8
The American interventions in Haiti and the Dominican Republic had been more or less voluntary; they had not been forced upon the Wilson administration, save by the president’s own conscience. The U.S. was not so lucky with its next small war, which came about because of an invasion of American soil—as Second Lieutenant John P. Lucas was among the first to discover.
Lucas had graduated from West Point in 1911 and promptly been dispatched to the Philippines. He liked his tour of duty there and was dismayed when three years later, at age 24, he found himself transferred to the 13th U.S. Cavalry Regiment based at Camp Furlong, New Mexico, near the international border. Life in neighboring Columbus (population 350) did not compare with the excitement of the Orient. “There was little to do and plenty of time to do it in,” he later recalled, amid “the sand storms, the heat and monotony of existence in this sun-baked little desert town,” with its “cluster of adobe houses, a hotel, a few stores and streets knee deep in sand.” All around was the vast desert with its “cactus, mesquite and rattle snakes.”
In search of excitement, he went off for a week’s leave in March 1916 to El Paso, Texas, where he played polo against fellow cavalry officers. “On a hunch” Lucas decided to return to Columbus on the last train of the night, known as the “Drunkard’s Special,” on March 8 rather than wait till morning. He reached Columbus at midnight and stumbled to his quarters in the dark; the town had no electricity. He found his tiny adobe shack empty; his roommate, another young officer, was away. His .45 caliber revolver was empty—his roommate had taken the ammunition—and on another hunch Lucas decided to reload before falling asleep.
He was awakened at 4:30 A.M. on March 9 by “some one riding by the open window” of his room. He looked outside and saw a man with a black sombrero on horseback. The night air rang with shouts of “Viva Mexico” and “Viva Villa.” Lucas instantly realized the invaders were followers of Francisco “Pancho” Villa, the legendary Mexican revolutionary and outlaw who had lately been carrying out a vendetta against the United States. “I got hold of my gun and stationed myself in the middle of the room where I could command the door, determined to get a few of them before they got me.” Lucas was saved when a sentinel on duty opened fire on the Mexicans, distracting them from Lucas’s house. The guard was killed, but Lucas took advantage of the opportunity to dash out in search of his men.
Columbus had been caught completely by surprise. There had been unconfirmed reports that Villa intended to attack a border town, but Colonel Herbert J. Slocum, the 13th Cavalry’s experienced commander, had not been able to learn much about Villa’s movements because standing orders from Washington forbade him from sending scouts south of the border. Slocum had only 500 men to cover 65 miles of border, and just 350 of them were in camp. No one had sounded the alarm when, earlier on the night of March 9, more than 400 Villistas had slipped across the border and headed for Columbus. The pistoleros had divided into two parties, one group attacking the town of Columbus, the other heading for Camp Furlong, located just south of the town across the railroad tracks.
The raiders cut a swathe of destruction through the Columbus business district. Some of them ran into the Commercial Hotel, the only one in town, where they grabbed what loot they could and shot five guests. They set fire to the grocery store across the street, and the flames quickly engulfed the hotel as well. The Mexicans also fired into private homes, killing and wounding more residents of Columbus.
Many of the officers with families lived nearby, outside Camp Furlong. Captain Rudolph E. Smyser barely managed to get himself, his wife, and two children out the back while Villistas battered down his front door. The Smysers hid in an outhouse until it was safe to come out. Lieutenant William A. McCain, his wife, and little girl hid in the mesquite behind his house, along with his orderly. Before long, they were joined by Captain George Williams. The sounds of battle seemed to be dying down when an isolated Mexican stumbled upon this little clump of Americans. Before he could do anything, McCain shot him with a shotgun, but the birdshot didn’t kill him. The men grabbed the wounded Mexican and realized he had to be silenced before he could give the alarm. They tried to cut his throat with a pocket knife, but it proved too dull. They finally killed him by hammering his head with a pistol, as a distraught Mrs. McCain and her young daughter watched in horror from only a few feet away.
Aside from a few sentries, the only Americans who were already awake in Camp Furlong were the cooks. The Villistas who tried to invade the kitchen shack were in for a nasty surprise. The cooks fought them off with pots of boiling coffee, axes, and shotguns normally used for hunting up meat. Meanwhile, the stable hands fought back with pitchforks and baseball bats.
There were only two officers in camp that night—2nd Lieutenant Lucas and 1st Lieutenant James P. Castleman, the officer of the day. Castleman had just put down a book around 4 A.M. when a bullet smashed through his window. He grabbed his revolver, flung open his door, and came face to face with a Mexican pointing a rifle at him. The Mexican fired and missed. Castleman made no mistake; he practically blew the Mexican’s head off with a heavy .45 caliber slug. Then he ran to the barracks where he began to round up the men of his outfit, Troop F. The soldiers advanced toward town in the dark, firing at muzzle flashes. When the troopers entered Columbus, they found that the burning hotel illuminated the silhouettes of Mexican attackers, and their rifle fire began to take a deadly toll.
Before long, Troop F bumped into the only other organized group of defenders, Machine Gun Troop, commanded by John Lucas. Running over the rough ground barefooted, Lucas had managed to reach the guard tent, where the machine guns were kept. With two men, he set up a Benet-Mercier machine gun. After a few rounds, the weapon—which had a history of unreliability—jammed, but they simply grabbed another gun. Lucas’s men eventually set up four of the bipod-mounted machine guns. Together with Castleman’s riflemen, they delivered a withering cross fire that drove the Villistas out of Columbus just as dawn was breaking, three hours after the attack had begun.
Colonel Slocum, the 13th Cavalry’s commander, climbed atop Cootes Hill to watch the retreat. Major Frank Tompkins, itching for revenge, approached the colonel and asked for permission to pursue the raiders. Permission was granted, and within 20 minutes Tompkins had 29 men from Troop H riding for the border, soon to be joined by 27 more men from Troop F led by Lieutenant Castleman. Villa’s rearguard tried to stop the pursuit by digging in on a hill, but Tompkins simply ordered his men to charge. Amid the roar of horse hoofs and the crackle of gunfire and the screams of men, the cavalry broke the Mexican line and killed many of the retreating Villistas.
Tompkins soon realized that he was in Mexican territory and wrote back to Slocum for permission to continue. Slocum told him to use his own discretion. Tompkins did not hesitate: He continued chasing the Villistas until they were about 15 miles into Mexico, by which time both men and mounts had grown too exhausted to continue. The weary troopers returned to camp, having killed 70–100 Villistas. No Americans were killed in the pursuit, though both Major Tompkins and his horse received slight wounds and a bullet passed through Tompkins’s hat.
Despite having the element of surprise, Villa’s attack on Columbus had been a disaster. He lost some 100 men killed and 30 captured (some of whom were hanged following a New Mexico state trial)—at least one-third of his command in all. On the American side, eight civilians and ten soldiers had died; another seven soldiers and two civilians were wounded.
What had motivated Villa to undertake this seemingly foolhardy assault, the most serious invasion of American soil since the War of 1812? That question remains hotly debated to this day; it is one of many mysteries that still swirl around the enigmatic figure of Pancho Villa.
