March 9, 1916 - The Pancho Villa Raid on Columbus, New Mexico

Step into the shoes of Pancho Villa, the enigmatic figure whose raid on Columbus, New Mexico, became a legendary act of defiance. Join us, Johnny and Drew, as we uncover Villa's journey from an outlaw to a revolutionary leader, challenging the United States in a brazen border conflict. Through the smoldering ruins of Columbus, we piece together the fateful events of March 9, 1916, scrutinizing Villa's motives and the turbulent sociopolitical landscape that fueled his crusade. We promise an expedition through history that's as enlightening as it is thrilling, revealing the intricate dance of revolution and retaliation that shaped the future of U.S.-Mexico relations.

Witness the dawn of modern military maneuvers as we recount the aftermath of Villa's audacious attack and the subsequent Punitive Expedition led by General "Blackjack" Pershing, marking the first instance of airplanes in U.S. military history. The legacy of Villa, the Centaur of the North, remains as captivating as the mirrored saloon that stood unscathed amidst destruction. Together, we'll explore the might and mythology, the strategic blunders and the legendary escapes, all converging to paint a vivid portrait of a time when revolutionaries and generals pushed the boundaries of warfare and diplomacy. The Men of Enchantment, your time-traveling guides, bringing the past to life with facts, anecdotes, and a healthy dose of reflection on the shadows cast by yesterday's conflicts onto today's geopolitical stage.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the Enchantment Chronicles featuring Johnny the man of Enchantment and I'm Drew. Today we'll be talking about the Pancho Villa raid on Columbus, new Mexico, of March 9, 1916. Alright, drew.

Speaker 2: 0:29

Today's Pancho Villa huh.

Speaker 1: 0:33

Yeah, it was the first time the United States had been invaded since the War of 1812, which I guess would have been 104 years before if my math is right. Columbus, new Mexico in 1916, was a sleepy little town, the home of Fort Furlong, which would host about 500 soldiers typically, but on the night of March 9, only about 350 were present, to add to a local population of about 330 Mexican and American citizens. That night, pancho Villas revolutionaries would shadow the piece of the town. Sometime after the moon went down around 4 am, they attacked Columbus, attacked Fort Furlong, crying Viva Villa and death to the gringos, according to some accounts, and would wind up killing 10 soldiers and 8 civilians during the raid. But that wasn't the first time Viva had visited the United States, right, johnny?

Speaker 2: 2:02

That's correct. Pancho Villa would come back and forth around El Paso.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Is that right? Yes, yes. He escaped from prison and eventually fled to El Paso in late 1912 and early 1913. He spent a few months there. Just to give a little background on the Mexican revolution, villa had supported President Medero, who was able to successfully overthrow Porfirio Díaz after decades of kind of misrule. But general Victoriano Huerta had insisted that Medero in prison. Villa and Medero, kind of hoping to compromise with Huerta, had actually agreed to do so and refused to pardon Villa, even though there were appeals from the governor, chihuahua and others to let Villa go. But ultimately that attempt to appease Victoriano Huerta completely failed. And so there's 10 days of tragedy, from February 9th to 19th, when President Medero was overthrown and killed. Luckily for Villa he'd escaped on Christmas Day of 1912. Before then, just as in the first year of New Mexico's statehood, he escapes by bribing a clerk at the jail for a hacksaw and a lawyer suit. He walks out and eventually makes it to El Paso and spends a few months in El Paso along with that clerk that helped him escape.

Speaker 2: 4:04

And so what was he doing in El Paso? Just?

Speaker 1: 4:09

I guess supplies, supplies, and he's gathering troops. He's going to go and take on Huerta. He's. He speaks pretty highly of Medero, but more importantly, villa had viewed a mentor, abraham Gonzalez, who had rescued him from a life in violence, and he referred to that, to Gonzalez, as a noble martyr for democracy. And in his memoirs he writes he, gonzalez, invited me to fight for the revolution, for the rights of the people that had been trampled on by tyranny. There I understood for the first time that all the suffering, all the hatred, all the rebellions that had accumulated in my soul during so many years of fighting had given me the strength and of conviction and such clear will that I could offer my country to free her from the snakes that were devouring her entrails. So he's determined, he's going to go back and fight, he's going to avenge Medero and he's going to avenge Gonzalez, who'd been executed shortly after this as Huerta was consolidating power.

