

concerns as well, noting that while the orders read to go to Ahumada through Carrizal, caution dictated that they should bypass 

town, rather than force their way through the settlement. Boyd 

rejected these concerns and remarked about “making history.” He 

deposited his valuables with McCabe for safekeeping and sent a 

courier to Carrizal, asking permission for his troopers to move 

through the town.

Boyd’s detachment left Santo Domingo ranch at approximately 

0400 on 21 June. About a mile and a quarter from the ranch, the 

Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry on the trail of Pancho Villa in 

Mexico during the Punitive Expedition (National Archives)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 46 ••••

troopers encountered a force of around 400 Carrancistas positioned on a low irrigation trench west of Carrizal. Boyd and Spilsbury rode ahead and met two Carrancista officers, General Félix 

U. Gómez and Maj. Genevevo Rivas. Gómez firmly stated he had 

orders not to allow U.S. troops to move in any direction except 

north. The Mexican officer said he had forwarded Boyd’s message 

asking to enter the town to his superior, but General Treviño had 

denied him permission. Spilsbury again advised Boyd to march 

around rather than through Carrizal. Boyd disagreed, using a tone 

that even Gómez, who did not speak English, understood. Gómez 

replied, “You may go through, but . . . over our dead bodies.” 

Boyd led in front as the Buffalo Soldiers advanced in a “line 

of foragers” formation southeast toward Carrizal. First Lt. Henry 

R. Adair commanded Troop C on the left of the road, and Captain 

Morey and Troop K moved on the right. When they had advanced 

to within 500 yards of the Carrancistas, the troopers dismounted, 

sent their horses to the rear, and continued forward on foot on 

a line. At the same time, Mexican cavalry began moving around 

their flanks. When Boyd’s forces came to within 200 yards, the 

Carrancistas opened fire with rifles and machine guns. The men 

of Troop K moved into a small depression on their side of the road 

and took up prone firing positions but lost contact with Troop C. 

Captain Boyd lay dead after receiving three gunshot wounds; Adair 

also was killed in the fighting. Morey, despite a shoulder wound, 

assumed command and ordered a retreat. Most of the men began 

streaming northwest toward Santo Domingo ranch. Morey tried 

to continue with them, but heavy blood loss forced him to hide in 

a lime kiln with four other wounded men until nightfall when they 

continued their slow march to the ranch. They eventually found 

Major Howze, who by then had been dispatched from Colonia 

Dublán to look for survivors. Meanwhile, McCabe, the foreman at 

Santo Domingo, watched the surviving troopers straggle in from 

the skirmish and on toward headquarters at Colonia Dublán. He 

and his remaining hands left the ranch the next morning before a 

group of fifteen or twenty Carrancistas arrived, looking to capture 

retreating U.S. cavalrymen (Map 4).

The skirmish routed Troops C and K. The survivors estimated 

they had wounded forty and killed forty-five Mexican troops, 

including General Gómez, but the U.S. cavalrymen lost nine men 

and suffered twelve wounded and three missing. Twenty-three 

troopers, as well as their civilian guide, were taken prisoner. The 

Carrancista forces moved their captured by train to Chihuahua 
•••• 47 ••••

city and imprisoned them in the city penitentiary. Although crowds 

briefly pelted the captives with stones during their march through 

town, they were treated well in prison and were visited daily by 

the British consul and by an Associated Press reporter. The U.S. 

reading public stayed informed about the prisoners’ condition 

throughout their captivity. After several terse notes back and forth 

with Wilson, Carranza finally agreed to release the prisoners as a 

gesture of goodwill. They traveled to El Paso by train on 29 June, 

with all in fairly good health.

Pershing was slow to learn about the engagement at Carrizal. 

He only discovered that his men had fought with General Gómez’s 

troops on 22 June when the first survivors straggled back to 

Colonia Dublán. By then, Funston already had heard the news. 

Carrancista forces at Carrizal telegraphed reports of the skirmish 

to Chihuahua city soon after the end of the fighting. The Mexican 

press reported on the engagement the same day, and the U.S. 

press followed. President Wilson first learned about the skirmish 

by reading about it in the evening newspaper on 21 June. An infuriated Funston immediately telegraphed Pershing demanding 

an explanation for his lack of communication with his superiors 

in the United States. “Why in the name of God do I hear nothing 

from you?” he roared. He told Pershing, “The whole country has 

Map 4

Rio Santa Maria

MOREY’S COLUMN

BOYD’S COLUMN

Santo Domingo Ranch

to El Paso 

Carrizal

San Luis

Vado de Santa Maria

Villa Ahumada

U.S. Forces

Carrancista Forces

21 June 1916

CLASH A T CARRIZAL

0 10 20

Miles
•••• 48 ••••

known for ten hours through Mexican sources that a considerable 

force of your command was apparently defeated yesterday with 

heavy loss at Carrizal.” Funston then reminded him of his “existing 

orders” and asked why those troops were so far from Pershing’s 

position. The exasperated Funston expressed dismay that the 

news seemed to have reached Pershing “nearly twenty-four hours 

after the affair” even though he was relatively close to the action. 

Funston demanded to know “who was responsible for what was 

on its face seems to have been a terrible blunder?” 

Working from limited information, Pershing responded that 

Mexican troops had committed an act of war by attacking Boyd 

and his soldiers. He repeated his recommendation that his forces 

conquer the entire state of Chihuahua and seize the railroads. 

Funston informed him that he could not authorize such a move 

until there was a full investigation of the incident. The subsequent 

testimonies of Morey, McCabe, and other survivors made it clear 

that Boyd, not the Carrancistas, had instigated the fight. Despite 

this revelation, Pershing still blamed the Mexican forces and 

thought their actions at Carrizal constituted an act of war.

Logistics Advances During and After the Expedition

Carrizal marked the effective end of the campaign to find Villa. 