Pancho Villa
The man who would become Pancho Villa was born Doroteo Arango in 1878 in the Mexican state of Durango. His parents were poor sharecroppers on a giant hacienda, and his father died at an early age, leaving his mother to support five children. As a teenager Doroteo turned to banditry. Legend (probably created by Villa himself) has it that he was forced to become an outlaw after he killed a rich man who raped his sister. Francisco Villa—the name he adopted to elude the authorities—proved a successful bandit. He robbed mainly from the rich and, he later claimed, gave some of his proceeds to the poor. Historians differ on the extent of his generosity, but about his ruthlessness there is little dispute. Villa did not hesitate to murder those who crossed him.
When the Mexican revolution broke out in 1910, Villa was 32 years old and living in the northern state of Chihuahua, next door to his native Durango, supporting himself with a combination of legitimate jobs and cattle rustling. Here he was recruited by an emissary of Francisco Madero, the wealthy, slightly otherworldly idealist who was leading the rebellion against the aging dictator Porfirio Diaz. It is not clear why Villa joined the revolution, but it is a good bet that the rebels promised him amnesty for all the criminal acts he had committed. He may also have been motivated by hatred of the ruling oligarchy, by a desire to help the downtrodden from whose ranks he sprang, and by loyalty to his idol, Madero. A desire for booty probably did not motivate him; he took greater care to prevent his men from looting than did most other revolutionary leaders, and he did not acquire significant riches during his political career. Power he did acquire. It did not take this onetime bandit long to become one of the leading men in Mexico.
His rise was due entirely to his native magnetism, shrewdness, and energy, for he had little ideology and less education; though he displayed great reverence for learning, he himself was virtually illiterate. E. Alexander Powell, an American author who met him in 1911, described Villa as “stockily built and of medium height—not over five feet ten, I should guess—with the chest and shoulders of a prize fighter and the most perfect bullet-shaped head I have ever seen.” His black hair was “as crisp and curly as a negro’s” and “a small black mustache serves to mask a mouth which is cruel even when smiling.” Observers agreed that his most extraordinary feature was his prominent brown eyes. “Indeed,” wrote Powell, “they are really not eyes at all, but gimlets which seem to bore into your very soul.”
Villa epitomized the Mexican ideal of macho. Although he did not drink or smoke, he was a world-class womanizer, marrying one woman after another without bothering to divorce his previous wife. He also had a reputation as a superb horseman—he came to be known as the “Centaur of the North”—and as one of the best gunfighters in Mexico. His cruelty (to his enemies) and his generosity (to the poor) added to his legend. Highly emotional, he could weep publicly one minute, and the next instant be gripped by cold, murderous rage. Writers who met him often compared him to a “wild animal,” a “lion,” or a “jaguar.”
His men loved him and feared him in equal measure; and he in turn was devoted to their welfare. Starting out with just 14 followers, Villa swiftly rose to become one of the top military leaders of the revolution, helping Madero assume the presidency in 1911. Villa then took a break from politics to run, of all things, a string of butcher shops. His incongruous foray into the bourgeois society of Chihuahua City, the provincial capital, did not last long. In 1912 he was summoned back to the colors to help the Madero government and the federal army put down a counterrevolution. Villa, the passionate man of the people, clashed with the ambitious and imperious army general Victoriano Huerta, a holdover from the Diaz regime who viewed him as a dangerous rival. Huerta had Villa arrested and nearly executed. After seven months in prison, Villa managed to escape by sawing through the bars of his cell with a saw smuggled in by a sympathetic court clerk. Francisco Madero was not so lucky. In 1913 the president was overthrown and murdered in a military coup led by the bloodthirsty General Huerta.
Many of the forces that had originally risen up to overthrow Diaz now took up arms against Huerta. While the revolution was a complex sociopolitical phenomenon, and ideological debates often took a backseat to clashing personal ambitions, three major strands stand out. First, dispossessed peasants in southern Mexico led by Emiliano Zapata. The most radical of all the major revolutionaries, he was determined to break up the giant haciendas (some owned by Americans) and redistribute their land. Second, poor farmers, miners, cowboys, and Indians in northern Mexico led by Pancho Villa, who pressed for regional autonomy as well as land reform. And third, progressive members of the middle and upper classes (“men who have always slept on soft pillows,” in Villa’s contemptuous phrase) who had turned against the oligarchy. They constituted the most moderate elements of the revolution. Madero had been one of these disillusioned hacendados (landlords); the new leader of the revolution, Venustiano Carranza, was another. Carranza, the white-bearded, 53-year-old governor of the northern state of Coahuila, refused to recognize Huerta’s usurpation. To unite the opposition, he organized the Constitutionalist Party and appointed himself its Primer Jefé (First Chief).
Pancho Villa nominally recognized Carranza’s leadership, but this was nothing more than a marriage of convenience. After briefly taking refuge in El Paso, Texas, Villa returned to northern Mexico to organize a formidable new army, the División del Norte (Division of the North), built around the ultra-brave, ultra-loyal dorados (men of gold), his version of Napoleon’s Old Guard. His men soon proved their worth by routing the federales in Chihuahua. The unlettered guerrilla leader spent the tumultuous month of December 1913 running the state personally. He expropriated the largest landowners, turning over much of their property to his followers. But he was no wild-eyed Bolshevik. He protected the middle class and foreign property owners, and kept his troops firmly under control. After four weeks of surprisingly effective administration that sent his prestige soaring, Villa set off again to make war against the Hueristas.
In 1914, the Constitutionalists, with a little assist from the U.S. occupation of Veracruz, finally succeeded in toppling Huerta. But with victory in their grasp, the revolutionaries fell out among themselves, setting the stage for the greatest bloodletting of the entire civil war. The conflict pitted the peasant caudillos Zapata and Villa against the patrician Carranza. Villa and Zapata occupied Mexico City (the First Chief took refuge in Veracruz after the American evacuation), but they had little desire to govern the country themselves and before long evacuated the capital. In 1915 Villa’s División del Norte fought a series of four climactic battles against Carranza’s army, led by General Álvaro Obregón, a self-taught soldier with a genius for organization. Time after time, the overconfident Villa launched reckless frontal attacks on Obregón’s carefully prepared defenses, modeled with the help of German advisers on those of the Western Front in Europe. But horses were little use against machine guns, and the División del Norte was shattered in the ensuing slaughter. At the beginning of 1915, Villa had commanded some 40,000 to 100,000 men organized in a regular army with infantry, cavalry, and artillery. By year’s end he was left with no more than a few hundred guerrillas.
This was not the only transformation Villa underwent that year. At one time, he had been the most pro-American of all the major Mexican revolutionaries. Unlike Carranza, he did not protest Woodrow Wilson’s occupation of Veracruz; Villa told his followers, “It is Huerta’s bull that is being gored.” Many Americans, especially those of a liberal bent, in turn admired Villa. The journalist John Reed dubbed him the “Mexican Robin Hood” and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan described him as “a Sir Galahad.” Hollywood even glamorized him in a movie filmed on location with Villa’s cooperation. But then the gringos turned on Villa. President Wilson decided that the U.S. had to have stability south of the border, and the man most likely to deliver it was Venustiano Carranza, notwithstanding his well-advertised antipathy to the U.S. On October 19, 1915, Wilson extended de facto recognition to the Carranza government and placed an embargo on all arms shipments to anti-Carrancista forces.