Speaker 1: 5:25

So he manages to raise a total of eight troops before he crosses back into New Mexico. Eight followers, his prison clerk among them. He has nine horses, one three follower, nine rifles, 4,000 cartridges, two pounds of sugar and a pound of salt. And that's how the most well organized of the Mexican Revolutionary Divisions begins. It's the Division del Norte, so you know it's kind of reforming after the initial success. He gathers more and more recruits across Mexico and he's not really a politician, so he carries out these raids. And what do they call Pancho Villa, johnny?

Speaker 2: 6:21

The Mexican Robin Hood yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:24

Yeah, both sides of the border. He's got a few stories, that sort of support, that reputation, but then there's some kind of scary ones. He robbed a bank of about 50,000 pesos, but he distributed most of that money to people that he saw as meeting it. He raids, corrupt merchants and gives away their wares and forces them to sell them at substantial discounts, which you know. I'm sure that's his perception of corruption. He certainly does administer summary justice, including summary executions and places.

Speaker 1: 7:11

But as he's committing these crimes or revolutionary acts, whatever your perception is, he's gathering more and more followers to him because there's a perception that the power for certainly oppressing the poor in Mexico, and so he becomes kind of a hero, you know, but on the other hand, yeah, he'll execute you. He robs a train of silver and he uses it to buy food, ammunition and weapons from American merchants. This is actually formally allowed by President Wilson because of the perception that the Mexican government you know that Huerta is, you know, a threat to the United States they're allowing him to make these purchases, but Vía has a very fraught relationship with the United States, as we'll explore. We're not even sure why he attacks Columbus. There's at least four different theories going, but he does.

Speaker 2: 8:26

So, what is the story. So I had always heard the big reason why he did it was trying to. He was trying to go the United States into war with Mexico to overthrow.

Speaker 1: 8:40

Huerta. That theory is kind of supported by something we see in the National Archives. There's a story that he's basically trying to prove that Huerta is a threat to them and according to that story, general John J Pershing was receiving intelligence reports as soon asa couple of months earlier in January, that Vía was going to make an attack on US territory that would causehesia the Americans to intervene. That's embarrassing. We're trying to grant a government that that time VS fighting against. But at the time Pershing is used to hearing these oh, there's going to be an attack. You know that's just kind of a regular thing, so they didn't pay any particular attention to it.

Speaker 1: 9:37

There's another theory that Uh, that Via is actually punishing President Wilson because Wilson allowed 5,000 Mexican troops to come from Eagle Pass, texas, that town that's In the news today. I think that's where the National Guard, texas National Guard, is camped out, um. But he allowed 5,000 Mexican troops to go on via train from Eagle Pass, texas, to Douglas, arizona, and they had crossed the border into Agua Prieta, um, back in November of 1915, and that's kind of via waterloo. Those 5,000 troops Ended a long run of success of VS Revolutionary Um division down north. Okay, because those kind of Zista troops were able to reinforce that Agua Prieta and deliver a telling defeat. So there's a theory that via is trying to um avenge that and and warn the United States away. And then there's another one, um. The second theory is the one that I had heard, and then it's most kind of ridiculous. I can't find any confirmation, but this is the one that I'd heard. What, what, what's that theory, johnny? You talking?

Speaker 2: 11:13

about the movie blank theory yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:15

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:17

The theory that somebody sold them blank ammunition Mm hmm, it was destined for the movie theaters.

Speaker 1: 11:25

Yeah. So I'm not sure how true that is, but, um, there is a theory that some someone had sold him at least bad ammunition in some versions, yes, you see it as movie blanks, um and that had helped with the defeat. That sounds kind of a sounds a little fishy, but there is an account that I've actually heard from my family members. It kind of supports, um, that theory. Uh, in that theory there's a guy named um Sam Ravel, who's a rebel I'm not sure how you say it RA VL who said to a double crossed Vian a gun deal. But there's a fella from Deming, raymond Reed, who, um, eventually would open a company called steer safe. He was the superintendent of Deming public schools for a while, um, and my father-in-law actually worked for him.