In the immediate aftermath of the skirmish, Funston ordered 

Pershing to stop sending patrols beyond an arbitrary zone with 

a boundary of 150 miles south of the U.S.-Chihuahua border. In 

practice, this confined Pershing’s forces to the area around Colonia 

Dublán. While Pershing’s men no longer campaigned in the field, 

the 7,000 men at Colonia Dublán and the 4,000 at nearby El Valle 

still had to be fed and provided with supplies. This presented a 

major logistical challenge because Pershing could not use Mexico’s 

railroads to move men or goods. As a result, the soldiers of the 

Punitive Expedition came to rely heavily on trucks to meet the 

troops’ daily demands. At the same time, Pershing used airplanes 

to do basic reconnaissance and to maintain communications. The 

Punitive Expedition therefore served as a technological proving 

ground as the Army adapted new, untested technologies to military operations in a challenging environment. The lessons learned 

enabled the Army to close some of the technological gap with its 

European counterparts and implement improvements that translated to operational success on the battlefield over the course of 

the next two years. 
•••• 49 ••••

Prior to the Punitive Expedition, the Army mostly relied 

on mule-drawn wagons and pack trains to meet the logistical 

demands of its soldiers in places the railroads could not reach. 

Each Army escort wagon, drawn by a team of four mules, could 

haul 3,000 pounds of cargo over flat terrain on good roads with no 

steep grades under ideal weather conditions. If mules had to draw 

wagons uphill or negotiate uneven roads, as they did in Chihuahua, the men driving them had to reduce the weight they carried. 

The wagons also had to carry fodder to feed the animals, which 

further reduced the amount of cargo they could transport. Wagons 

were clearly not an efficient means of moving goods and material 

in northern Mexico, but the alternative—loading cargo onto the 

backs of mules—also proved unable to meet the needs of Pershing’s soldiers. A mule with a pack saddle carried a maximum load 

of 200 pounds, but due to the sparse terrain of northern Mexico 

much of this space had to be used for animal fodder, reducing 

available space for unit supplies. 

Given the limitations on the use of draft and pack animals, 

General Pershing and his quartermaster, Major Madden, had few 

options but to employ trucks for transport. This presented a challenge as the Army owned few trucks, and most of these had been 

purchased for use at local posts. As late as March 1916, the entire 

Southern Department had just 16 trucks, while the Army as a whole 

had 56 automobiles and 105 trucks in service. Of these, fifty-four 

were sent to the border at the start of the expedition, providing 

Pershing with two truck companies. Unfortunately, these trucks 

arrived at Columbus with the chassis detached from their bodies 

for easier transport. Upon their arrival, the men of Truck Companies 1 and 2 discovered the shipment did not include the required 

bolts to reattach the chassis. As a result, machine-shop personnel 

and volunteers from the 1st Aero Squadron and the Signal Corps 

worked thirty-six hours nonstop to prepare the trucks for service. 

After this initial ordeal, support personnel became more proficient 

in quickly assembling the components of the next two shipments, 

which arrived on 28 March and 1 April 1916. Though the men could 

quickly reassemble the trucks, they still had to contend with repairing a wide array of trucks of different makes and models without 

the benefit of having standard parts or components.

With so few trucks available for the expedition, General Scott, 

the Army chief of staff, became concerned about supply bottlenecks forming at Columbus. He asked Army Quartermaster General Maj. Gen. James B. Aleshire if the Army had sufficient trucks 
•••• 50 ••••

to supply Pershing with the necessary materiel. When Aleshire 

confirmed that they did not, Scott asked the quartermaster to 

estimate the amount of money needed to purchase additional 

motorized vehicles. Aleshire offhandedly replied it would cost 

$450,000, and much to his surprise, Scott ordered him to spend 

the money on trucks, mechanics, and maintenance facilities and 

to send them all to Columbus. The chief of staff then approached 

Secretary Baker and said, “You will have to use your good offices 

with the President, Mr. Secretary, to keep me out of jail.” After 

Scott explained what he had just spent on trucks without an appropriation from Congress, Baker casually responded, “Ho! That’s 

nothing! If anybody goes to jail I’ll be the man—I’ll go to jail for 

everybody.” Over the eleven months of the expedition, Pershing’s 

forces expanded from two truck companies to seventeen quartermaster truck companies carrying supplies from Columbus to the 

advanced bases in Mexico. The newly purchased vehicles included 

588 cargo trucks, 57 tanker trucks, 12 truck-mounted machine 

shops, and 6 wreckers. 

This increase in the number of trucks on the border represented such a major expansion that the Army initially had to hire 

a large number of civilian drivers and mechanics. Because driving, 

The Army that deployed to the border was a force in transition. 

Quartermaster units used both old and new modes of logistical 

support, employing mule-drawn escort wagons as well as motorized 

truck transport, to support the campaign on the border and in 

Mexico. (Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 51 ••••

maintaining, and repairing the large variety of models on extremely poor dirt roads proved physically demanding, the Army had to 

pay $100 per month to attract the number of civilians needed to 

drive all of the trucks. Given that the average soldier earned $21, 

the disparity caused some friction. After experimenting throughout the expedition, the Quartermaster Corps determined that 

to achieve maximum efficiency each truck company required a 

company commander, one subaltern, one truckmaster, nine assistant truckmasters, nine drivers and nine assistant drivers, one 

machinist, one assistant machinist, one clerk, one mess steward, 

and two cooks. 

The improved availability of trucks and their organization into 

convoys helped to ease but did not solve the problem of moving 

supplies to Colonia Dublán and beyond. Chihuahua’s exceedingly 

poor roads made it difficult to establish supply lines as U.S. cavalrymen moved into remote areas. Pershing’s decision to relocate 

his headquarters south during the first weeks of the expedition 

proved to be particularly taxing because truck companies now had 

to maintain a supply line of more than 400 miles into areas where 

the revolution left roads in extreme disrepair. At first, the expedition’s engineer battalion focused on repairing roads in northern 

Chihuahua that had been destroyed by fighting, but as operations 

dragged on it became clear that new roads and bridges would have 

to be built. This task proved more challenging than expected. The 

engineers dug roads in the sand only to find them reburied after the 

next wind storm or swallowed by mud pits following a drenching 

rain. As a result, they began laying gravel roads. By the end of the 

campaign, Army engineers had built 157 miles of new roads and 

repaired 224 miles of existing ones at a cost of $380,000. Members 

of the Corps of Engineers also participated in mapping expeditions 

that improved the soldiers’ knowledge of Chihuahua’s topography. 