Two weeks later, on November 1, 1915, Villa’s forces attacked Agua Prieta, in the state of Sonora, just across the border from Douglas, Arizona. Villa thought that this isolated Carrancista garrison would be easy picking. He was dismayed to find a powerful force entrenched behind barbed wire and machine gun nests. His men were repulsed with heavy losses. He later learned that President Wilson had allowed the Carrancistas to move reinforcements into Agua Prieta across U.S. territory. Pancho Villa began to focus his formidable faculty for hatred on the Colossus of the North.
As usual, Villa’s rage found murderous expression. On January 10, 1916, a band of Villistas stopped a train near the town of Santa Isabel, Chihuahua. They robbed all the passengers but did not harm the Mexicans. Seventeen American mining engineers aboard the train were executed. Less than two months later came the raid on Columbus.
Villa’s reasons for the attack remain mysterious. Multiple explanations have been mooted: He was driven by irrational hatred of Americans; he was trying to punish Sam Ravel, owner of Columbus’s Commercial Hotel, to whom he had given money to buy arms that had never been delivered; he was hoping to steal war supplies and loot from Columbus; he was a pawn in a German conspiracy to provoke a war between the U.S. and Mexico (there is evidence that such a German plot did exist, but no evidence that it influenced Villa’s actions). There is probably some truth in most of these explanations, but his foremost biographer, Friedrich Katz, argues that Villa’s dominant motive may have been more cunning: He apparently wanted to provoke the U.S. into a limited intervention. Villa figured that such an incursion would discredit the Carranza regime just as the occupation of Veracruz had discredited Huerta, and allow Villa to rally patriotic sentiment to his side. As a captured Villista officer told an Irish correspondent, Villa “said he wanted to make some attempts to get intervention from the gringos before they were ready and while we still had time to become a nation.”
If this was Villa’s intent, the attack worked as planned.
“In Pursuit”
News of the Columbus raid was flashed across the country almost immediately by an Associated Press correspondent who happened to be in town. Woodrow Wilson heard about it late on the morning of March 9, 1916. The president was reluctant to intervene in Mexico, for he did not want the U.S. distracted with a German threat looming, but he realized that this was an election year and the public would demand a strong response to this violation of American soil. Accordingly, Wilson announced that an army expedition “will be sent at once in pursuit of Villa with the single object of capturing him and putting a stop to his forays.”
This public statement from the president was to cause considerable confusion about the actual mission of the expedition. When the newly installed Secretary of War Newton Baker relayed this order to the army, the army chief of staff, grizzled old Major General Hugh Scott, asked him, “Mr. Secretary, do you want the United States to make war on one man? Suppose he should get into a train and go to Guatemala, Yucatan, or South America; are you going to go after him?”
“Well, no, I am not.”
“That is not what you want then,” General Scott explained. “You want his band captured or destroyed.”
“Yes, that is what I really want.”
Accordingly the orders sent to Major General Frederick Funston, commander of the army’s Southern Department, specified that the expedition’s mission “will be regarded as finished as soon as Villa’s band or bands are known to be broken up.” But the public remained under the impression that the expedition’s goal was, as the Hearst papers screamed, GET VILLA ALIVE OR DEAD—a considerably more difficult task.
To give an air of legality to this invasion of another country, President Wilson invoked an old U.S.-Mexico treaty that gave each side the right of “hot pursuit” into each other’s territory on the trail of bandits. First Chief Carranza agreed to allow American troops to enter Mexican territory as long as the United States would agree to let Mexican troops enter U.S. territory in a similar situation in the future. Despite this tentative agreement, there was considerable risk that the American incursion could trigger a second war with Mexico. The Punitive Expedition accordingly needed a leader with tact to match his military skills. “Fighting Fred” Funston, the hot-blooded Philippine War hero, was out. The man selected for this delicate mission was a 55-year-old, ramrod-straight brigadier general popularly known as “Black Jack.”
Pershing
John J. Pershing was born in rural Missouri in 1860 of what he described as “upstanding, though humble, European stock.” His earliest memories were of the Civil War. Young Jack, son of a stalwart Unionist store owner, worshipped the bluecoats who rode through town, but he would probably never have joined their ranks if it had not been for the Panic of 1873, which wiped out his father’s business. The only way Jack could afford to attend college was to win a position at West Point. His academic record at the Point was mediocre—he finished thirtieth out of a class of 71. But his soldierly bearing and leadership qualities were unsurpassed. He became first captain of the Corps of Cadets, the same post that Robert E. Lee held before him and that Douglas MacArthur would hold after him.
Upon graduation in 1886, 2nd Lieutenant Pershing was assigned to the 6th Cavalry at Fort Bayard, New Mexico. This provided him with a good introduction to the Old Army, 25,000 Indian-fighting, whisky-drinking, poker-playing, expletive-spewing men scattered in dusty outposts along the Western frontier. The officer ranks were still dominated by graying Civil War veterans. The era of the Old Army, designed for constabulary work in Indian territory, was drawing to a close. Young Pershing got to participate in its last campaigns, first against the Apaches and then against the Sioux Ghost Dancers in 1890.
In the next few years Pershing shuttled through a number of assignments, including a stint with the 10th Cavalry, a unit whose enlisted men were black, before winding up as an instructor at his alma mater. His martinet manner so grated on the cadets that they called him “Nigger Jack”—a nickname that stuck, though it was later softened to a more genteel “Black Jack.” When the Spanish-American War broke out, Pershing wrangled an assignment back with the “Buffalo Soldiers” of the 10th Cavalry and helped storm San Juan Hill. A commanding officer said he was “cool as a bowl of cracked ice” under fire.
Afterward he was assigned to the Philippines, and it was here that Jack Pershing made a name for himself. He was sent to the island of Mindanao, populated by Muslim Moros who had never really been subdued by the Spanish. The Moros still practiced polygamy and slavery and fiercely defended their way of life, even unto death, with suicidal charges with razor-sharp weapons known as the kris and barong. Captain Pershing preferred to win over the Moros with outstretched hand rather than mailed fist. So successful was his campaign that he was made a datto, or chieftain. When he left the Philippines in 1903, suffering from malaria, he was already one of the most famous officers in the army.
Pershing was 45 years old, and though he had a reputation as a ladies’ man and a fine dancer, he had never been married. In his next posting, Washington, he met an enchanting, if plain-looking, 25-year-old woman named Helen Frances Warren, who happened to be the daughter of Francis Warren, not only the richest man in Wyoming but also chairman of the Senate’s Military Affairs Committee. Jack fell in love with “Frankie” at first sight. They were married in 1905 at a ceremony attended by Theodore Roosevelt, who pronounced it a “bully match.”
The next year, Black Jack received a belated wedding present. President Roosevelt promoted him straight from captain to brigadier general over the heads of 862 more senior officers. Roosevelt explained that it was the only way he could reward merit; in those days all promotions short of general officer rank had to be done on strict seniority. But seeing the son-in-law of a powerful senator promoted out of turn caused no end of resentment in the officer corps. It even led to the publication of rumors, adamantly denied by Pershing, that he had fathered children out of wedlock with a Filipino woman while serving in the archipelago. His young bride stood by the newly minted general, and he survived the storm.
Brigadier General Pershing was sent back to the Philippines in 1907, where he became commander of the Department of Mindanao and civil governor of Moro Province, giving him dictatorial authority over 500,000 people. He spent five happy years mainly preoccupied with the tasks of civil administration. When military action was called for, he showed himself capable of acting with restraint. He stormed one Moro stronghold with a loss of only a dozen Moro lives. His predecessor, General Leonard Wood, the old Rough Rider, had accomplished the same feat only by killing hundreds of men, women, and children.