Speaker 1: 12:29

So I've heard this story from both my father-in-law and a brother-in-law that you know Raymond Reed was fond of saying he was born in the territory of some pre 1912, uh, people were fond of saying. But he was visiting his maternal uncle in Columbus from Deming, um on that night and he gets woken up and, like a lot of the people from Columbus, he's going to flee into the desert. But according to both my father-in-law and my brother-in-law they said, his uncle woke him up and put him on a horse and he said you ride like horse, you ride this horse like held a Deming until it dies and when it dies you get off and run Um. So he does, he rides the horse, it dies on the path and he gets off and runs all the way to Deming and he survives. But he told that story all the way up until his death.

Speaker 1: 13:41

And his uncle did own a mercantile, um, given that you know, via had a reputation for attacking merchants. You know, it's unknown whether that would have been the same guy that supposedly sold the bad ammunition, or if it was just what he was trying to do, um, or if he was just trying to read that mercantile for for supplies that he was in desperate need of. And then, as we were reading through this, we found one more possible story, and that one was related in the El Paso times as soon as the next day, january 10th of 1916. Do you know that one, Johnny? I don't know.

Speaker 2: 14:32

I don't know very well. All I know is um had something to do with, uh, the. He was trying to target the American mining interests or what it what? What was it?

Speaker 1: 14:49

So there had been a massacre earlier at a place called San Isabel where some American miners were pulled off of a train, stripped and and shot.

Speaker 1: 15:04

Um and a guy named Pablo Lopez, who was at Columbus at the rating second in command, um, was held generally responsible for that massacre, and so the El Paso times on the next day reports that among the raiders killed was Pablo Lopez, second in command, the man held personally responsible for the Santa Isabel massacre. The fact that he was with via indicates that his chief planned the murder of the Americans who are en route to the mines of the Coosie mining company. So that's, that was what a wide impression was at the time. It's interesting that via had promised to punish the people responsible for the San Isabel massacre, which um would seem to indicate that he wasn't trying to antagonize America. But it's hard to it's hard to see how he's not thinking that crossing the border and attacking a town with an army fort isn't going to antagonize America. But the moral of the story is we're just not sure what via was thinking, um. But it has a whole lot of repercussions all the way down to today. But we should talk about the raid itself, right, johnny?

Speaker 2: 16:26

We can. That'd be great. It was took place on oh Arch 9th 1916. Is that right Yep. Early in the morning Poncho Villa came across. What four or five in the morning when it was dark?

Speaker 1: 16:42

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 16:43

He had heard, through scouts I believe, that there were not many people, not many soldiers at the barracks and he had heard that there was some ammunition and other supplies. So I think he had thought that there were about 50 soldiers at that location. What was it? Camp Furlong? Yes, mm-hmm, right, and he. So he comes across, they come across. And they were met not with 50, but what? 350, 400 troops.

Speaker 1: 17:19

Yeah, 350 or so troops, the attack is successful. In fact, some of the accounts indicate that it's like this miserable failure in the part of the army. There's reports that the machine guns were jamming, that soldiers couldn't locate the keys to their armory so they had to break the locks, but later you see even some retractions, some corrections, that kind of point out. Well, suddenly they were attacked at the dead of night and by hundreds of Mexican revolutionaries, by, you know, over 500 to 350. So, with a numerical advantage, they were attacked at the dead of night and within an hour they had organized an effective defense and started driving the revolutionaries back and they managed to only lose 10 of their number, I believe, during that attack, with a few more casualties. But in the meanwhile Columbus is pretty much destroyed. If you look, you see in one of the pictures we have, the central area of Columbus had been burned to the ground. People are taking refuge in an old Adobe hotel there because it's a little more fire resistant.

Speaker 2: 18:46

Burned down right.

Speaker 1: 18:48

No, the Hoover hotel survived, I think, and then an old schoolhouse, but most of the business district did burn down. Three Americans that died were cremated, basically in another burning hotel that just is incinerated. You said that that was the first, almost the first light that they could see the Mexican raiders by right.

Speaker 2: 19:23

Right. I read that when the Mexicans lit that on fire, the Americans were having trouble to see the Mexicans as they were riding around, but that fire helped glow the area, eliminate the area and they were easy to pick off, if you will. So it kind of backfired on the Mexicans and lit in that hotel.

