Pursuit phase . Ruins of
Columbus, New Mexico, after being
raided by
Pancho Villa Pershing assembled an expeditionary force consisting primarily of cavalry and horse artillery, the cavalry units being armed with M1909 machine guns,
M1903 Springfield rifles, and
M1911 semi-automatic pistols. On March 15, 1916, organized into a
provisional division of three
brigades (four
regiments of cavalry, two of infantry, and 6,600 men), the expedition crossed the border into Mexico to search for Villa, marching in two columns from Columbus and
Culberson's Ranch. The 2nd Provisional Cavalry Brigade reached
Colonia Dublán after dark on March 17, where Pershing established the main base of operations for the campaign. The
1st Aero Squadron, included in the expedition for liaison duties and
aerial reconnaissance on the orders of
United States Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, departed
San Antonio, Texas, on March 13 by rail with eight
Curtiss JN3 airplanes and flew the first aerial reconnaissance of the area from Columbus on March 16, the day after it arrived. The entire squadron flew to the advanced camp at Colonia Dublán on March 19–20, losing two aircraft in the process. Pershing immediately sent the
7th Cavalry (seven troops in two squadrons) south just after midnight on March 18 to begin the pursuit, followed by the
10th Cavalry moving by rail two days later. From March 20 to March 30, as the
11th Cavalry arrived in Columbus by train from
Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, and then forced marched into Mexico, Pershing dispatched four additional "flying columns" through the mountainous territory into the gaps between the original three columns. Persistent winter weather through early April, particularly bitterly cold nights at high altitude, made both pursuit and logistics more difficult. An additional regiment of cavalry and two of infantry were added to the expedition in late April, bringing its total size to 4,800 men. Ultimately more than 10,000 men—virtually every available unit of the Regular Army and additional National Guard troops—were committed to the expedition either in Mexico or its supporting units at Columbus. Because of disputes with the Carranza administration over the use of the
Mexico North Western Railway to supply Pershing's troops, the United States Army employed trucks to convoy supplies to the encampment where the
Signal Corps also set up
wireless telegraph service from the border to Pershing's headquarters. This was the first use of truck convoys in a US military operation and provided useful experience for World War I. During this phase of the campaign Pershing maintained a small mobile headquarters of 30 men using a Dodge touring car for personal transportation, to keep abreast of the moving columns and control their movements, employing aircraft of the 1st Aero Squadron as messengers. His headquarters advanced as far as the 1st Aero Squadron's field at
Satevó, southeast of the
city of Chihuahua, before falling back at the end of April. Villa had a six-day head start on the pursuit, all but ensuring that his forces would successfully break up into smaller bands and he would be able to hide in the trackless mountains. Nevertheless, he was nearly caught by the forced marches of the pursuing cavalry columns when he recklessly paused in his retreat to attack a Carrancista garrison. The
Battle of Guerrero was fought on March 29, 1916, after a 55-mile night march through the snowy
Sierra Madre by
Colonel George A. Dodd and 370 men of the 7th Cavalry. 360 Villistas had remained in Guerrero celebrating the victory won over the Carrancista garrison and 160 more were in the next valley in nearby
San Ysidro. Dodd's force was unexpected by the Villistas, who hastily dispersed when the US troops appeared on the steep eastern bluffs overlooking the town. Dodd immediately attacked, sending one squadron west around the town to block escape routes and advancing with the other. A planned charge was thwarted when the fatigued horses were unable to attain the proper gait. During a five-hour pursuit of fleeing Villista elements, over 75 of Villa's men were killed or wounded and he was forced to retreat into the mountains. Only five of the Americans were hurt, none of them fatally. The battle is considered the single most successful engagement of the expedition and possibly the closest Pershing's men came to capturing Villa. After advancing from
Namiquipa on March 24 to , The action also was the first time the US Army used
plunging fire by machine guns to support an attack. of the National Army The columns pushed deeper into Mexico, increasing tensions between the United States and the Carranza government. On April 12, 1916, Major
Frank Tompkins and Troops K and M, 13th Cavalry, numbering 128 men, were
attacked by an estimated 500 Mexican troops as they were leaving the town of
Parral, 513 miles into Mexico and almost to the state of