The Pershings, who by now had four children, left the Philippines in 1914 and set up house at the Presidio near San Francisco. Pershing was in command of the 8th Brigade, which was soon transferred to Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas, because of growing unrest in northern Mexico. His family stayed behind at the Presidio.
Before dawn on August 27, 1915, the phone rang at Pershing’s Fort Bliss headquarters. The general picked it up himself. It was an Associated Press correspondent calling with news of a fire at the Presidio. “Oh, God!” Pershing cried. “My God! My God! Can it be true?”
Earlier that morning, a blaze had broken out in the general’s home. In the flames and smoke, Pershing’s 35-year-old wife and his three young girls, the oldest only eight, were killed. Only his six-year-old son, Warren, survived.
Pershing—who had once written to his wife, “I cannot live without you. And I shall not try. It is only half a life. It’s so incomplete, so aimless”—cried in anguish as he journeyed to San Francisco to bury his family. Though he soon resumed his stony facade, his grief was almost unbearable. He was still plagued by loneliness and melancholy when, seven months later, he received orders to organize an expedition into Mexico.
Hard Riding
Trying to bury himself in his work, the general wasted no time. At noon on March 15, six days after the Columbus raid, an army column crossed into Mexico from Columbus, with Major Frank Tompkins, who had earlier pursued the Villistas, given a position of honor in the lead. Just after midnight, another column crossed over the border from Culberson’s Ranch, New Mexico, this one led personally by Black Jack Pershing on horseback. The two columns were supposed to meet at Colonia Dublan, a Mormon colony 85 miles south of the border, and then fan out in search of Pancho Villa. On its face it appeared to be a hopeless task: Pershing initially had only 4,800 men (his force would eventually exceed 12,000 men) to search the state of Chihuahua, 94,000 square miles of rough, arid land that Villa knew intimately. The Americans, by contrast, did not even have adequate maps.
They found it tough going. The days in the desert were broiling, the nights freezing. The War Department had not equipped the men properly; nobody seemed to have realized that they would need warm coats in this “tropical” climate. It had not rained for nine months, so dust was everywhere, often kicked up by sandstorms. “Disagreeable, dusty march,” noted one major. A sergeant wrote that “dust hung over the road like a curtain. The alkali got in our eyes and down our throats, it sifted into our shoes and through our clothing.”
The striking arm of the expedition was its four cavalry regiments—the 7th, 10th, 11th, and 13th Cavalry. Also along were two infantry regiments (the 6th and 16th), mainly to protect supply lines. Extra firepower was provided by the 6th Field Artillery with its eight Vickers-Maxim mountain guns. Once at Colonia Dublan, Pershing unleashed his cavalry in a series of “flying columns” cut off from supply trains. He was using essentially the same tactics and over the same ground that his army precursors had used in pursuit of Apaches.
Pershing pushed his commanders mercilessly, and they in turn pushed their men to the edge of endurance. Colonel George A. Dodd, an indefatigable, cigar-chomping 63-year-old who had spent his career chasing Indians, marched the 7th Cavalry—Custer’s old outfit—400 miles over 14 days. This despite low rations and difficult conditions. Along the way, Dodd got information that Villa was camped 230 miles south of Columbus in the small town of Guerrero, where the Mexican warlord had defeated a Carrancista garrison on March 27. The 7th Cavalry’s 370 officers and men picked their way gingerly over icy trails through the Sierra Madre mountains, but, misled by unhelpful Mexican guides, did not find the most direct route to Guerrero. It was not until 8 A.M. on March 29 that Dodd, after riding all night, could begin his attack. His troopers charged into town. Many of the Villistas escaped into the mountains but 56 were killed, including one of Villa’s generals, and 35 wounded. Only five Americans were wounded, none killed.
At first blush, the battle of Guerrero looked like a triumph for the Yanks, but later it was seen as a disappointment. For Pancho Villa had almost certainly been in Guerrero just before the 7th Cavalry entered. He had received a nasty leg wound during his battle against the Carrancista garrison a few days earlier (some said it was one of his own men who shot him). If the 7th had not been misled, probably deliberately, by its guides, it could have captured Villa and ended the Punitive Expedition in triumph after only a week. As it was, Villa and some 150 men escaped from Guerrero. Villa lay up for two months thereafter, hiding in a well-concealed cave high in the Sierra Madres while his leg healed. One day he was able to watch some of Pershing’s troopers ride by in the valley below. He even claimed to have heard them singing, “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” The Punitive Expedition never got close to him again, though not for lack of effort.
Planes, Trains, Automobiles
It is hard to exaggerate the difficulties encountered by the various columns as they embarked on some of the fastest and longest marches ever recorded by the U.S. cavalry. “I have been in three wars, and for unmitigated hardship, the Punitive Expedition was the worst of all,” one veteran wrote years later.
The flying columns, by definition, could not take with them more than what the men could carry on their backs. They lived on bacon, hardtack, coffee, and sugar for days on end. Orders from Washington forbade them from seizing supplies from the locals, and the cavalry columns were not given money to purchase supplies, forcing many of the officers to dip into their own pockets to buy provisions for their men. The peons were amazed to find an army actually paying for its supplies; this was quite a change from the normal practice of the warlords who had ravaged northern Mexico.
The logistics of the widening search became a monumental headache for Pershing. First Chief Carranza officially denied permission to the Punitive Expedition to use the Mexican national railroad, and President Wilson denied permission to seize it. Some supplies were shipped via the railroad anyway—Carranza turned a blind eye to shipments addressed to civilians in the area—but to supplement this the army for the first time called on motorized transport. There were not enough trucks in army hands to do the job, so General Hugh Scott, the chief of staff, dispatched purchasing agents across the country to buy what they could. He then informed Secretary of War Newton Baker what he had done: “You will have to use your good offices with the President, Mr. Secretary, to keep me out of jail. . . . I had just expended $450,000 of public money that had not been appropriated by Congress, which was a penitentiary offense.”
“Ho!” replied Baker. “That’s nothing! If anybody goes to jail I’ll be the man—I’ll go to jail for everybody.”
Thanks to Scott’s initiative, a motley collection of vehicles streamed into Columbus. There were White and Jeffrey Quad trucks and all manner of cars—Dodges, Fords, Chevys, Studebakers. But while the army had lots of experts in shoeing horses, maintaining saddles, and all the other requirements of animal transportation, it had precious few mechanics. Just about the only soldiers who knew anything about engines were members of the 1st Aero Squadron. Before long they went from maintaining airplanes to maintaining trucks.
The airplane contingent—the first the U.S. had ever deployed—proved a bust otherwise. The 1st Aero Squadron, attached to the Signal Corps, was commanded by Captain Benjamin Foulois, a 34-year-old aviation enthusiast who had been taught by Orville Wright himself. Though he and his men were fine fliers, their equipment was inferior. Their eight Curtiss JN–2 Wright planes, dubbed Jennies, were dangerously unstable except in completely calm air. Unfortunately, 50 miles south of Columbus began the Sierra Madre Mountains, with peaks as high as 12,000 feet. The Jennies could not get beyond the foothills because of strong wind currents. In any case, the Jennies, unlike European warplanes, were not equipped with machine guns, so the only purpose they served for Pershing was to deliver messages to his scattered units. But after just one month’s operation, all of the Jennies were out of service, and replacements did not arrive in time to be of any use.
