Pancho Villa Expedition

Pancho Villa Expedition
Part of the Mexican Revolution, Border War
Cartoon by Clifford Berryman reflects American attitudes about the expedition
Date 1916 - 1917 Location Northern Mexico Result United States withdrawal in 1917.
Belligerents
United States	Villistas Carrancistas Maderistas
Commanders and leaders
John J. Pershing	Pancho Villa

Pancho Villa wearing bandoliers in front of an insurgent camp

General John J. Pershing in his camp at Casas Grandes, studying telegraphed orders

The Pancho Villa Expedition—officially known in the United States as the Mexican Expedition^[1] and sometimes colloquially referred to as the Punitive Expedition—was a military operation conducted by the United States Army against the paramilitary forces of Mexican insurgent Francisco "Pancho" Villa from 1916 to 1917 during the Mexican Revolution. The expedition was in retaliation for Villa's attack on the town of Columbus, New Mexico and was the most remembered event of the Border War. The expeditions had one objective, to capture Villa dead or alive and put a stop to any future forays by his paramilitary forces on American soil.^[2] The official beginning and ending dates of the Mexican Expedition are March 14, 1916 and February 7, 1917.

Background

Trouble between the United States and Pancho Villa had been growing since 1915, when the U.S. government disappointed Villa by siding with and giving its official recognition to Venustiano Carranza's national government. Feeling betrayed, Villa began attacking American property and citizens in northern Mexico. The most serious incident occurred in January 1916, when seventeen American employees of the ASARCO company were removed from a train at Santa Isabel, Chihuahua, and summarily stripped and executed, although one escaped by faking his death. Villa kept his men south of the border to avoid a direct confrontation with the United States Army forces which were being deployed to protect the border.

At approximately 4:17 am on March 9, 1916, Villa's troops attacked Columbus, New Mexico and its local detachment of the 13th Cavalry Regiment, killing 10 civilians and eight soldiers, and wounding two civilians and six soldiers.^[3][4] The raiders also burned the town, took many horses and mules and seized available machine guns, ammunition and merchandise, before being pursued back into Mexico. However, Villa's troops suffered considerable losses, with at least 67 dead. About 13 others would later die of their wounds. Five Mexicans were taken prisoner and later executed. The battle may have been spurred by an American merchant in Columbus who supplied Villa with weapons and ammunition. After Villa paid several thousand dollars in cash in advance, the merchant decided to stop supplying him with weapons and demanded payment in gold.^{[citation needed]}

Expedition

On March 15,^[5] on orders from President Woodrow Wilson, Major General John J. Pershing led an expeditionary force of 4,800 men into Mexico to capture Villa, who had already had more than a week to disperse and conceal his forces before the punitive expedition tried to seek them out in unmapped terrain. Beginning March 19, the newly-adopted Curtiss JN-4 airplane was used by the 1st Provisional Aero Squadron to conduct aerial reconnaissance.^[6]

Pershing divided his force into two columns to seek out Villa, and made his main base encampment at Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. Due to disputes with the Carranza administration over the use of the Mexico North Western Railway to supply his troops, the United States Army employed a truck-train system to convoy supplies to the encampment and the Signal Corps set up wireless telegraph service from the border to Pershing's headquarters.

The first battle between the Villistas and the expedition occurred on March 29, 1916, at the town of Guerrero. After a long march through the Sierra Madre, Colonel George A. Dodd and his command of 370 men from the 7th Cavalry lauched what was called the "last true cavalry charge" in history on the Mexican defenders positioned in Guerrero. During the five hour battle that followed, Pancho Villa lost over 75 of his men killed or wounded and he was forced to retreat into the mountains. Only five of the Americans were hurt, none of them fatal. The battle is considered the single most successful engagement of the expedition and it was the closest Pershing's men came to capturing Villa.^{[7][8][9][10][11]}