Durango, following violent protests by the civilian populace. Tompkins had been personally ordered to avoid a straight-up engagement with de facto government troops to prevent war between the countries and so used a rear guard to keep the Carrancistas at a distance during a retreat to his starting point, the fortified village of Santa Cruz de Villegas. Two Americans were killed in the skirmishing, one was missing from the rear guard, and another six were wounded, while the Carrancistas lost between fourteen and seventy men, according to conflicting accounts. The battle marked a turning point in the campaign. Military opposition by Carranza forced a halt in further pursuit while diplomatic conversations took place by both nations to avoid war. Only four days earlier, on April 8, Army Chief of Staff General
Hugh L. Scott had expressed to Secretary of War Baker that Pershing had virtually accomplished his mission and that it was "not dignified for the United States to be hunting one man in a foreign country". Baker concurred and so advised Wilson, but following the fight at Parral the administration refused to withdraw the expedition, not wanting to be seen as caving in to Mexican pressure during an election year. Instead, on April 21 Pershing ordered the four columns that had converged near Parral to withdraw to
San Antonio de Los Arenales. A week later he assigned the cavalry regiments, including the newly arrived
5th Cavalry, to five districts created in central Chihuahua in which to patrol and seek out the smaller bands. While executing the withdrawal order, Dodd and a portion of the 7th Cavalry fought an engagement on April 22 with about 200 Villistas under at the small village of Tomochic. As the Americans entered the village, the Mexicans opened fire from the surrounding hills. Dodd first sent patrols out to engage the Villistas'
rear guard, to the east of Tomochic, and after these were "scattered", located the main body on a plain to the north and brought it into action. Skirmishing continued, but after dark the Villistas retreated and the Americans moved into Tomochic. The 7th Cavalry lost two men killed and four wounded, while Dodd reported his men had killed at least thirty Villistas.
Patrol district actions (left) and
Edgar S. Gorrell (right) pose with Signal Corps No. 43. in 1916 with the 1st Aero Squadron in Mexico during the Pancho Villa Expedition The five districts that Pershing established west of the
Mexican Central Railway on April 29, 1916, were: • Namiquipa District (10th Cavalry) south of the 30th parallel to Namiquipa; • Bustillos District (13th Cavalry), below the eastern part of Namiquipa District around Laguna Bustillos to San Antonio de Los Arenales and Chihuahua City; •
Guerrero District (7th Cavalry), below the western part of Namiquipa District and west of the Bustillos and San Borja Districts; •
San Borja District (11th Cavalry), south of Bustillos District between the Guerrero and Satevó Districts to Parral; and • Satevó District (
5th Cavalry), southeast of the Bustillos District and east of the San Borja District, south to Jimenez. its machine gun platoon, and a detachment of
Apache Scouts under 1st Lt. James A. Shannon, totaling 14 officers and 319 men, began a night march under Major
Robert L. Howze. Arriving at Cusihuirischic, Howze found that 140 Villistas under Julio Acosta had pulled back into the mountains to the west to a ranch at Ojos Azules, and that the garrison commander had received orders not to cooperate with the Americans. Howze was delayed three hours in finding a guide and by the time he located the ranch and was deploying to attack, day had broken. When Acosta's guards and Howze's advance guard exchanged fire, Howze with Troop A immediately ordered a charge with pistols through the hacienda. Unable to deploy on line, the charge was made in column of fours and closed with the fleeing elements of Villistas. The other troops deployed to either side of the hacienda attempting to block escape and were supported by plunging fire from the machine gun troop.
Friedrich Katz called the action the "greatest victory that the Punitive Expedition would achieve." Without a single casualty, the Americans killed forty-four Villistas and wounded many more. The survivors, including Acosta, were dispersed. and General
Bliss inspecting the camp, with
Colonel Winn, Commander of the
24th Infantry Also on May 5, several hundred Mexican raiders, under a Villista officer,
attacked the geographically isolated towns of
Glenn Springs and
Boquillas in the
Big Bend region of Texas. At Glenn Springs the Mexicans overwhelmed a squad of just nine
14th Cavalry troopers guarding the town, set fire to it, then rode on to Boquillas where they killed a boy, looted the town and took two captives. Local commanders pursued the Mexicans 100 miles into the state of
Coahuila to free the captives and regain the stolen property. On May 12, Major George T. Langhorne and two troops of the
8th Cavalry from Fort Bliss, Texas, reinforced by Colonel Frederick Sibley and Troops H and K of the 14th Cavalry from Fort Clark, rescued the captives at El Pino without a fight. Three days later a small detachment of cavalry encountered the raiders at Castillon, killing five of the Villistas and wounding two; the Americans had no casualties. The cavalry force returned to the United States May 21 after ten days in Mexico. On May 14, 2nd Lt.