Lacking good radio equipment, Pershing had little choice but to command from the front. At Colonia Dublan, Black Jack rented a Dodge touring car that became his traveling headquarters. He traveled south with a staff officer or two, a clerk, an orderly, and a cook; sometimes some riflemen would accompany him, sometimes not. Trailing behind were two cars filled with American war correspondents. On March 29, 1916, this small party reached San Geronimo Ranch, almost 200 miles south of the border and 7,500 feet up in the Sierra Madres. Here they camped out. “The wind-driven sand and snow cut like a knife,” wrote Frank B. Elser of the New York Times. “The horses stood miserable and dejected at the picket lines like cattle drifting before a blizzard. Pershing had no tent, no table, not even a folding chair.”
This headquarters was not only uncomfortable but dangerous—as became evident when 200 Carrancista cavalrymen galloped into camp. If they had been so inclined, they could easily have captured the commander of the Punitive Expedition. But Pershing managed to parley with them and convinced them to go on their way. He thought it was just like dealing with Moros.
Parral
Major Frank Tompkins, who had already shown his mettle in pursuing the Villista raiders out of Columbus, sought out Pershing at San Geronimo Ranch and asked for permission to take two troops of the 13th Cavalry on a lightning-fast strike deep into Mexico. The general agreed, and Tompkins’s 100 men made fast time, covering 85 miles in 50 wearying hours. “We were rapidly losing all outward resemblance to regular troops,” Tompkins wrote. “We were ragged, shoes almost gone and nearly everyone had a beard. We certainly presented a hard-boiled, savage appearance.” The men were looking forward to resting a little in the town of Parral (population 20,000), where they would be welcomed—or so they were informed by a Carrancista officer they met on the way.
But when the 13th Cavalry reached Parral just after noon on April 12, 1916, they found the reception far from friendly. Major Tompkins was ushered into the office of General Ismael Lozano, a Constitutionalist officer who told him that he should never have entered the town and demanded that he leave at once. As Tompkins led his men out of town, they were pursued by a large crowd shouting “Viva Villa” and “Viva Mexico.” Tompkins drew a laugh by shouting “Viva Villa” back at them.
Outside Parral, Carrancista soldiers began firing on the retreating Americans. A sergeant standing next to Tompkins was hit and killed. The major dismounted a rear guard and had them take up position on a small hill. From here they let loose accurate rifle fire, killing an estimated 25 of their pursuers. Then the troopers set off again, until they had to make their next stand, killing another 45 Mexicans. The running battle, during which two Americans were killed and six wounded (including Tompkins), continued late into the afternoon, until the Americans finally marched into the fortified village of Santa Cruz de Villegas, eight miles from Parral. Although they had found temporary shelter, the situation still looked grim—about 100 American troopers were surrounded by 500 to 600 Carrancistas.
Tompkins sent out scouts to find reinforcements. One of his troopers located a squadron of the 10th Cavalry a few miles away. The 10th Cavalry had scattered about 150 Villistas in the village of Agua Caliente (not far from Guerrero) on April 1 and had been moving south at a somewhat slower pace. Now Major Charles Young, one of the few black officers in the army, spurred his Buffalo Soldiers toward Santa Cruz. They arrived just before 8 P.M. on April 12.
Tompkins was so elated that he shouted, “I could kiss every one of you.”
“Hello Tompkins!” Young grinned. “You can start in on me right away.”
Though no one knew it at the time, the battle at Parral was a turning point: It marked the Punitive Expedition’s furthest penetration into Mexico, 516 miles, and the first time Americans had clashed with Carrancistas. Though there would be more battles to fight, the expedition would now begin a slow-motion pullout from Mexico.
Pershing was camping in a cornfield near Satevo two days later when he heard about what had happened 80 miles south at Parral. “He was mad as hell,” according to Frank Elser of the New York Times, and demanded that the Mexican government punish the instigators of the attack. No apology was forthcoming. Pershing now realized the magnitude of the task before him: He would have to deal not only with hostile Villistas but with much more numerous Carrancistas. “It is very probable that the real object of our mission to Mexico can only be attained after an arduous campaign of considerable length,” Pershing wrote to his commanding officer, General Frederick Funston. As a first step he asked for permission to seize the “City and State of Chihuahua” and “all railroads therein.”
This was of a piece with the army’s traditional, all-or-nothing approach to warfare; army officers seldom had much patience for limited interventions. But President Wilson, who was keeping an uneasy eye on the war raging across the Atlantic, refused to order a full-scale invasion and occupation of Mexico. Nor did he simply withdraw the expedition. Instead, he wanted Pershing to consolidate his forces near Colonia Dublan, so as to lessen the risk of hostilities with the Mexican government but maintain pressure on the Villistas.
Pershing was loath to give up the chase so soon (“it would have been considered by the Mexicans a positive defeat”) and won permission to retreat north at a snail’s pace. As a first step, he moved his traveling HQ to Namiquipa, about 180 miles north of Parral and 90 miles south of Colonia Dublan.
Patton
Meanwhile the pursuit of the Villistas continued. On April 22, Colonel George Dodd led his 7th Cavalry into the small village of Tomochic and scattered some Villistas, killing 30. The 11th Cavalry, under Colonel Robert Howze, attacked Villista bands on April 11 in the town of Santa Cruz de Herra, on May 4 in Cusihuiriachic, and on May 5 in Ojos Azules. This last engagement was the greatest American success of the campaign. The cavalry troopers caught the Villistas with their pants down—literally. The Mexicans were still asleep when the cavalry charged into their camp. In a two-hour running fight, 61 Villistas were killed; there were no American deaths.
An even more improbable success was achieved by one of the junior members of Pershing’s staff. George S. Patton Jr., a 30-year-old 2nd lieutenant who was one of the richest officers in the army, had wangled an appointment as one of Pershing’s aides. (It did not hurt that the newly widowed general was sweet on Patton’s 29-year-old sister, Nita.) While the Punitive Expedition’s headquarters was at Namiquipa, Patton was sent with 10 soldiers from the 6th Infantry and two civilian guides to buy corn for the men. The enterprising young officer decided to make a detour to visit the San Miguelito Ranch owned by one of Villa’s most trusted generals, Julio Cárdenas.
The Americans drove up around noon on May 14, 1916, in three Dodge touring cars. Patton deployed the vehicles and his riflemen to block the exits to the hacienda, then boldly walked up to the front door of the house, accompanied only by his interpreter and a corporal. Just as they were approaching, the hacienda doors swung open and three horsemen galloped out. They tried to escape, but seeing the exits blocked, they turned around and headed for Patton, opening fire as they did so, their bullets kicking up gravel around his feet. Patton, known as a crack shot, leveled his ivory-handled Colt .45 revolver and with several shots knocked one of the Mexicans off his horse. A general shootout ensued during which all three Mexicans were killed.
It later turned out that the horseman Patton had shot was none other than General Cárdenas. The other two Mexicans were his subordinates in Villa’s army. Patton had the three corpses lashed like deer to the fenders of his cars and drove back to camp with his trophies. His reward came with a promotion to 1st lieutenant and Pershing’s affectionate description of him as “my bandit.”
Another of Villa’s generals, Candelario Cervantes, who was said to have personally led the attack on Columbus, New Mexico, was killed when he and some of his men stumbled into a gunfight with a small U.S. Army party on a mapping expedition.