Keeping the expedition supplied remained a challenge, but 

despite the cost of purchasing new trucks and building roads, 

motorized transport proved more cost-efficient than General 

Aleshire anticipated. With the ability to operate under adverse 

conditions, trucks saved money per mile when compared to wagons and pack animals, and over the long term, they promised to 

be even more efficient as the Army trained its own drivers and 

learned to maintain its own fleet. Motorized vehicles turned out to 

be ideal for moving goods through harsh terrain, especially once 

Pershing’s troops were forced to concentrate near the newly built 

or improved roads along the 100-mile-long route from Columbus 
•••• 52 ••••

to Colonia Dublán. Fortunately, Villistas and Carrancistas alike 

avoided the area of Colonia Dublán in the wake of Carrizal. Truck 

companies were able to deliver quantities of materiel that made 

the men’s lives easier than they had been on the trail. 

In addition to using trucks to transport materials, the Signal 

Corps used motorized vehicles as part of its plan to maintain 

communications in the field. Detachments employed and experimented with radio tractors or truck-mounted radio sets that proved 

particularly useful in monitoring Mexican communications. The 

Signal Corps also established two wireless telegraph stations. One 

remained at Columbus to relay traffic to and from the United States 

while the other traveled with Pershing’s headquarters. In addition 

to these stations, the signal soldiers laid miles of “buzzer” lines, 

a battery-powered telephone system that could transmit Morse 

code over poorly insulated or even bare wires where an ordinary 

telegraph often failed. Unfortunately, soldiers soon discovered that 

bare wire laid on the ground as field lines proved vulnerable to 

wet weather and human and animal traffic. In a state that lacked 

telegraph lines apart from those that followed the few railroads, 

the signal soldiers eventually built a permanent pole line from 

Columbus to Colonia Dublán and worked to facilitate communications between Pershing’s headquarters and far-flung detachments. 

The Signal Corps also installed telephone lines along the entire 

length of the border where none previously existed. By the end of 

the campaign, the soldiers had constructed 642 miles of telephone 

and 677 miles of buzzer and telegraph lines, as well as operated 

19 radio stations. 

While Pershing relied on trucks to move material and men 

on the ground during the Punitive Expedition, airplanes were 

used mainly for reconnaissance, observation, and communication missions. Capt. Benjamin D. Foulois was the commander of 

the 1st Aero Squadron, which was comprised of eleven officers, 

eighty-two enlisted men, and one civilian technician. At the start 

of the expedition, these soldiers had a mere eight JN–3 “Jenny” 

biplanes made of fabric, wood, and metal at their disposal. The 

Jennies represented a modest technological improvement over the 

planes that the squadron used prior to September 1915, the JN–2s, 

which suffered from a host of major design defects. While the older 

machines remained in service, Foulois quipped, “An airplane that 

looks like an airplane may be something less.” Even though the 

JN–3s had an improved design, the small number of them placed 

the Army far behind European armies in both the investment in 
•••• 53 ••••

aviation and in terms of their ability to use planes in the field. 

From 1908 to 1913, a time during which the U.S. Army spent about 

a half million dollars on aviation, Germany spent $28 million. On 

the Western Front, France and Germany already used airplanes 

in dogfights, reconnaissance, and short-range bombing missions. 

The JN–3s may have been better than previous models, but 

the Signal Corps’ planes still suffered from serious defects that 

made them inadequate for use in Chihuahua. Perhaps the most 

serious problem was that the planes were only able to climb to 

10,000 feet. Given that the peaks in Chihuahua extend to about 

10,000 feet, the underpowered and unstable planes were unable 

to fight the strong air current flowing over the Sierra Madre. On 

top of the planes’ lack of horsepower and their proclivity for going into spins, pilots were required to fly with field equipment and 

thirty-four pounds of gasoline. All of this material weighed down 

the airplanes and made it even harder for them to climb without 

stalling. The 1st Aero Squadron also had to contend with a serious 

shortage of replacement parts for its airplanes. Anticipating this 

problem, Foulois sent a request for parts in March 1916 to Chief 

Signal Officer Brig. Gen. George P. Scriven who allocated $19,000 

to fill the immediate need. 

When ordered to support the expedition, the men of the 1st 

Aero Squadron disassembled their planes, packed their equipment 

at their base in Fort Sam Houston, and departed San Antonio by 

train. They arrived at Columbus on 15 March and spent several 

days reassembling their vehicles and aircraft and flying short test 

flights. One twenty-mile sortie into Mexico marked the first aerial 

reconnaissance done by a United States aircraft into a foreign territory. On 19 March, Pershing ordered Foulois and his men to fly 

to Casas Grandes. The squadron took off at 1710 intending to fly 

the entire 100 miles without stopping at nightfall—a decision that 

had serious consequences. Only one pilot had ever flown at night, 

and the only way for all pilots to maintain course was for each to 

follow the plane in front of him until they sighted the bonfires that 

were supposed to mark the runway at Pershing’s camp. 

The plan went awry from the start. One of the eight planes developed engine trouble immediately after takeoff and landed safely 

on the runway at Columbus. Three planes then became separated 

from the other four in the air. One of these pilots, 1st Lt. Robert H. 

Willis, flew past Casas Grandes until his plane began to run out of 

fuel, forcing him to land near Peterson, the site of a major lumber 

mill. Leaving his plane, he hiked north along the railroad tracks 
•••• 54 ••••

until he encountered U.S. troops. The second pilot, 1st Lt. Edgar 

S. Gorrell, also flew past the intended airfield and sighted what 

he took to be Pershing’s bonfires. On his approach, he realized 

he mistakenly had guided on a forest fire instead. Gorrell landed 

and managed to hire a local guide who led him to Ascensión. The 

third pilot, 1st Lt. Herbert A. Dargue, lost visual contact with the 

others soon after takeoff and flew to Ascensión, where he landed 

for the night and resumed his flight to Casas Grandes the next 

morning. The other four pilots, including Foulois, managed to 

stay together, but they also were forced to land near Ascensión 

for the night and flew on to Casas Grandes and then to Colonia 

Dublán in the daylight. Given that it took several days for the three 

missing pilots to rejoin the rest at Casas Grandes, the squadron’s 

effective strength dropped from eight to five operational aircraft 

while flying to headquarters.

