Nevertheless, the local inhabitants of Parral continue to assert that their mayor had Pancho Villa's remains moved in the cemetery approximately a meter to the right of the designated grave and substituted with another body to prevent any further removal of Pancho Villa's remains. They maintain that it was the headless decoy body that was subsequently transported to Mexico City. Regardless of whether Pancho Villa's body still lies in the ground at Parral, his tall and dignified tombstone remains intact, and visitors still come to lay flowers at the grave. Thus, even in death, Pancho Villa continues to be elusive.
On April 6, 1917, the United States formally declared war on Germany. Pershing received directives to assemble a division under his command and to deploy this formation to France as the first American unit to engage alongside the Allies. He provided a list of officers he wished to have on his staff, which included Lieutenant Patton's name. However, a few days later, Pershing was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the American Expeditionary Force, encompassing all troops designated for deployment to France.
Consequently, with a small headquarters team, Pershing immediately traveled overseas as a symbol of reassurance and hope to the war-weary Allies, who had endured significant battles of attrition for the preceding three years. Although the entry of the Americans into the war provided a substantial psychological uplift to the Allies, the United States was ill-prepared to engage in the extensive conflict on the Western Front. The positioning of units along the Mexican border and the pursuit of Villa had been a modest initial step toward mobilization, but now the U.S. Army needed to raise, equip, and train a considerably larger force. The War Department intended to send Pershing 2,000,000 partially trained soldiers, and he was charged with preparing them for combat readiness abroad.
Regarding the Georgia units that were deployed to the Mexican Border, some remained in Federal Service while others returned to Georgia. Nonetheless, on July 3, 1917, the entire National Guard of the United States was mobilized for World War I. In August 1917, the Georgia National Guard units underwent reorganization, with the majority being assigned to the 31st Infantry Division, except for the Coast Artillery units, which were designated for Savannah Coastal Defense. However, a special new battalion was to be formed from Georgia.
Requests from National Guard officers and Governors for the early deployment of their state units to engage in combat against Germany inundated the War Department. The demand became so widespread and persistent that the Secretary of War devised the concept of creating a composite Division that would incorporate troops from every State in the Union. This led to the establishment of the renowned 42d (Rainbow) Division, which would later achieve distinction in numerous significant battles during World War I. In August 1917, companies B, C, and F of the 2nd Georgia Infantry were reorganized into the 151st Machine Gun Battalion and assigned to the 42d Division. When the 42d Infantry Division reached France in November 1917, it included National Guard units from 26 States and the District of Columbia. Nearly a year later, on September 16, 1918, the 31st Infantry Division, comprising National Guard units from Georgia, Alabama, and Florida, departed for France and joined the American Expeditionary Force on October 3, 1918.
Concerning the legend or myth of Pancho Villa in contemporary times, conservative Mexicans may assert that he was merely a self-serving, bloodthirsty bandit. However, for the majority of Mexicans, his legacy has been romanticized through songs and tales, and he is now widely regarded as a Mexican “Robin Hood” figure. Among all the leaders of the Mexican revolution, he is arguably the most recognized and is remembered for his triumphs in the constitutionalist revolution and for being the only foreign military leader to... have “successfully” invaded continental U.S. territory.
Regarding Americans, the extensive mobilization of U.S. forces in 1916 and the pursuit of Pancho Villa in Mexico are rarely mentioned in our history books and, consequently, are not studied in schools. Nevertheless, this event holds significance for Georgians as it marked the initial mobilization and deployment of National Guard Units for Federal service, signaling the end of the traditional militia system that relied on recruiting volunteer units of inexperienced individuals for Federal service, as was practiced during the Mexican War of 1846-1848. Furthermore, it served as a precursor to the total force policy, which is crucial for our defense readiness today. If Pancho Villa were alive today, he would likely assert that he taught General Pershing and the Americans from the north how to prepare for combat. How did Pancho Villa die...
Pancho Villa was a deeply complex and controversial figure, and how he was perceived depended greatly on who was telling the story. To some, he was a national hero and a champion of the poor; to others, he was a violent outlaw and a ruthless warlord. His life, full of dramatic turns and contradictions, made him one of the most fascinating personalities of the Mexican Revolution and one of the most talked-about figures in Mexican history.