Mobilization
All these victories—the slaughter at Ojos Azules, the deaths of the two generals—did little to change the larger picture, which was hardly favorable to Pershing’s expedition. The expedition’s prime goal was to protect American territory, but Mexican attacks into the U.S. had not ceased. On May 5 and 6, 1916, Mexican gunmen attacked the border towns of Glenn Springs and Boquillas, Texas. Similar forays took place on June 10 and June 15. Several Americans were killed and kidnapped in these attacks. The raiders were never positively identified, but rumor had it that there was a connection between these attacks and a fantastic document, the Plan of San Diego, drawn up by some Mexican conspirators who wanted to start a rebellion in the American Southwest that would return to Mexico the territory it had lost in the 1840s. As news of the attacks and the Plan of San Diego spread, alarmed southwesterners screamed for more protection from Washington.
Tensions were running high between the American and Mexican governments. General Hugh Scott met with General Álvaro Obregón on April 30, 1916, to try to reach an agreement over the course of Pershing’s expedition, but the talks were repudiated by the Carranza government. A couple of weeks later, General Jacinto B. Trevino, commander of the Carrancista garrison at Chihuahua City, telegrammed Pershing that he had orders “to prevent the American forces that are in this state from moving to the south, east, or west of the places they now occupy. . . . Your forces will be attacked by the Mexican forces if these indications are not heeded.” Black Jack testily replied, “I shall . . . use my own judgment as to when and in what direction I shall move my forces.” Similarly bellicose exchanges were taking place between Mexico City and Washington.
President Wilson was alarmed enough to mobilize the National Guard. By the end of July 1916, 112,000 guardsmen were assembled along the southern frontier. War seemed to be imminent.
Carrizal
Under the circumstances Pershing decided to consolidate his command around Colonia Dublan, rather than risk having his scattered forces wiped out by the Mexican army. The general figured that his expedition, now numbering some 10,000 men, would be strong enough to beat off any attack, but he was nonetheless eager for information on Mexican army movements. On June 17, 1916, Pershing summoned Captain Charles T. Boyd and told him to take Troop C of the 10th Cavalry on a reconnaissance mission 75 miles to the south. He knew that sending any units south, in violation of General Trevino’s warning, might spark hostilities, but he instructed Boyd “to avoid a fight if possible.” Pershing had faith that the captain, a West Pointer with 20 years’ experience in the army, would be the right man for this delicate mission.
Boyd set out at once. Along the way he linked up with Troop K of the 10th Cavalry, another African-American unit. As the senior officer present, Boyd assumed command of the combined force of 79 enlisted men, two civilian guides, and three officers. On the morning of June 21, the Americans reached the village of Carrizal and found some 400 Carrancista soldiers drawn up in battle formation. There was no good reason not to bypass the town, and that is precisely what Boyd’s civilian guides advised, but for some mysterious reason Boyd insisted on going through it. He was not deterred even when the Mexican general commanding the Carrizal garrison informed him that if he advanced “he would have to walk over the dead bodies of Mexican soldiers.” Boyd was said to have instructed a messenger, “Tell the son of a bitch that we’re going through!”
Boyd dismounted his cavalry and ordered them to advance across a grassy field toward an irrigation ditch where the vastly superior Mexican force was dug in. When the Americans were about 250 yards from their position, the Carrancistas opened fire with rifles and a machine gun. Nearly all the men in Troop C were wounded. The Buffalo Soldiers fought bravely, but with bullets “falling like rain,” and their own ammunition running out, they had no chance of prevailing. All the officers, including Captain Boyd, were killed quickly. The troopers, left leaderless, were routed by Mexican cavalry. Twelve Americans were killed that day, 10 wounded, and 24 captured. The rest ran away. The Mexicans lost more men—at least 30 killed, 40 wounded—but the battle of Carrizal was an unmitigated disaster for the U.S. Army.
War fever was already raging in the U.S. and Mexico—generals of both armies were eager to attack each other—and the battle of Carrizal might have been expected to provide a casus belli. It did not happen, for both President Wilson and First Chief Carranza kept cool heads. Neither wanted war, Carranza because he feared he would lose, Wilson because he did not want to be distracted while U.S. intervention in the European war was looking increasingly likely. When Wilson demanded the release of the American prisoners taken at Carrizal, Carranza was quick to comply. Twenty-four “ragged and gaunt” troopers were released at El Paso, Texas, just eight days after the battle. Tempers cooled further in the U.S. when survivors of the battle blamed Captain Boyd for provoking the hostilities, in apparent violation of General Pershing’s orders. The battle of Carrizal resulted not in a war but in protracted negotiations between representatives of the Mexican and U.S. governments. These talks did not produce an agreement, but as Winston Churchill later remarked, “jaw jaw is better than war war.”
“Sitting Here”
The battle of Carrizal represented the last fighting that would be done by the Punitive Expedition—although it was not quite the last American attempt to “get” Pancho Villa. In September 1916, the head of Pershing’s intelligence department recruited some Japanese living in Mexico in an attempt to poison Villa’s coffee. Like most assassination plots hatched by the U.S. government, this one ended in failure and coverup. More conventional military means were ruled out because Wilson did not want to risk another Carrizal. But the president did not want to simply withdraw the expedition because he figured that its presence in Mexico would be an added inducement for the Carrancistas to hunt down Villa. (In fact, the First Chief needed no encouragement to pursue his mortal enemy.) The upshot was that the Punitive Expedition spent more than half a year—from July 1916 to January 1917—doing little while bivouacked mainly around Colonia Dublan, about 85 miles south of Columbus, New Mexico.
“The camp was most uncomfortable,” complained Major Frank Tompkins, “due to the high winds, frequent dust storms, tropical heat of summer, freezing cold of winter, deep mud in the tropical downpours, and swarms of flies.” The men sought shelter in hastily erected adobe huts. There was little to do beyond the age-old soldiers’ occupations: athletics (principally baseball and boxing), drilling, drinking, gambling, and whoring. Pershing tried to look after the welfare of his men. He even reserved an enclosure—popularly known as the “Remount Station”—just for prostitutes. All the women were inspected for venereal disease, a uniform rate of $2 was established, and all men entering the premises were issued a prophylactic. This helped to dramatically reduce the rate of sexually transmitted diseases, a major concern in these pre-penicillin days. The hookers, for their part, were so grateful for this cozy arrangement that they cooked Thanksgiving dinner for the men. Christmas dinner was less inviting: Big sides of beef were being slow-roasted over open fires when a sandstorm blew through camp, leaving all the meat inedible.
While 10,000 American soldiers were sitting in the middle of Chihuahua, their old nemesis was on the warpath not far away. Pancho Villa, after undergoing surgery on his leg without anesthetic, came out of his cave and assembled a fresh army. He prudently avoided attacking the Americans, instead concentrating his energies on the Carrancistas. His renewed offensive got under way in early July 1916. In the following months he mauled a number of isolated outposts. In mid-September, he invaded Chihuahua City, freed all the government prisoners and spent over seven hours in the provincial capital before retreating.
Villa returned to attack Chihuahua City on Thanksgiving Day. After several days’ siege, the city fell and 2,000 men of the Carrancista garrison joined the rebel army (the alternative being execution on the spot). For a brief moment Pancho Villa was once again master of Chihuahua. He felt confident enough to issue a “Manifesto to the Nation” calling on all Mexicans to rally to his side to oppose twin evils: “the unjustified invasion by our eternal enemies, the barbarians of the North” and “the most corrupt Government we have ever had.”