On April 12, 1916, about 100 men of the 13th Cavalry were attacked by an estimated 500 Mexican troops as they were leaving the town of Parral. The American commander, Colonel Frank Tompkins, knew he could not win a conventional engagement, so during a running battle, he and his men were able to retreat to a fortified village nearby while repulsing the Mexican cavalry charges at the same time. Two Americans were killed in the fight and another six were wounded, the Mexicans lost between fourteen and seventy men according to conflicting accounts.^[12][13]

National Guard units from Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico had been called into service on May 8, 1916.^[14] With congressional approval of the National Defense Act on June 3, 1916, Guard units from the remainder of the states, and the District of Columbia, were also called for duty on the border.^[15] In mid-June, President Wilson called out 110,000 National Guard for border service. Only one regiment of the National Guard (2nd Massachusetts Infantry) served inside Mexico with Pershing's Expedition.^[16] The bulk of of the National Guard troops would cross the border into Mexico but were used instead as a show of force. They spent their time training and occasionally skirmishing with Mexican raiders.

Nonetheless, activities on the border were far from dull. The troops had to be on constant alert as border raids were still an occasional nuisance. Three of the raids were particularly bloody. On May 5, 1916, Mexican bandits attacked an outpost at Glenn Springs, Texas, killing one civilian and wounding three American soldiers. On June 15, bandits killed four American soldiers at San Ygnacio, Texas, and on July 31 one American soldier and a customs inspector were killed. In all three cases Mexican raiders were killed and wounded, but the exact numbers are unknown.^[14] The Mexican Expedition proved to be an excellent training environment for the officers and men of the National Guard, who would be recalled to Federal Service later that same year of 1917 for duty in World War I. Many National Guard leaders in both World Wars traced their first federal service to the Mexican Expedition.

In June, Lieutenant George S. Patton raided a small community and killed Julio Cárdenas, an important leader in the Villista military organization, and two other men. Patton personally killed Cardenas, and is reported to have carved notches into his revolvers.^[17]

On June 21,^[18] American forces, including elements of the 7th Cavalry and the African-American 10th Cavalry Regiment, attacked Mexican Army troops in the Battle of Carrizal, resulting in many cavalry troops becoming prisoners of the Mexicans, and effectively ending the 10th Cavalry's usefulness in the campaign.^[1]

While the expedition did make contact with Villista formations, killing two of his generals and about 190 of his men, it failed in its major objectives, neither stopping border raids — which continued while the expedition was in Mexico, nor capturing Villa. However, between the date of the American withdrawal and Villa's retirement in 1920, Villa's troops were no longer an effective fighting force, being hemmed in by American and Mexican federal troops and money and arms blockades on both sides of the border.

Withdrawal

The bulk of American forces were withdrawn in January 1917. Pershing publicly claimed the expedition was a success, although he complained privately to his family that President Wilson had imposed too many restrictions, which made it impossible for him to fulfill his mission.^[19] He admitted to having been "outwitted and out-bluffed at every turn" and wrote that "when the true history is written, it will not be a very inspiring chapter for school children, or even grownups to contemplate. Having dashed into Mexico with the intention of eating the Mexicans raw, we turned back at the first repulse and are now sneaking home under cover, like a whipped curr with its tail between its legs." Despite his withdrawal, warfare on the border continued, and American forces went on to fight the Battle of Ambos Nogales, the bloodiest engagement between United States and Mexican forces during the revolution.

General Pershing was permitted to bring into New Mexico 527 Chinese refugees who had assisted him during the expedition, despite the ban on Chinese immigration at that time due to the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese refugees, known as "Pershing's Chinese", were allowed to remain in the U.S. if they worked under the supervision of the military as cooks and servants on bases. In 1921, Congress passed Public Resolution 29, which allowed them to remain in the country permanently under the conditions of the 1892 Geary Act. Most of them settled in San Antonio.^[20]

Soldiers who took part in the Villa campaign were awarded the Mexican Service Medal.