For the poor and working class, especially peasants and rural farmers in northern Mexico, Villa was seen as a Robin Hood-like figure. He fought against the wealthy landowners and corrupt officials who had long exploited the common people. During the Revolution, he distributed land, food, and supplies to the poor, earning their loyalty and respect. Many admired his courage, charisma, and generosity. His army, known as the División del Norte (Division of the North), was made up mostly of common people—cowboys, miners, and farmers—who saw him as a man of the people fighting for justice and equality.
Among the middle and upper classes, however, Villa’s reputation was often far less favorable. They viewed him as a bandit, rebel, or even a terrorist, whose raids and battles brought destruction and chaos. His attacks on towns, his execution of enemies, and especially his bold 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico, which provoked a U.S. military expedition into Mexico, alarmed both Mexican and American leaders. In the eyes of these groups, Villa was unpredictable, dangerous, and driven by revenge rather than principle.
Internationally, Villa’s image was equally divided. In the United States, newspapers and journalists portrayed him alternately as a romantic revolutionary hero and as a violent outlaw. Early on, he was admired by some Americans who saw him as a freedom fighter opposing dictatorship and oppression. However, after his cross-border attack on U.S. soil, he became infamous and was hunted by General John J. Pershing’s Punitive Expedition. Hollywood and American filmmakers later helped turn him into a larger-than-life legend, sometimes blurring the line between fact and fiction.
Among his fellow revolutionaries, perceptions were also mixed. Leaders like Emiliano Zapata respected Villa for his courage and his desire for land reform, while others, such as Venustiano Carranza, distrusted him and saw him as a threat to their own power. Even after his death, opinions about him remained divided. Some Mexicans celebrated him as a patriotic hero who fought bravely against tyranny, while others remembered him for the violence and instability his actions caused.
In the decades since, historians have continued to debate Villa’s legacy. Modern scholarship tends to see him as a man shaped by his time — a revolutionary leader who embodied both the ideals and the brutal realities of the Mexican Revolution. He was a symbol of resistance, rebellion, and the struggle for social justice, but also a reminder of how power and violence can distort noble goals.
Ultimately, Pancho Villa was perceived as both a hero and a villain, a rebel and a reformer, a man of extraordinary charisma and contradictions. His legend endures in Mexico’s national memory, not just for what he did, but for what he represented — the eternal fight of ordinary people against injustice and oppression.
Pancho Villa, one of the most famous and controversial figures of the Mexican Revolution, met a violent and dramatic end on July 20, 1923, in the town of Parral, in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua. His death marked the end of a turbulent life filled with rebellion, military triumphs, and political intrigue.
After years of fighting during the Mexican Revolution, Villa had retired from active warfare in 1920, following an agreement with the Mexican government led by President Álvaro Obregón. As part of the deal, Villa was granted a large estate called Hacienda de Canutillo, where he lived quietly for a few years. During this time, he tried to distance himself from politics and warfare, devoting his attention to farming, ranching, and the local community. However, despite his attempts at peace, Villa remained a symbol of rebellion and a potential threat to Mexico’s fragile political stability.
Many in the government feared that Villa might once again take up arms or become involved in a new uprising. He still had loyal followers, and his name carried enormous influence among the rural poor. In addition, rumors circulated that he might run for the presidency in upcoming elections. These fears and suspicions led to growing tension between Villa and the political elite in Mexico City.
On the day of his assassination, Villa was driving through Parral in a Dodge automobile, accompanied by a few of his bodyguards. As his car slowed down while passing through the town, a group of gunmen ambushed him, opening fire from the side of the road. Villa was struck multiple times, reportedly by bullets to the head and chest, and died instantly. Four of his companions were also killed in the attack.
The identity of his killers has long been debated. Some historians believe that the assassination was orchestrated by political enemies, possibly with the approval of President Obregón or his successor, Plutarco Elías Calles, who viewed Villa as a continuing danger to their power. Others suggest that local enemies or personal rivals may have been behind the plot. Regardless of who was responsible, the killing was clearly well-planned and executed with military precision.