George S. Patton raided the San Miguelito Ranch, near Rubio, Chihuahua. Patton, a Pershing aide and a future
World War II general, was out looking to buy some corn from the Mexicans when he came across the ranch of
Julio Cárdenas, an important leader in the Villista military organization. With fifteen men and three
Dodge touring cars, Patton led America's first motorised military action, in which Cárdenas and two other men were shot dead. The young lieutenant then had the three Mexicans strapped to the hood of the cars and driven back to General Pershing's headquarters. Patton is said to have carved three notches into the twin
Colt Peacemakers he carried, representing the men he killed that day. General Pershing nicknamed him the "Bandito". The Villistas launched an attack of their own on May 25. This time a small force of ten men from the 7th Cavalry were out looking for stray
cattle and correcting maps when they were ambushed by twenty rebels just south of Cruces. One American
corporal was killed and two other men were wounded, though they killed two of the "bandit leaders" and drove off the rest. On June 2, Shannon and twenty Apache scouts fought a small skirmish with some of Candelaro Cervantes' men who had stolen a few horses from the 5th Cavalry. Shannon and the Apaches found the rebels' trail, which was a week old by then, and followed it for some time until finally catching up with the Mexicans near Las Varas Pass, about forty miles south of Namiquipa. Using the cover of darkness, Shannon and his scouts attacked the Villistas' hideout, killing one of them and wounding another without losses to themselves. The Villista who died was thought to be the leader as he carried a sword during the fight. Another skirmish was fought on June 9, north of Pershing's headquarters and the city of
Chihuahua. Twenty men from the 13th Cavalry encountered an equally small force of Villistas and chased them through Santa Clara Canyon. Three of the Mexicans were killed, and the rest escaped. There were no American casualties. Pershing was ordered to halt in place at Namiquipa, making tactical dispositions of his forces there and on El Valle to the north. The movements began a gradual withdrawal of the expedition to Dublán. On May 19, units of the 10th and 11th Cavalry returned to the base to guard the supply lines with Columbus and conduct reconnaissance in the absence of the temporarily grounded 1st Aero Squadron. As the threat of war with the de facto government increased, the northward movement continued. Pershing's headquarters left Namiquipa on June 21, setting up again in Dublán, after which the advanced supply depot at Namiquipa closed June 23. June 29 found the expedition concentrated on the main base and a forward camp at El Valle 60 miles to the south. of the American
10th Cavalry Regiment who were taken prisoner during the
Battle of Carrizal, Mexico in 1916 The last and most costly engagement of the Mexican Expedition was fought on June 21 when 3 officers and 87 men of Troops C and K of the 10th Cavalry, sent separately to scout Carrancista dispositions reported along the Mexican Central Railway, combined into a single column and encountered a blocking force of 300 soldiers. They were soundly defeated at the
Battle of Carrizal, with Captain
Charles T. Boyd, 1st Lt.
Henry R. Adair, and ten enlisted men killed, ten wounded and another 24 (23 soldiers and 1 civilian guide) taken prisoner. The remainder, including the sole surviving officer, Capt. Lewis S. Morey, were rescued four days later by a relief squadron of the 11th Cavalry. The Mexicans did not do much better; they reported the loss of 24 men killed and 43 wounded, including their commander, General
Félix Uresti Gómez, while Pershing listed 42 Carrancistas killed and 51 wounded. When General Pershing learned of the battle he was furious and asked for permission to attack the Carrancista garrison in the city of Chihuahua. President Wilson refused, knowing that it would certainly start a war. o The action at Parral in April had made the destruction of Villa and his troops secondary to the objective of preventing further attacks on US forces by Carrancistas. The Punitive Expedition, US Army remained at Colonia Dublán indefinitely as a fixed-base operation to be a negative incentive to the Carranza government to take seriously its obligation to catch Villa. The Carranza government proved unequal to the task but nevertheless US operations inside Mexico virtually ceased over the next six months. A Joint High Commission for negotiations with the Carranza government was agreed upon in July, and the first of 52 sessions met on September 6 in
New London, Connecticut. Although the commission reached accord on all issues, the negotiations failed to result in a formal agreement for withdrawal of US forces signed by the Mexican government. Despite this, Pershing was ordered on January 18, 1917, to prepare the expedition for return to the United States, which was executed between January 28 and February 5. While the expedition made a dozen successful contacts with Villista groups in the first two months of the campaign, killing many of his important subordinates and 169 of his men, all of whom had participated in the attack on Columbus, it failed in its other major objective of capturing Villa. However, between the date of the American withdrawal and Villa's retirement in 1920, Villa's troops did not again successfully raid the United States. ==National Guard call-ups==