Undeterred, Pershing put the squadron to work. The first 

flight the squadron undertook was a reconnaissance mission on 

21 March. Capt. Townsend F. Dodd, with Foulois as observer, flew 

south for twenty-five miles, following the tracks of the Northwestern Railroad toward Cumbre Pass before high winds blowing off 

the mountains forced their return. The next day another pilot and 

observer successfully located and delivered a message to Colonel 

Erwin in the Galeana Valley and returned without incident. On its 

third day in Mexico, the squadron experienced mixed success, 

managing to find Colonel Dodd’s detachment to deliver messages 

but failing to find other columns moving south along the railroad. 

After returning to base, massive dust storms grounded the squadron until 25 March. When Pershing relocated his headquarters to 

the south, the 1st Aero Squadron shifted to Namiquipa and flew 

short liaison missions to maintain communications and provide 

some reconnaissance support to the flying columns.

Even though some of these missions were successful, the 

limited usefulness of the JN–3s quickly became apparent in 

Mexico. On 22 March, Foulois requested ten additional planes and 

the spare parts necessary to repair and maintain the remaining 

aircraft. Pershing endorsed the request and passed it to the War 

Department, where it reached Secretary Baker’s desk. Baker then 

asked Funston for advice about the number of planes needed by 

the expedition, and the general indicated that he disagreed with 

Foulois. In his opinion, the 1st Aero Squadron only needed four 

more planes in Mexico. Foulois repeated his request for ten additional planes on 30 March, and this time Congress chose to act, 
•••• 55 ••••

passing the Urgent Deficiency Act the next day. This emergency 

measure allocated $500,000 to the Army for the purchase of twentyfour airplanes plus portable machine shops, trucks, cameras, 

guns, and other weapons and equipment. Only three days after 

Congress appropriated the funds, an article titled “Risking Lives 

Ten Times a Day, but Are Not Given Equipment Needed” appeared 

in the New York World. It quoted Lieutenant Dargue describing 

the Jennies as “suicide busses” and blamed the Army for creating 

dangerous conditions through a lack of knowledge about aviation 

and aeronautics. The article created a minor scandal within the 

War Department, and Secretary Baker demanded to know if any 

of the 1st Aero Squadron pilots had spoken directly to reporters. 

At first, all denied that they had, but Lieutenant Gorrell eventually 

admitted that he was the one who complained to the reporter. 

Pershing did not reprimand Gorrell. 

On 7 April, Pershing ordered the aero squadron to deliver a 

request to the United States Consul General in Chihuahua city to 

seek Mexican government assistance in obtaining supplies. With 

the state capital far from areas patrolled by the cavalry, Foulois 

took two planes on the mission to ensure at least one copy of the 

message reached the consulate. One plane flew to the north of 

the city and one to the south. The pilots would remain to guard 

Lt. C. G. Chapman of the 1st Aero Squadron taking off in his JN–3 

on a scouting mission from Casas Grande (Library of Congress) •••••••••••••••
•••• 56 ••••

the planes after landing while the observers were to deliver the 

messages. The plane that landed on the north side of the city made 

the trip without incident, but Captain Foulois’ and Lieutenant 

Dargue’s plane attracted a large crowd south of the city. Foulois 

ordered Dargue to fly to meet the other plane in the north while 

he walked to Chihuahua city to deliver the message. As Dargue 

took off, someone in the crowd fired several shots at the Jenny, 

and Mexican police arrested Foulois on the ground. On his way to 

the city jail, Foulois managed to tell a U.S. citizen in the crowd to 

inform the consulate of his arrest. The pilot also demanded that 

his captors inform the military governor, General Luis Gutiérrez, 

of his situation. After receiving the message that a U.S. pilot was 

in custody, Gutiérrez released Foulois and provided him with a 

detachment of police to guard both planes, which were north of the 

city. Despite the presence of guards, the U.S. pilots decided to fly 

the planes to the grounds of the American Smelting and Refining 

Company to prevent mobs from causing further damage to their 

aircraft. One plane escaped, but a rock-throwing mob brought 

down Dargue’s and Foulois’ plane before the federal police could 

arrive. For their own safety Dargue and Foulois spent the night 

at the consulate and flew off the next morning. 

The squadron continued to fly reconnaissance and communications missions for the next couple of weeks, but by the end of 

April, none of the planes remained operational. Six had crashed 

and were damaged beyond repair while the remaining two were 

no longer mechanically airworthy. These were cannibalized to 

salvage usable parts. On 20 April, the War Department ordered 

the 1st Aero Squadron back to Columbus to receive the first four 

new planes purchased under the Urgent Deficiency Act. A second 

shipment arrived on 1 May. Unfortunately, these planes also were 

deemed unsuitable for service in Mexico because of a number of 

manufacture and design flaws. Regardless, the men of the squadron spent the summer testing materiel, experimenting with different types of equipment, and determining the best ways to mount 

cameras and weapons on the planes. Although they ultimately 

spent little time flying operations in Mexico, the pilots and mechanics of the 1st Aero Squadron were able to apply lessons learned, 

train personnel, test equipment under field conditions, and study 

how to best employ aircraft to facilitate communications and to 

gather intelligence under combat conditions. More importantly, the 

Army corrected some of the major deficiencies in its aeronautics 

program, and the War Department convinced Congress to allocate 
•••• 57 ••••

money to improve readiness and efficiency. By the end of 1916, the 

Army had ordered 346 airplanes, compared to the 13 planes it had 

at the beginning of the year. 

On the Border and the National Defense Act of 1916

General Funston had relatively few men to patrol the 

1,700-mile-long border with Mexico prior to the raid on Columbus. Detaching troops for the expedition only made the task 

more of a challenge, and the absence of a significant number of 

regulars seemed to invite more violence. After the skirmish at 

Parral, General Scott convinced Secretary Baker that calling the 

National Guard to federal service could help defend U.S. citizens 

and property, if not deter further cross-border raids. Baker and 

Wilson initially had denied the request, hoping to diffuse tension 

and minimize the possibility of war. After the Glenn Springs raid 

on 6 May, Generals Scott and Funston repeated their recommendation to the War Department. Three days later, President Wilson 

called up the National Guard from Arizona, New Mexico, and 

Texas—chosen for their proximity, states’ interests, and men’s 

acclimatization to the weather of the region—to federal service 

to guard the border.