In the years following his death, Pancho Villa became a legendary figure — both a hero and a villain, depending on who told the story. To some, he was a fearless revolutionary who fought for justice and the poor; to others, he was a ruthless bandit responsible for bloodshed and chaos. His life and death have inspired countless books, songs, and films, keeping his memory alive in Mexican culture and beyond.
In the end, Pancho Villa died as he had lived — violently, dramatically, and surrounded by mystery. Yet his story remains a powerful symbol of the struggle for freedom, equality, and change that shaped modern Mexico.
Pancho Villa was ambushed and shot on his ranch in Parral on July 23, 1923.
Pancho Villa, born in 1878, was a prominent Mexican revolutionary and guerrilla leader. His birth name was Doroteo Arango, although he was also known as Francisco. After he killed the owner of the estate where he was employed due to an assault on his sister, Villa fled to the mountains, spending his adolescence as a fugitive.
He participated in revolts against two dictators, Porfirio Díaz and Victoriano Huerta, and left Mexico in 1912. However, he returned in 1913 and established an army of several thousand men, known as the infamous División del Norte. In 1914, he allied his forces with those of Venustiano Carranza, leading to a significant victory over Huerta and their triumphant entry into Mexico City as the revolution's leaders.
Unfortunately, his alliance with Carranza was short-lived, and after suffering defeats in several confrontations, Villa and Emiliano Zapata retreated to the mountains of Northern Mexico, where he continued his rebellion and guerrilla warfare. In 1916, following the execution of sixteen U.S. citizens at Santa Isabel, President Woodrow Wilson dispatched General John Pershing to capture Villa. However, the support of his allies, his familiarity with the northern Mexican terrain, and Mexico's opposition to Pershing's presence made it exceedingly difficult for him to be apprehended.
After Carranza's government was overthrown in 1920, Villa was granted a pardon and awarded a ranch in Chihuahua, contingent upon his promise to withdraw from political life. Ultimately, he was assassinated on his ranch in 1923.
Doña Luz wasn’t the only woman in his life, nor even the only woman who claimed to be his wife. But the striking blue-eyed peasant woman was the first wife to the Mexican Revolution general, making her certificate of marriage the most valid, out of all the women Pancho Villa later married.
More important, she carried a lifelong wound of burying their infant daughter, Luz Elena, while he fathered children with other women, leaving her to raise many of them as her own.
The marriage certificate dated May 29, 1911, was more than just a symbol of pride for Doña Luz Corral; it became the first chapter of her life story which began on July 2, 1892. She was a living witness to what has been called “the storm that swept Mexico” in modern literature.
The Mexican Revolution was a sweeping panoply of brutal battles, criminal adventure and treacherous savagery. The Mutual Film Corporation paid Gen. Villa 20 percent of ticket sales to become Hollywood’s first revolutionary star of the newsreels.
But it was Doña Luz, whom he first saw when she was 18 in the village of San Andrés, who earned the role of Madre and matriarch. The courtship was short, contrary to her mother’s wishes, and it left Father Juan de Dios Muñoz aghast. After he asked the 32-year-old man to make his church confession, José Doroteo Arango Arámbula, the son of a sharecropper, reborn as Gen. Francisco (Pancho) Villa, responded that it would take days to list the sins on his soul.
In 1923, Villa was assassinated in his Dodge Brothers touring car in Parral, Chihuahua, leaving 31-year-old Mrs. Villa a widow—and with an orphanage on their property of some 50 children of all ages. Her life as the wife of the revolutionary was shattered, but she was a survivor.
Even though the government took the Villa Ranch near Canutillo, Durango, from Doña Luz for back taxes, they did not take the Villas’ 50-room mansion in Chihuahua City. For six decades Villa’s celebrity widow welcomed a stream of strangers and curiosity-seekers to La Casa de Villa, or Historical Museum of the Revolution, which was filled with artifacts of her dead husband.