Observing events from close by, Pershing ached to intervene. “I can but feel the embarrassment of sitting here while Villa is cavorting about only a few miles south of our position,” he wrote to his father-in-law on December 4, 1916. “A swift blow should be made at once against this pretender,” he urged his commander, General Funston, five days later. “Our own prestige in Mexico should receive consideration at this time. In the light of Villa’s operations during the past two weeks, further inactivity of this command does not seem desirable.” But the president refused to authorize any action. Many in the Punitive Expedition privately raged at Wilson’s caution. “He has not the soul of a louse nor the mind of a worm or the backbone of a jellyfish,” Lieutenant George S. Patton wrote to a friend, referring to the president of the United States.
Instead of pursuing Villa once again, the Punitive Expedition was finally ordered home in January 1917. On February 5, Pershing’s command—10,690 men, 9,307 horses—began crossing the border at Columbus, New Mexico. They were accompanied by 2,030 Mexicans and 533 Chinese seeking refuge from Villa’s wrath; the Chinese in particular had reason to be fearful because the xenophobic warlord had a habit of killing Chinese immigrants wherever he encountered them. Within three months, Black Jack Pershing would be headed to France, leading many of his veterans into a far bigger fight.
Aftermath
There is still considerable debate over whether, and to what extent, the Punitive Expedition was a success. Many historians suggest it was successful if only because it gave the army invaluable preparation for fighting in World War I. On this reckoning, the pursuit of Pancho Villa was to the army what the exhibition season is to the National Football League: an opportunity to prepare for real competition. There is some justice to this view. The army gained experience in using trucks, airplanes, machine guns, and other modern technologies, as well as in mobilizing, drilling, and maneuvering large bodies of troops. “When the command left Mexico it was probably more highly trained than any similar force of our army had ever been before,” wrote General Pershing.
The most obvious grounds for branding the Punitive Expedition a failure was its inability to capture Pancho Villa. In his own defense, Pershing could reply that this had never been his mission; his job was only to break up or destroy the Villista bands. How well did he accomplish this objective? The Punitive Expedition killed 135 Villistas, wounded 85, captured 19. This was enough for many historians, and General Pershing himself, to label the expedition a success. There is little doubt that, as called for in Pershing’s original orders, Villa’s bands had indeed been “broken up.” But only temporarily.
In the fall of 1916 Villa staged a remarkable resurgence. When Pershing entered Mexico, Villa had no more than 400 demoralized men. When he left, Villa had some 5,000 confident fighters and was more powerful than at any time since early 1915. Moreover, his resurgence may be attributed, at least in part, to his skill at playing on nationalist resentment of the armed gringos in their midst.
Villa’s success was short-lived—but it was not the Punitive Expedition that would bring him down. Starting in early January 1917, a large Constitutionalist army engaged in a running series of battles with the Villistas. By April 1917, General José Murguia had repeatedly battered Villa and broken his power once again. But Pancho Villa had more lives than a cat. He mounted yet another comeback in 1919.
Just after midnight on June 14–15, 1919, some 1,200 Villistas attacked the Carrancista garrison at Juárez. By the next night, stray shots from the battle had killed and wounded some Americans in next-door El Paso, Texas. Brigadier General James B. Erwin, in command at Fort Bliss, Texas, decided to cross the border and disperse the Villistas. His artillery bombarded the Juárez racetrack, where the Villistas were concentrated, killing many of them. Then Colonel S.R.H. “Tommy” Tompkins—older brother of Major Frank Tompkins and himself a veteran of the Punitive Expedition—led the 2nd Cavalry Brigade (composed of units from the 7th and 5th Cavalry Regiments) across the Rio Grande just south of Juárez. At the same time, infantrymen from the 24th Infantry Regiment poured into Juárez across the Santa Fe Street bridge. Caught in a pincer movement, the Villistas “scattered like quail,” in Tompkins’s words. The U.S. troops immediately returned to American soil.
Francisco Villa would never raise another substantial fighting force. In 1920 he retired from politics and accepted the government’s offer of a 500,000-peso yearly pension and a spacious hacienda. The great revolutionary who had once challenged the power of the hacendados became one himself, but not for long. Too dangerous to the government to remain alive, Villa was gunned down in 1923. Virtually all the other major revolutionary figures suffered a similarly violent end. Zapata was killed in 1919, Carranza the following year. The survivor was the one-armed general Álvaro Obregón, who in 1920 became the new president of Mexico, the last to take power by force. (It was his government that was responsible for Villa’s death.) The Mexican Revolution, which from 1910 to 1920 ravaged vast stretches of the countryside and resulted in a million deaths, was over. Its lasting legacy was the paradoxically named Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party), which ruled without interruption until 2000.
Pershing capped his triumphant command of the American Expeditionary Force in France with promotion to “general of the armies”—the first and last in U.S. history. He served a stint as army chief of staff, provided useful advice to America’s military leaders in World War II, and died at age 87 at Walter Reed Army Hospital in 1948. The old cavalryman who had once chased Geronimo lived long enough to see the dropping of an atomic bomb. Major General Frederick Funston was not so lucky. He died of a heart attack on February 19, 1917, just weeks after the Punitive Expedition ended. Had he lived, the command of U.S. forces in France might have gone to him, not Pershing.
Pershing might never have won his starring role in World War I if, unlike MacArthur during the Korean War, he had not kept quiet in public about what he saw as the ineptitude of his political masters. But in private he seethed about the unsatisfying outcome of the Punitive Expedition, which he blamed on the restrictions imposed by President Wilson. “Having dashed into Mexico with the intention of eating the Mexicans raw,” Pershing wrote to his father-in-law, Senator Francis Warren, in early 1917, “we turn back at the very first repulse and are now sneaking home under cover like a whipped cur with his tail between his legs.” Many years later, in the twilight of his life, the old general revised his opinion and concluded that “the policy of the Commander-in-Chief with regard to Mexico . . . was substantially right” after all, because “the country did not want war with the neighboring state.”