Order of Battle

United States Army:

5th Cavalry Regiment 7th Cavalry Regiment 10th Cavalry Regiment (Buffalo Soldiers)            11th Cavalry Regiment 12th Cavalry Regiment 13th Cavalry Regiment 6th Infantry Regiment

16th Infantry Regiment 17th Infantry Regiment 24th Infantry Regiment (Buffalo Soldiers) 2nd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment 6th Field Artillery United States Army Signal Corps 1st Aero Squadron Apache Scouts

A graphical timeline is available at Timeline of the Mexican Revolution

Gallery

• 

  Columbus, New Mexico after Pancho Villa's attack on March 9, 1916

• 

  Men of the 13th Cavalry wait to embark a train at Columbus for operations in the Pancho Villa Expedition

• 

  Staging area in Columbus, New Mexico for truck trains that supplied John J. Pershing's troops during the expedition

• 

  Company A, First Arkansas Infantry, on the skirmish line near Deming, New Mexico during the 1916 Mexican Expedition

• 

  The 1st Aero Squadron on the Mexican border in 1916, marked with red star insignia on rudder and wings

• 

  Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry who were taken prisoner during the Battle of Carrizal on June 21, 1916

• 

  Members of the 6th and 16th Infantry withdrawing homeward in January 1917

See also

• Apache Scouts
• Cananea strike

References

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b} "Named Campaigns - Mexican Expedition" United States Army Center of Military History
2. ^ http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1997/fall/mexican-punitive-expedition-1.html
3. ^ "Buffalo Soldiers at Huachuca: Villa's Raid on Columbus, New Mexico". Huachuca Illustrated 1. 1993. http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/comment/huachuca/HI1-12.htm. Retrieved 2008-11-10. 
4. ^ "The March Of Events: Making Mexico Understand". The World's Work: A History of Our Time XXXI: 584–593. April 1916. http://books.google.com/?id=09_Sr9emceQC&pg=PA584. Retrieved 2009-08-04. 
5. ^ Hal Marcovitz (March 2002). Pancho Villa. Infobase Publishing. p. 66. ISBN 9780791072578. http://books.google.com/books?id=B8ZVUEkInBEC&pg=PA66. Retrieved 18 March 2011. 
6. ^ James W. Hurst (2008). Pancho Villa and Black Jack Pershing: the Punitive Expedition in Mexico. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 122. ISBN 9780313350047. http://books.google.com/books?id=mTDxfXWB7RsC&pg=PA122. Retrieved 18 March 2011. 
7. ^ http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/2-7cav.htm
8. ^ Boot, pg. 199
9. ^ Beede, pg. 218-219
10. ^ Boot, pg. 199
11. ^ http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/mexico_pershing.htm
12. ^ Boot, pg. 201-203
13. ^ http://www.cabq.gov/veterans/history/worldwari
14. ^ ^{a b} Prologue Magazine, Winter 1997, Vol. 29, No. 4, The United States Armed Forces and the Mexican Punitive Expedition: Part 2 By Mitchell Yockelson, Retrieved 24 Feb 10, http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1997/winter/mexican-punitive-expedition-2.html#F8#F8
15. ^ War Department, Annual Report of the Secretary of War for the Fiscal Year, 1916, Vol. 1 (1916)
16. ^ Historical & Pictoral Review National Guard of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Baton Rouge: Army and Navy Press. 1939. 
17. ^ Patton Headquarters website timeline
18. ^ Hurst, James W. Pancho Villa and Black Jack Pershing Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2008. ISBN 0313350043
19. ^ http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/battleswars1900s/p/mexican-punitive-expedition.htm
20. ^ Chinese in Texas

Bibliography

• Boot, Max (2003). The savage wars of peace: small wars and the rise of American power. Basic Books. ISBN 046500721X. 
• Beede, Benjamin R. (1994). The War of 1898, and U.S. interventions, 1898-1934: an encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0824056248. 

External links

• PP.85-88 battles and skirmishes of the 1916 expedition