For the equivalent of 25 cents, she provided an autograph, recited speeches in English while consulting an old notebook, and permitted visitors to examine remnants of the Mexican Revolution: Villa’s photographs, weapons, saddles and uniforms, and even his bullet-ridden car in which he was assassinated. Near the end of her life, Luz received visitors from bed, too weak to rise. She died at age 89 on July 6, 1981.
In 1916, the Signal Corps Aviation Service only had a few crude aircraft. The 1st Aero Squadron which was assigned to support Pershing was equipped with six Curtiss JN-2 “Jennies” which had a reputation of being unstable deathtraps. In addition, the airservice was handicapped by inexperienced pilots. Pershing was barely a month into the expedition when he lost all six of his aircraft. Two crashed within the first week of the expedition.
Pershing’s expedition also provided an opportunity for one of the Army more headstrong members. . . George S. Patton, then a young lieutenant. Fearing he would be left behind on mundane border patrol with his unit, Patton pleaded with Pershing to take him along as a replacement for one of his two aides that was absent when the expedition was ordered into Mexico. Pershing agreed at the last moment and took him.
Pancho Villa had a nine days headstart before Pershing’s Expedition crossed into Mexico (Map 1) at noon on March 15, 1916. By that time, Villa and his men were well hidden in the mountains. To cover the uncharted terrain, Pershing divided his force into East and West columns and proceeded methodically into the unfamiliar Mexican interior.7
Basically, the two American columns of the expedition got nowhere in their pursuit of Pancho Villa. Northern Mexico was a vast wasteland with few towns and dominated by the barren and rugged Sierra Madre Mountains with peaks averaging ten to twelve thousand feet and honeycombed with deep canyons providing excellent hiding places for Pancho Villa and his men.
The few roads were little more than dirt trails, dusty in dry weather and muddy quagmires in the rain. Villa’s men were on their home ground while Pershing was moving into unfamiliar and largely unmapped territory depending on Mexican guides whose loyalty was always questionable.
Pershing’s soldiers, encountered every imaginable mishap during their eleven months in Mexico. President Carranza had promised assistance, but when, for example, Pershing’s men were on the verge of capturing Panco Villa, the “Carranzistas” attacked them. Another time, Pershing’s Indian scouts misinformed him about the location of Villa’s lair. On other occasions, the scouts brought in blood-filled boots and bullet-riddled shirts as “proof” that he had been killed.
At Colonia Dublan , Pershing established his permanent command post where he began to plan how he would snare Pancho Villa. Everywhere U.S. Troops went, men, women, and children cheerfully provided them with misinformation about his (Villa’s) whereabouts.
As in past American invasions (e.g., the Mexican War of 1846-1848), the Pershing Expedition was a financial “boon” to Mexico. The American soldiers’ wants were catered to and satisfied everywhere they went. Prices skyrocketed. If they so desired, soldiers could submerge themselves in Mexican beer. Cantinas were open all night. In many restaurants soldiers devoured “deer” meat that once ran in the streets barking. Life was hard only when the Americans marched or rode along the dirt roads and were eating their dry ration crackers and looking for water. Dublan was transformed into an enormous military encampment complete with a railhead where tons of supplies were unloaded by a thousand civilian workers. The soldiers and civilians worked by day and brawled by night in the saloons and bordellos that had sprung up in the once sleepy town.
Pancho Villa’s men mingled with the populace at will by simply removing the cartridge belts they normally strapped across their chests. They even mixed with the Americans and attended Western “cowboy” movies with Pershing’s officers.
In May, 1916, Lieutenant Patton saw combat for the first time. Based on information about the location of Julio Cardenas, one of Pancho Villa’s most trusted subordinates and commander of his personal bodyguard; Patton, accompanied by ten soldiers from the 6th Infantry Regiment, and two civilian guides traveling in three Dodge open top touring automobiles, conducted a surprise raid on a ranch house at San Miguelito (Map 2) near Rubio.