Stephen Decatur, one of America’s early naval heroes (lower right), locked in combat with a Tripolitan captain in 1804. Note the sailor interposing his head to block a scimitar chop aimed at his commander. Early accounts credited Reuben James, but it was probably Daniel Frazier. (Library of Congress)
Burning of the U.S. frigate Philadelphia, Tripoli harbor, 1804. Admiral Nelson called Decatur’s raid to destroy this captured warship “the most bold and daring act of the age.” (Library of Congress)
Edward Preble, the most offensive-minded of the commodores dispatched by President Jefferson to wage undeclared war against the Barbary Pirates. His proteges, “Preble’s Boys,” would go on to greater glory in the War of 1812. (Naval Institute)
David Porter, one of Preble’s Boys, in 1813 tried to claim the Marquesa Islands in the South Pacific as America’s first overseas possessions—and wound up in the middle of brutal tribal warfare. He was the prototype of the nineteenth century naval officer: imperious, hot-blooded, quick to take offense, and, above all, brave. (Naval Institute)
Porter’s sketch of a warrior he encountered in the Marquesas, where head-to-toe tattooing was customary for the men. He belongs to the Taaeh tribe, Porter’s allies in fighting the fierce Typees. (Naval Institute)
Bombardment of Quallah Battoo, 1832. After the plundering of an American merchant ship engaged in the pepper trade, President Andrew Jackson dispatched a warship to remote Sumatra to seek revenge. This was typical of the missions the navy undertook during the nineteenth century. (Naval Institute)
Marines guarding the U.S. consulate, Samoa, 1899. Anglo-American troops fought German-sponsored tribesmen to put their own candidate on the island’s throne. Washington wound up annexing one of the Samoan islands. (Naval Institute)
Boxers on the march. In the summer of 1900, this mystical sect rampaged through north China, killing foreigners (first class devils) and native Christians (second class devils). (Library of Congress)
An American cavalryman and two British Sikh soldiers near a dead Boxer. To rescue diplomats besieged in Peking, a multinational expedition had to make a suffocating march through cornfields ten to fifteen feet high. (National Archives)
Ninth U.S. Infantry camped in the Forbidden City. After liberating the legations, foreign troops occupied Peking. Some of them, especially the Germans, committed atrocities against innocent Chinese. (Library of Congress)
U.S. troops in the Philippines meet civilians. An unforeseen outcome of the Spanish-American War, President McKinley’s annexation of the Philippines in 1899 led to armed resistance from Filipinos who wanted independence. The U.S. Army pacified the islands with a combination of policies designed to win popular support and punish insurrectos. (Library of Congress)
Marine Major Littleton W. T. Waller led a campaign to turn the Philippine island of Samar into a “howling wilderness” in revenge for the massacre of an army infantry company. He wound up being court-martialed for brutality. (National Archives)
Emilio Aguinaldo, leader of the Philippine independence movement. He fought first the Spanish and then the Americans. He made the mistake of trying to match the U.S. in conventional warfare before resorting to guerrilla tactics. (Library of Congress)
Army officer Frederick Funston led a daring commando raid, employing native troops disguised as insurrectos, to capture Aguinaldo in his remote jungle hideaway. He was one of the few American heroes to emerge from this inglorious war. (Library of Congress)
Horse-drawn artillery, Veracruz, 1914. Woodrow Wilson ordered the port occupied in an attempt to topple Mexico’s dictator. The military high command wanted to march on Mexico City, as called for in their war plans, but the president restrained them. (National Archives)
A U.S. Marine in full field pack, preparing to go ashore at Veracruz. The marines proved much more adroit at street-fighting than U.S. sailors did. (National Archives)
Smedley Butler, “the Fighting Quaker,” played a prominent role in every small war fought by the marines between 1898 and 1929. After winning two Medals of Honor and retiring as a major general, he became one of the country’s most outspoken pacifists and anti-imperialists. This picture was taken when he was a major. (Library of Congress)
A marine sentry in Cuba, 1919. U.S. troops landed repeatedly in Cuba in the first three decades of the twentieth century. The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine committed the U.S. to policing the Caribbean and Central America. (National Archives)
Marines on a firing line in the Dominican Republic, 1916. Woodrow Wilson occupied the island of Hispaniola as part of an effort “to teach the South American republics to elect good men.” (National Archives)
A marine (foreground) drills native recruits of the Dominican National Guard. The U.S. set up similar units in many of the countries it occupied. They were supposed to be apolitical, but often plunged into politics after American officers were withdrawn. (National Archives)
Two marines with a caco prisoner. The cacos—mercenaries and part-time bandits—had been overthrowing Haitian governments at the rate of more than one a year when marines occupied the country in 1915. The cacos tried to challenge the marines but were swiftly suppressed in a virtuoso display of counterinsurgency warfare. (National Archives)
Marine patrol, Haiti, 1919. In fighting small wars, marines learned to rely on small-unit patrols, eschewing the kind of big-unit tactics that the army later employed in Vietnam. (National Archives)
Francisco “Pancho” Villa, originally a bandit, rose to become one of the leading figures in the Mexican revolution that broke out in 1911. His eyes, an observer said, were “gimlets which seem to bore into your very soul.” (Library of Congress)
Villa’s 1916 attack left much of Columbus, New Mexico, in ashes. Although the small U.S. garrison was caught by surprise, the troops quickly rallied and drove off the pistoleros. (National Archives)
General John J. Pershing personally led more than 10,000 U.S. soldiers deep into Mexico in pursuit of Villa and his band. The punitive expedition almost sparked a second war between the U.S. and Mexico, but it was good training for World War I. (Library of Congress)
The army employed motorized transport in the field for the first time during the Pershing expedition. Small wars have often been a testing ground for new equipment and tactics. (National Archives)
Foreign troops on parade, Vladivostok, 1918. After the Bolsheviks seized power and took Russia out of the Great War, soldiers from the U.S., Japan, Britain, and other Allied nations were dispatched to north Russia and eastern Siberia. Tensions ran high in Siberia between American and Japanese forces. (National Archives)
Supply convoy, north Russia, January 1919. American troops spent a hard winter trying to beat back Bolshevik attacks in subzero temperatures. Their efforts were in vain. Britain and America sent just enough soldiers to allow Lenin to claim he was fighting foreign aggression—but not enough to win. (National Archives)
Augusto C. Sandino (in middle, with checked jacket), a Nicaraguan guerrilla leader, eluded U.S. Marines from 1927 to 1933. He became a hero to leftists around the world, but he never managed to capture a major city or disrupt elections held under U.S. supervision. (National Archives)
Sandino’s seal shows a Sandinista decapitating a prone Marine. Sandino, who changed his middle name to César from Calderon because of his admiration of Julius Caesar, had a flair for theatrical gestures. (National Archives)
Lewis “Chesty” Puller was one of the most decorated Marines of all time, a hero of World War II and the Korean War. He learned his trade battling Haitian and Nicaraguan guerrillas. This picture was taken when he was a second lieutenant. (National Archives)
A marine biplane in Nicaragua, next to the squadron mascot. The marines staged what may have been the first organized dive-bomb attack in history during a 1927 battle against the Sandinistas. (National Archives)
Marines guarding Shanghai. The U.S. military presence in China lasted roughly a century, ending in 1941. During the 1910s–1920s, U.S. soldiers helped defend Shanghai’s International Settlement from Chinese warlords and nationalists. In the 1930s, the threat came from Japanese invaders. (National Archives)
The Panay, a U.S. gunboat, was sunk in 1937 by Japanese warplanes near Nanking, China—an attack later seen as a harbinger of Pearl Harbor. It was the first Yangtze Patrol boat lost to enemy action. For the most part, U.S. soldiers in China accomplished their policing mission without killing or being killed. (National Archives)
A British warship signaling an American gunboat on the Yangtze River. The two navies worked together to protect foreign businesses and missionaries. During the Nationalist revolution of 1926–1928, many foreigners feared (prematurely) that China was about to go Red. (Naval Institute)
General William Westmoreland compiled a distinguished record in World War II. But nothing in his training or background prepared him for counterinsurgency warfare in Vietnam. (National Archives)
Big-unit “search and destroy” raids were a main focus of the U.S. effort in Vietnam. But even with the use of “vertical envelopment” tactics, seen here, they usually failed to pin down the elusive Vietcong guerrillas. (National Archives)
The key to pacifying the countryside lay with the South Vietnamese militia, such as this village guard. But most American officials—with the notable exception of some marine veterans of past small wars—underestimated their importance. (National Archives)