Deficiencies in the National Guard from the three states soon 

became apparent. By far the most glaring problem was that there 

were too few guardsmen available for duty. With 984 men from 

Arizona, 737 from New Mexico, and 2,470 from Texas, the Army 

had, at best, a total of 4,191 men available to meet the minimum 

required call-up of 4,000 to 4,500. However, a large number of 

these guardsmen were physically disqualified for military service. 

Many units were so understrength the War Department ordered 

them disbanded. With so many units already well below required 

peacetime strength levels, each of the three states attempted to 

recruit more men to fill the ranks, but the task proved difficult 

given the short time frame. New volunteers also seemed to be 

confused about the terms of their service, and some believed they 

had enlisted in the Regular Army. Meanwhile, the National Guard 

in other states, such as New York, hosted recruiting parties to 

increase membership in anticipation of being called to the border. 

Recruiting efforts outpaced the National Guard’s ability to build 

proper facilities, and recruits arrived at training posts like Camp 

Whitman, outside of Green Haven, New York, only to find barracks 

and other buildings still under construction. 
•••• 58 ••••

Partly in response to the clear weaknesses demonstrated 

in the National Guard, on 3 June Congress passed the National 

Defense Act of 1916. The law expanded the National Guard as 

well as the commitment it required from members. Federal funds 

were allocated to pay guardsmen for forty-eight drill days per 

year, double the previous requirement of twenty-four, plus fifteen 

days of annual training in the summer, an increase of ten days 

over the previously authorized five. In addition to the augmented 

training, the law reinforced the National Guard’s federal role 

as a reserve of the Army. In cases of national emergency the 

Guard could now mobilize and go overseas with the Army until 

the end of the emergency. Congress also allocated $17 million to 

purchase more airplanes for the Army, supplementing the Urgent 

Deficiency Act. Legislators were looking toward the possibility 

of bolstering the National Guard’s force on the border, but they 

clearly thought ahead to its possible deployment to Europe after 

a declaration of war. 

On the Border, August 1916, by Donna Neary, depicts a column of 

soldiers of the 2d Infantry Regiment, Connecticut National Guard, 

on the march in Arizona.

(National Guard Heritage Series, Army Art Collection) •••••••••••••••
•••• 59 ••••

Soon after the National Defense Act passed, but before its 

implementation, President Wilson found it necessary to expand the 

call-up of the National Guard to the border. This was prompted by 

General Jacinto Treviño’s 16 June statement that he would attack 

U.S. forces if they moved in any other direction except north, which 

convinced the president that war on the border was imminent. In 

early June, however, hardly enough guardsmen were in Texas to 

patrol the border, much less launch a full-scale invasion of Mexico. 

Wilson responded by calling up the National Guard from all of the 

remaining states on 18 June and ordering them to assemble on 

the border. The next day, guardsmen gathered in local armories 

across the country, and by 1 July, 122 troop trains headed to the 

border, with another 101 trains to follow the next week. By the end 

of summer, approximately 110,000 guardsmen were stationed on 

the border from California to Texas.

Pvt. Robert Batchelder of the 8th Regiment of Infantry, 

Massachusetts National Guard, a college student, was among these 

newly mobilized guardsmen. As a youth he had viewed the state 

militia as “a group of bloodthirsty, hare-brained idiots who drill 

occasionally and uselessly.” He changed his mind when he saw the 

increased federal funding and interest in the National Guard, and 

he believed it was his patriotic duty to enlist. Batchelder wanted 

to contribute to America’s military readiness in the event that 

it entered the war in Europe, but he also entertained visions of 

marching triumphantly into Mexico City with flags waving. The 

young Harvard sophomore’s dreams of service and glory were 

reinforced by the celebrations held in Boston after his unit was 

called into service for duty on the border. The men marched in 

parade through the city and received gifts on the way to Texas. 

Batchelder’s dreams were disturbed by the reality of service on the border. Like other guardsmen, he found himself in 

a difficult foreign landscape in which he could not “properly 

describe the exquisite discomfort of the place.” He likened rocks 

to “veritable radiators of heat” and found that the rough ground 

made it “next to impossible to drive pins for the small tents.” 

Because of the heat, the tepid, alkaline water he and his fellow 

guardsmen drank from their canteens barely quenched their 

insatiable thirst. Of his daily routine, he wrote, “On account of 

the monotony of the country, the long hours of patrol seemed 

endless.” The Southwest always appeared to be either too hot or 

too cold, filled with dust and people living in startling poverty. 

Batchelder saw comrades faint after drill, unused to performing 
•••• 60 ••••

physical tasks in such a dry climate. Particularly for recruits from 

the Eastern United States—who traded greenery and trees for 

sand and desert—working in the Southwest required a period 

of adjustment. Most guardsmen also had to get used to regular 

physical exertion in the form of six- or seven-mile road marches 

and daily drills. 

In addition to dealing with the often harsh environment, at 

least initially, the guardsmen had to contend with shortages of supplies and equipment. Batchelder described their arrival at Camp 

Cotton, Texas, as “filled with disappointment” as he surveyed 

the stretch of tents within sight of downtown El Paso. He and his 

comrades slept on the ground in the tents and spent much of their 

first days digging latrines and drainage ditches to help prepare the 

camp for the arrival of more National Guard soldiers. Through 

July, meals mostly consisted of beans due to shortages of rations 

and cooking utensils. That all changed in August. After a patrol 

of several weeks, during which they trained on machine guns, 

dug trenches, and guarded the border, the men of Batchelder’s 

unit returned to find Camp Cotton had been wired for electricity. It now had showers, wood floors in the tents, and a new store 

where the men could purchase comfort items. The men went from 

Spartan conditions and a strict diet of beans to enjoying ice cream, 

tobacco, and toiletries at reasonable prices. For recreation, they 

could also visit the new YMCA building. The Army also began 

inoculating the men against typhoid fever, ensuring that even in 

badly constructed and provisioned camps the men remained relatively healthy. Men in other units experienced similar privations 

in the first month after their arrival. Members of the 3d New York 

Artillery, stationed close to Brownsville, reported shortages of 

The soldiers of Company H, 5th Regiment of Infantry, Maryland 

National Guard, at Eagle Pass, Texas, were typical of the many 

National Guard troops. (Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 61 ••••

water in July, and equipment necessary for their training did not 

arrive until August. In early July, General Bliss began a month-long 

inspection of all of the camps on the border and found guardsmen 

in a wide range of living conditions. Most of them had encountered 

some shortages including a lack of weapons and horses in some 

of the machine gun companies. 