During the ensuing fire-fight, Patton and his men killed three men. One was identified as Cardenas. The other two dead Mexicans were an unnamed Villista captain and a private. Patton’s men tied the bodies to the hoods of the cars, while Patton put Cardenas’ silver-studded saddle and sword into his vehicle. The spectacle of the three cars with the bodies tied on the hoods caused a great commotion along the road, but Patton and his party sped through the countryside to their headquarters at Dublan without incident.
At around 4 p.m., Patton arrived at Dublan with the three bloody corpses strapped across the blistering-hot hoods of the automobiles. War correspondents crowded around to get a first hand account of his adventure. The stories they filed made Patton a national hero for several weeks. His photograph appeared in newspapers around the United States.
Pershing was pleased that someone had enlivened the hunt for Villa and actually taken out a key member of his band. He even permitted Patton to keep Cardenas’ sword and silver saddle as trophies of his first fight.12
In June, Pershing was informed that Pancho Villa could be taken at the small village of Carrizal, northwest of his command center at Dublan. (Map 2). When the Pershing’s troops assaulted the village on June 21, they quickly realized they had been hoodwinked for they found themselves fighting “Carranzistas,” not Villistas. Scores of “Carranzitas” were killed or wounded. Pancho Villa was reported to have watched with much delight — from a safe distance — as his two enemies battled each other in total confusion.
The unfortunate American attack on Mexican government troops became known as the “Carrizal Affair” and created a such a rowe that war with Mexico seemed possible. The situation led President Wilson to call 75,000 National Guardsmen into Federal service to help police the U.S. - Mexico border.
In fact, hostilities with Mexico probably would have erupted then and there, but for the bitter war raging in Europe. Wilson, anxious not to become involved in Mexico at a time when relations with Germany were deteriorating, agreed to submit Mexican complaints arising out of the punitive expedition to a joint commission for settlement. Some time later the commission ruled that, among other things, that the debacle at Carrizal was the fault of the American unit commander.
For the remainder of 1916, the intensity of the hunt for Pancho Villa waned and replaced by the tedious routine of life in a temporary bivouac. Boredom spawned drunken shoot-outs between troops and local Mexicans. In an attempt to keep his men busy,
Pershing initiated a tough new training program that included cavalry maneuvers. It was clear by this time, however, that given President Wilson’s restrictive orders and the growing intransigence of the Carranza regime that the Pershing led Mexican incursion was doomed to failure.
Company H, 3rd Separate Infantry Battalion and 2nd Company, Coast Artillery were mustered into Federal service on August 10 and September 26 respectively, but remained at home station and were not sent to Texas.
The aggregate strength of the Georgia units that were sent to Camp Cotton, Texas was 3,892. The units were mobilized on June 18, 1916 and mustered into Federal service, most between July 2-31 and one as late as September 26. After some mobilization training at Camp Harris, they departed for duty on the U.S. - Mexico border.
An example of the service of one of the Georgia National Guard units deployed to the border is revealed in the reports of the 2nd Squadron Cavalry. The unit departed Camp Harris at Macon, Georgia on October 25, 1916 and arrived at Fort Bliss, Texas (Map 2) on November 1, 1916. At Fort Bliss, they underwent a month of mounted training until Then, the squadron left on December 1, 1916 for field duty at Fabens , Texas (Map 2) with three officers and 70 men, 79 horses, 2 transport wagons, and eight mules.
The group marched 32 miles to Fabens finally reaching there at 1:40 p.m. on December 2, 1916. They performed border patrol with the 1st Kentucky Infantry and from December 16 on with the 2nd Kentucky Infantry. The squadron left Fort Bliss, Texas at 1a.m. on March 22, 1917 with three officers and 77 men, two wagons and full equipment. They arrived at home station, Atlanta, Georgia at 1p.m., March 27, 1917. The distance traveled was 1,700 miles.
In January, 1917, the ill-fated attempt to capture Pancho Villa ended with the recall of the Punitive Expedition from Mexico. On January 27, the first of 10,690 men and 9,307 horses embarked for Columbus. It took over a week to assemble the full expeditionary force back at Fort Bliss, where, on February 7, 1917, with General Pershing at the head, they marched into El Paso to the acclaim of cheering crowds. That officially ended Pershing’s campaign. The expedition had gone as far south as Parral, but Pershing had not captured Pancho Villa. Therefore, the expedition was only notable as the last U.S. Cavalry expedition in U.S. military history. Although Villa had once been nicked in the knee cap by a Carranzistas bullet, he was now completely mended and feeling well. However, many of his best men had either died or deserted him. But, with the gringos gone, he was now free to continue his struggle with his arch foe Venustiano Carranza.18
Unabashed by his failure to capture Pancho Villa, General Pershing claimed the expedition was successful as a learning experience.
However, in the minds of Mexicans, Pancho Villa was the clear winner. He had emerged triumphant from battle with the United States led by the great General Pershing. No doubt, in the eyes of the Mexican people, Pershing’s withdrawal from Mexico added to Pancho Villa’s myth of invincibility.
But, a few years later, on Friday, July 20, 1923, Pancho Villa’s luck ran out. Accompanied by his entourage of Dorades (“Golden Ones”), which was what he called his bodyguards, Pancho Villa frequently made trips to Parral for banking and other errands. This day, Pancho Villa had picked up a consignment of gold with which to pay his Canutillo ranch staff and was driving through the city in his black 1919 Dodge roadster when a group of seven riflemen fired 150 shots in just two minutes into his car. In the fusillade of shots, 16 bullets lodged in his body and four more in his head.
Pancho Villa was reported to have killed one of the assassins before he died. Truly, Pancho Villa had lived by the gun and died by the gun.
It was never determined who ordered the killing. However, the assassins were given light prison terms leading to general speculation that someone in the Mexican government must have given the order simply because Villa had become an embarrassment to post-revolutionary Mexico.
But even in death, Pancho Villa was not at rest and still stirred controversy. Three years after he was buried in the Cemeterio Municipal at Parral, it was alleged that an ex-Villista officer, Captain Emil L. Holmdahl, had opened the tomb and removed Villa’s head to sell to an eccentric Chicago millionaire who collected the skulls of historic figures. Despite the rumors of a headless Villa, his sons prevented examination of the remains to see if the head was still attached. Three years later, the Federal government ordered Villa’s body, reported to be headless, moved to Mexico City to be interred in the Tomb of Illustrious Men.
Doroteo Arango, alias Francisco “Pancho” Villa, was born in 1877 (1879 according to some sources) in San Juan del Rio, State of Durango, Mexico. During his lifetime, he was a ruthless killer (killing his first man at age sixteen), a notorious bandit (including cattle rustling and bank robbery), a revolutionary (a general commanding a division in the resistance against the 1913-14 Victoriano Huerta dictatorship), and despite his bloodthirsty nature, an enduring hero to the poor people of Mexico. In their minds, Villa was afraid of no one, not the Mexican government or the gringos from the United States. He was their one true friend and avenger for decades of Yankee oppression.
In late 1915 Pancho Villa had counted on American support to obtain the presidency of Mexico. Instead the U.S. Government recognized the new government of Venustiano Carranza. An irate Villa swore revenge against the United States.and began by murdering Americans in hopes of provoking President Woodrow Wilson’s intervention into Mexico. Pancho Villa believed that American interevention would discredit the Carranza government with the people of Mexico and reaffirm his own popularity.
Pancho Villa and his “pistoleros” launched raids along the U.S.- Mexico boundary to frighten the Americans living in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona border towns.
Concerned for the safety of Americans, President Wilson ordered the War Department to begin deploying troops to Texas and New Mexico. In April, 1915, Brigadier General John J. Pershing and his 8th Infantry Brigade were sent to Fort Bliss, Texas with the mission of guarding the U.S.- Mexico border from Arizona to a bleak outpost in the Sierra Blanca mountains ninety miles southeast of El Paso.
While the presence of American troops served to deter Pancho Villa on the north of the Rio Grande, the murder of U.S. citizens in Mexico continued. One of the most heinous atrocities occurred January 11, 1916, when Villa’s bandits stopped a train at Santa Ysabel .