Disengagement, Demobilization, and Off to War

With the end of active patrolling beyond the 150-mile cordon 

in late June 1916, the men of the Punitive Expedition settled into 

routine camp life. The wind-swept area around Colonia Dublán was 

prone to dust storms, which made conditions in camp uncomfortable in the first weeks, but soon the troops started constructing 

more permanent dwellings, mostly small adobe buildings. Men 

received bedding, field desks, and cooking implements and made 

make-shift furniture for their adobe huts. Due to the efficiency of 

the truck convoys, soldiers received sufficient rations and regular 

mail delivery. The biggest threat facing Pershing’s soldiers was the 

growing boredom of life in a static camp with little action. In order 

to counter this problem, Pershing instituted a rigorous schedule 

of training for the infantry, artillery, and cavalry. The men practiced rifle marksmanship, received a special three-month course 

in machine gunnery, and participated in daily combat exercises. 

The general was preparing his men to fight in Europe and believed 

the expedition’s troops would form the nucleus of the expanded 

Army that would soon organize. 

During the first days of their restriction to Colonia Dublán and 

El Valle, the men had little to do except train, but Pershing soon 
•••• 62 ••••

had diversions established to prevent what he called “discontent 

and despondence.” The men constructed a boxing ring and cleared 

areas for playing baseball and football. Troops and the Apache 

scouts hunted for game. The men eventually built a small movie 

theater that showed films nightly, and they staged short plays 

and minstrel shows. Soldiers were not allowed to have liquor in 

camp, but local businessmen established strings of cantinas and 

small stalls that sold food along the edge of Colonia Dublán. On 

Christmas, a massive blizzard and dust storm coated the camp 

in a thick layer of sand, but the men washed off their turkeys and 

game and erected a massive seventy-foot-high tree harvested from 

a local forest. The Red Cross distributed donated gifts to the men. 

In addition, Pershing sanctioned the establishment of a “sanitary 

village” for prostitutes to service the soldiers of the camp. Capt. 

Julien E. Gaujot of the 11th Cavalry supervised the village and took 

responsibility for housing the women and ensuring their customers 

paid them, as well as for aiding them in establishing schedules. As 

a result, the men suffered a low rate of venereal disease. The Mormons in the area probably disapproved, and some Medical Corps 

officers urged Pershing to do away with the system of sanctioned 

and regulated prostitution, but Pershing refused, pointing to the 

positive results of the arrangement.

Soldiers of the 16th Infantry around a campfire at San Gerónimo, 

Mexico, May 1916 (Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 63 ••••

As U.S. soldiers settled into the routine of camp life, Villista 

forces began to recover from their defeats of the past year and a 

half. By July, Villa had partially recovered from his leg wound and 

finally agreed to surgery to remove the bone fragments to speed the 

healing. After fighting several minor skirmishes in early summer, 

Villista and Carrancista forces again started clashing regularly 

and with larger forces. On 15 September 1916, Villa slipped into 

Chihuahua city to reconnoiter the city’s defenses and visit friends 

during the Mexican Independence Day celebrations. At the same 

time, 600 of his followers infiltrated the area amid the distraction 

of the traditional reenactment of Father Miguel Hidalgo’s Grito de 

Dolores, the speech that called for liberation from Spain in 1810. 

At 0300 the next morning, 1,000 Villistas launched a surprise attack in the capital. They seized booty and captured the governor’s 

palace, where Villa gave a speech from the balcony. Despite the 

surprise, General Treviño quickly rallied the Carrancista garrison 

in Chihuahua city and led a successful counterattack. The recently 

wounded Treviño declared victory, but Villa enjoyed a moral triumph by demonstrating that he could still muster a large enough 

force to take and hold the state capital, even if only temporarily. 

Villa also managed to escape with 1,500 new recruits and captured 

supplies with which to rebuild his forces. 

Villa and his men followed the attack on Chihuahua city with 

a series of victories at San Andrés, Cusihuiriachic, San Isidro, and 

Santa Isabel. Government forces suffered from a large number of 

desertions, shortages of ammunition, and damaged bridges, telegraph lines, and railroads. In response, Carranza replaced Treviño 

with General Francisco Murguía, but Villa attacked Chihuahua city 

again in November in anticipation of the arrival of a new governor 

and of fresh troops from Durango. Meanwhile, Pershing could 

only watch developments from Colonia Dublán as Villa refrained 

from provoking U.S. forces into intervening, thereby preserving 

the delicate balance that existed in northern Mexico between 

Pershing and Carranza’s forces. 

Meanwhile, negotiations for the withdrawal of the Punitive 

Expedition dragged on. The United States formally agreed with 

Carranza’s proposal to create a joint Mexican American commission on 28 July 1916, but the body did not meet until September 

in New London, Connecticut. Once again, representatives from 

the two countries could not agree on a timetable for withdrawal. 

Mexico’s representatives maintained that Pershing and his men 

should leave immediately, while U.S. commissioners insisted they 
•••• 64 ••••

would only do so after the Mexican government guaranteed it 

would keep the border secure. Deadlocked, the commissioners 

moved the proceedings to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to start a 

new round of negotiations at the end of September, but the United 

States persisted in arguing for retention of the right to intervene 

again in Mexico in the event of future raids. Carranza refused to 

accept these conditions, fearing that allowing such a right would 

effectively transform Mexico into a quasi-U.S. protectorate, akin 

to Cuba after the Spanish-American War. Negotiations continued 

through November, when the United States began to soften its 

demand to resolve the stalemate in response to the increasing 

threat of war with Germany. On 24 December 1916, the commission finally came to an agreement, which called for the expedition 

to cross the border within forty days. Pershing received the order 

to break camp in January, and on 5 February his forces crossed 

back into the United States. 