The bandits removed a group of 17 Texas business men (mining engineers) invited by the Mexican government to reopen the Cusihuiriachic mines below Chihuahua City and executed them in cold blood. However, one of those shot feined death and rolled down the side of the embankment and, crawling away into a patch of brown mesquite bushes, escaped. The train moved on, leaving the corpses at the mercy of the slayers, who stripped and mutilated them. After the escapee arrived back at Chihuahua City, a special train sped to Santa Ysabel to reclaim the bodies. When the people of El Paso heard of the massacre, they went wild with anger. El Paso was immediately placed under martial law to prevent irate Texans from crossing into Mexico at Juarez to wreak vengeance on innocent Mexicans.
Despite outrage in the United States and Washington over the Santa Ysabel massacre, President Wilson refused to intervene and send troops into Mexico. Two months later, Pancho Villa decided to strike again. This time he would invade the United States. At 2:30 a.m., on the morning of March 9, 1916, he and 500 “Villistas” attacked the 13th U.S. Cavalry at Camp Furlong near Columbus, New Mexico (Map 1). Despite prior knowledge that Villa and his men were pillaging, raping, and murdering their way toward the border, the cavalry was caught completely by surprise. One reason for the cavalry’s sluggishness was because some of the troops had been drinking, but perhaps more importantly, all of the troops’ rifles were chained and locked in gun racks. Still, the cavalry managed to get organized and fought off the “Villistas” killing many of them in the process. During their retreat, however, the “Villistas” stopped at Columbus, New Mexico for a looting and window-shooting spree that left several U.S. civilians dead. For three hours, bullets struck houses and shouts of “Viva Villa! Viva Mexico! Muerte a los Americanos!” (death to americans) were heard in the streets.
The town was set afire, though Villa’s men realized nothing beyond a few dollars and perhaps some merchandise from the burntout stores. The terror continued until about 7 a.m., and when Villa finally rode off, the smoke-filled streets of Columbus were littered with the dead and wounded. Fourteen American soldiers and ten civilians were killed in the raid.3
Although Villa’s losses from from his American incursion were high, he had achieved his aim of arousing the United States. Now, he and his men headed due south from Palomas seeking the safety of the mountains of the Sierra Madre. However, the 13th U.S. Cavalry was now in hot pursuit. Colonel Frank Tompkins had managed to gather 32 cavalrymen and was nipping at the heels of the fleeing Mexicans. His troops sighted Pancho Villa’s rear guard and killed over thirty men and horses. Colonel Tompkins kept up the chase for eight hours and killed a number of stragglers as well as more of Villa’s rear guard.
Lacking supplies, Tompkins and his cavalrymen were forced to return to Camp Furlong. On their way back, they counted 75 to 100 “Villistas” killed during their hastily organized pursuit.4
The populace of Columbus was in a state of hysteria. The American cavalry troops collected the bodies of the “Villistas” that had been shot in the streets and on the outskirts of town and piled them on funeral pyres and cremated them. For a day or more the fires smoldered and the odor of burning flesh permeated the air. Columbus lay virtually demolished, so completely burned and pillaged that it never recovered its former vitality.5
To prevent repetitions of the Columbus outrage, President Wilson called out 15,000 militia and stationed them along the U.S. - Mexico border .
Wilson also informed President Carranza that he intended to send a military expedition into northern Mexico to capture Pancho Villa, and Carranza reluctantly agreed. President Wilson then appointed Brigadier General John J. Pershing to lead 4,800 troops (mostly cavalry), supported by aircraft and motorized military vehicles (the first time either were used in U.S. warfare) on a punitive expedition into Mexico to capture Pancho Villa.
However, there was a catch to Pershing’s mission orders from Wilson that would be decisive in the end. Pershing was to pursue and punish Villa, but not to upset the Carranza government by firing on any of his troops. The futility of Wilson’s orders was plain even before the expedition began, when the local Carranzista commander at nearby Palomas threatened to attack the Americans. Pershing was only able to stave off an incident by hiring the man as a guide for his troops. Carranza would take advantage of Wilson’s restrictions to make life miserable for the Punitive Expedition throughout their mission.