Starting in February 1917, the War Department also began to 

demobilize the National Guard forces on the border. Patrols of the 

border continued, but these were conducted by units of regulars. 

Many Guard units had not completed the movement back to their 

home stations when Congress declared war on Germany in April. 

Some National Guard soldiers went almost straight from training 

on the border to preparation for deployment overseas. For many 

Soldiers of the 6th and 16th Infantry marching north out of Mexico 

at the end of the Punitive Expedition, February 1917

(Library of Congress)

•••••••••••••••
•••• 65 ••••

of the 110,000 men who served in the National Guard from late 

June 1916 to February 1917, the training they had received helped 

to prepare them for combat in France and to train the many new 

recruits who soon joined them.

As the demobilization was taking place, General Funston, who 

was overseeing the process as the commander of the Southern 

Department, died suddenly on 19 February 1917 in the lobby of a 

hotel in San Antonio. His death meant the loss of one of the Army’s 

most experienced and well-known general officers just as preparations were being made for the United States’ eventual entry into 

World War I. Pershing was one of the few officers who approached 

Funston in experience and public acclaim, and Funston’s untimely 

death made Pershing the most obvious choice to lead American 

forces into France. 

The Punitive Expedition also continued to have diplomatic 

ramifications for the United States, Mexico, and Germany. On 16 

January 1917, the U.S. government became aware that German 

Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman had sent a telegram to the 

German ambassador in Mexico with a proposal for Carranza. The 

so-called Zimmerman Telegram offered that, in return for starting a conflict that would keep the United States occupied on its 

southern border, Germany would see that Mexico received Texas, 

New Mexico, and Arizona—territories ceded to the United States 

in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo—after it won the war in 

Europe. British naval intelligence intercepted and shared the communication with the U.S. Embassy in London. Wilson released the 

text of the telegram to the public on 28 February, hastening the 

nation’s entry into the war. Although it outraged most Americans, 

the Zimmerman Telegram may have been easier to dismiss had the 

United States and Mexico not spent the previous year and a half 

embroiled in difficult negotiations concerning the violence on the 

border. The suspected German involvement in the skirmishes at 

Parral and Carrizal also seemed to reinforce the possibility that 

the Mexican government might find such an overture tempting. 

The withdrawal of Pershing’s forces did not close the book on 

the Columbus raid. In Mexico, Pershing had captured thirteen men 

accused of participating in the raid. Five of these men died of battle 

wounds, but the expedition brought the rest back to the United 

States as prisoners without any formal extradition proceedings. 

Despite concerns about the ability to receive a fair hearing in a 

civilian court in New Mexico, the men were tried in Luna County in 

April and sentenced to death. Although Wilson asked New Mexico’s 
•••• 66 ••••

governor to delay their executions while negotiations continued, 

five men were ultimately hanged and one received a commuted 

sentence and returned to Mexico. The trial and resulting diplomatic 

crisis made the Zimmerman Telegram seem more dangerous in that 

it highlighted and exacerbated the ill feelings that still persisted 

on both sides of the border. Carranza rejected the Zimmerman 

proposal, but Germany continued to offer Carranza various incentives to attack the United States throughout World War I, proving 

that America’s southern border still appeared a vulnerability that 

could be exploited.

Analysis

The Punitive Expedition failed to capture or kill Pancho 

Villa, and the presence of United States troops in Chihuahua only 

temporarily disabled the rebel general’s army. Some bands of Villistas scattered and were forced to suspend their guerrilla-style 

attacks in Chihuahua, but when Pershing’s forces left, they were 

able to reunite and operate as before. These groups might have 

temporarily become inactive even if Pershing had never been 

in Mexico due to Villa’s injury and his withdrawal from active 

campaigning during the spring and summer of 1916. Pershing’s 

expedition therefore did not succeed in carrying out its mission 

to permanently disable or destroy Villa’s army.

While many factors made finding and capturing Villa a 

difficult proposition even if he had not been forced to go into 

hiding, the lack of intelligence on the ground stands out as 

the key problem that prevented U.S. troops from operating effectively in the field. Pershing’s forces simply could not obtain 

reliable information either from Chihuahuan citizens or from 

Carrancista forces. Chihuahua was Villa’s strongest bastion 

of support, but Pershing failed to understand that even citizens who refused to support Villa would not necessarily support the United States in its efforts to find the rebel general. 

Anti-Americanism was rampant throughout Mexico as was 

resentment of Wilson’s apparent determination to intervene 

in the Mexican Revolution. The War Department was also not 

equipped to support the intelligence effort on the expedition. 

Although the expedition did have an intelligence officer, Maj. 

James Ryan, who attempted to build networks of informants in 

Chihuahua, his reports went unread and had little to no impact 

on decision making in Washington. 
•••• 67 ••••

Both Pershing and Wilson also erred in their belief that the 

Constitutionalist government would support the presence of U.S. 

troops in Mexico simply because they had a common enemy. This 

created a dangerous situation, making clashes between U.S. and 

Mexican government forces almost inevitable. Full-scale war 

between the two states remained likely through the summer of 

1916. The fact that Pershing’s forces assumed they would have 

the cooperation of Mexican citizens betrayed a poor understanding of the military situation and an attitude of U.S. paternalism 

toward Chihuahuans. When Carranza’s forces refused to support 

U.S. troops, Pershing and the men of the expedition treated them 

as cobelligerents with Villa’s troops. They wrongly interpreted 

the unstable military situation in Chihuahua as a failure of the 

government’s forces rather than as being the result of a complex 

and still ongoing revolutionary civil war. 

In addition to these failures, Chihuahua’s difficult terrain 

meant that capturing Villa would have been a challenge even if 

political circumstances had been more favorable. Chihuahua was 

remote and sparsely populated, and traveling over long distances 

required the Army to fundamentally alter the way it moved men 

and goods. Horses and mules could negotiate wide spaces without the need of roads, but animals proved to be of limited use in 

places where there was little fodder. Pershing could not establish 

effective supply lines that could follow the cavalry into remote 

regions, putting the burden of obtaining necessary goods on the 

flying columns. In this respect, Villa’s men had an advantage in that 

they knew the terrain well, had home bases that provided some 

degree of protection from enemies and the elements, and had local 

sources for obtaining goods. Chihuahua’s remoteness and rough 

terrain also hindered communications between Pershing and the 

cavalry, making it more difficult for troops to share information, 

get reinforcements, or obtain provisions when running low. 

Despite its failure to achieve its stated mission, the expedition served as an important training ground for soldiers and as a 

proving ground for new methods and equipment, particularly motorized transport. Regulars gained experience in large, multiunit 

operations, training for the kind of fighting that they would soon 

be doing in France even while the United States officially was 

still neutral. The Army tested equipment and addressed critical 

deficiencies. At the start of the expedition, the Army had only 105 

trucks in service. When it ended, the Army had seventeen truck 

companies just on the border. As more vehicles became available, 
•••• 68 ••••

Major Madden, the expedition quartermaster, was able to train 

Army regulars as drivers and mechanics through the summer 

and fall of 1916. Based on the experience of the expedition, Madden determined the optimal organization of men and equipment 

in Army truck companies. Having a wide variety of makes and 

models in Mexico convinced him and others that the Army should 

adopt a standardized truck that could meet all of the Army’s 

needs. The Motor Transport Section of the Quartermaster Corps 

and the Society of Automotive Engineers collaborated to design 

such a vehicle, which resulted in the development of the Liberty 

Truck in 1917. Ten weeks after completing the design, the first 

models became available. Of the 9,500 Liberty Trucks produced, 

7,500 went overseas, making the American Expeditionary Forces 

the most motorized army of World War I. 

The Army’s air service also gained much knowledge and experience from its employment with the expedition. It transformed 

from a single unit with 8 inadequate and obsolete aircraft in March 

to having orders in place for 346 planes by the end of 1916. The communications and reconnaissance missions that Captain Foulois 

and the men of the 1st Aero Squadron flew in Mexico allowed them 

to experiment and recommend improvements to Army aeronautics. 

Applying additional lessons gleaned from the combatant nations 

of Europe when the flying units of the American Expeditionary 

Forces went to France, U.S. aviators operated more powerful and 

sturdier aircraft than they would have imagined possible during 

the early days of the Mexican expedition. 

Wilson’s decision to call up the National Guard to the border 

also led to quick improvements in the force that increased its readiness just months before the United States’ entry into the European 

war. Chief among these was the massive effort to recruit new 

guardsmen after the call of Arizona’s, New Mexico’s, and Texas’ 

Guards failed to produce the numbers of men necessary to patrol 

the border effectively. This led young men across the country to 

enlist in large numbers. With all of these new recruits and the excitement around the possibility that they might be called to serve 

abroad, the Guard received a needed influx of young men eager 

to find ways to help enhance the nation’s military preparedness 

without enlisting in the Regular Army. In the short term, sending 

110,000 men to the border for up to nine months meant the Guard 

could give its new recruits intensive amounts of training. These 

men also served alongside men from other parts of the nation, allowing them to shake the charge that guardsmen were too locally 
•••• 69 ••••

focused and parochial to fight in coordinated groups with units 

from around the country before April 1917. By the time these same 

men were called to France, they were seasoned troops with some 

experience in military discipline. More significant, they could train 

others in various aspects of military life. 

Perhaps more important from the vantage of the War Department, the Punitive Expedition served to prove Pershing’s worth 

as a field commander. Pershing had experience as a military governor in the Philippines, but his time in Mexico showed that he 

could command a large force in foreign territory for an extended 

period of time. Pershing could sometimes still be out of sync 

with Wilson and Baker—who actively tried to restrict the scope 

of the expedition and prevent a larger war at the same time that 

Pershing pushed to conquer Chihuahua—but he seemed to adapt 

well to working under confining conditions. Pershing also had the 

loyalty of the men who served with him in Mexico and elsewhere. 

He seemed to be a commander who attracted talent and some 

degree of innovation at a time when the Army was becoming a 

modern professional organization. The Punitive Expedition thus 

proved to be a training ground not just for the Regular Army and 

the National Guard but for the leaders who would soon command 

men in the trenches of the Western Front.
•••• 70 ••••

•••

THE AUTHOR

Julie Irene Prieto received her Ph.D. from Stanford University 

in 2013 and joined the U.S. Army Center of Military History in 

October 2014 as a Presidential Management Fellow. At the Center, 

she specializes in the history of the U.S. Army in Latin America. 

Her most recent article, “The Sword and the Book: The Benjamin 

Franklin Library and U.S.-Mexican Relations, 1936–1962,” was 

published in the December 2013 issue of the journal Book History.
•••• 71 ••••

•••

FURTHER READINGS 

Clendenen, Clarence C. Blood on the Border: The United States 

Army and the Mexican Irregulars. New York: Macmillan, 1969.

Eisenhower, John S. D. Intervention! The United States and the 

Mexican Revolution, 1913–1917. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.

Gilderhus, Mark T. Pan American Visions: Woodrow Wilson in 

the Western Hemisphere, 1913–1921. Tucson: University of 

Arizona Press, 1986. 

Harris, Charles H., III, and Louis R. Sadler. The Great Call-Up: 

The Guard, the Border, and the Mexican Revolution. Norman: 

University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. 

Hurst, James W. Pancho Villa and Black Jack Pershing: The Punitive Expedition in Mexico. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2008.

Katz, Friedrich. The Life and Times of Pancho Villa. Stanford, 

Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998. 

Miller, Roger G. A Preliminary to War: The 1st Aero Squadron 

and the Mexican Punitive Expedition of 1916. Washington, 

D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2003.

Pershing, John J. My Life before the World War, 1860–1917: A 

Memoir. Edited by John T. Greenwood. Lexington: University 

Press of Kentucky, 2013.

Stout, Joseph A., Jr. Border Conflict: Villistas, Carrancistas 

and the Punitive Expedition, 1915–1920. Fort Worth: Texas 

Christian University Press, 1999.

Welsome, Eileen. The General and the Jaguar: Pershing’s Hunt 

for Pancho Villa: A True Story of Revolution and Revenge. 

New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2006.

This booklet is in the U.S. Army Campaigns of World War I 

series published by the U.S. Army Center of Military History. For 

more information on this and other commemorative pamphlets, 

please visit the U.S. Army Center of Military History Web site at 

www.history.army.mil.
PIN : 106360–000

MEXICO 1916–1917