Speaker 1: 19:56

Yeah, and, like I said, three American civilians did die taking refuge in that in at least one of the hotels there that does burn down. The Deming Museum actually has this huge bar-length mirror from a saloon that supposedly is the kind of miraculously survived the raid, because the entire rest of the saloon gets completely shot up, but for some reason this mirror that's, you know good, I don't know more than a dozen feet long and a few feet tall. Its glass was intact, as all these bullets are flying everywhere. So I'm not sure how that worked out. But similarly, you know, there's kind of miraculous that fewer people were killed but a lot of them, you know, just took off into the desert while the army organized its defense. It didn't really work out for Via in the short term, right, jenny?

Speaker 2: 21:08

No, he didn't really. They didn't really accomplish their mission well, depending on what their mission was, but it did result in lots of casualties. Of the Viestas about 190, 200 casualties out of 500. In the United States only lost a handful of people Seven US soldiers dead, five wounded out of 350, and only a few civilians dead and wounded. So most of the well, almost half of the Mexican raiders died. I wonder, drew, if that was because of the machine guns.

Speaker 1: 21:53

Yeah, you know, they certainly had them outgunned after a minute. I don't know exactly, but they did pursue them. They lost over 60 in the raid on the town itself once the defense was organized. And then VIA himself covers the retreat. About 30 men with rifles are firing down on a hilltop. But that covering the retreat doesn't really work out. Over 100 are said to have been killed as they passed across the border.

Speaker 1: 22:29

And just to give you an idea of the geography Columbus is, it's a port of entry to the United States. It's even up until a few years ago I don't know if this is still true, but there were school buses going back and forth across the border letting American citizens that lived on the Mexican side come across to US schools here and there in Columbus. So you know it's a very porous border there and the army manages to pursue and kill about 100 as they're crossing who knows which side of the border. You know the actual fighting goes on there, it's just. But it's clearly yet another crushing defeat for VIA and he didn't really get, you know, all the stuff he was trying to get out of. He was trying to get ammunition and food and weapons. You know that didn't work out for him either, and then, within another week or so, there's a retaliatory expedition, the punitive expedition.

Speaker 2: 23:46

The punitive expedition led by General Blackjack Pershing.

Speaker 1: 23:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:51

On Blackjack Pershing. They launched it pretty quickly after the raid. The raid happened on the 9th and the punitive expedition started on the 16th of 1916. Now wasn't Blackjack Pershing? Wasn't he stationed in Fort Bliss and El Paso at that time?

Speaker 1: 24:12

Yes, yeah, that's where he received that intelligence he'd ignored and in fact he'd been a veteran of Texas and New Mexico. He got the name Blackjack for commanding the 10th troop of the 10th Cavalry Regiment of Buffalo soldiers during the Indian war period, so he's nicknamed that for serving with African American soldiers.

Speaker 2: 24:39

And, of course, a lot of people. For those who don't know who Blackjack Pershing is, he ended up leading the army in World War I in the European conflict.

Speaker 1: 24:48

Yes, yes, and in fact serving under him is another general, general Patton, who became, you know, a leading general in World War II, in the European Theater and the North African Theater, a leading tank commander.

Speaker 2: 25:06

Patton wasn't a general at that time. He was a young soldier at that time.

Speaker 1: 25:10

Right, right. But he sees this punitive expedition which goes for almost a year, all the way to February 14th of 1917. He sees military tactics evolving and military equipment evolving rapidly. They send what? 14,000 regular army troops across the border into Mexico to hunt for VIA and kept another 140,000 army and National Guard troops patrolling on the border. But there were some big changes in the troop formations, right, johnny yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:00

This is the first time the airplanes were used in mission, is that right? And the military mission for the United States is the first time airplanes were used and if I remember correctly, there were hangars all throughout with Los Cruces and Deming and Columbus. Yeah, this also goes towards as a precursor. This area where they practiced is kind of the precursor for all the later. The missiles and everything nearby and in white sands and the horn on it don't work.

Speaker 1: 26:45

So yeah, some of those hangers, I think are still in existence in Demi. You can drive past them. You know the hatch chili plant down there. I forget what it's called now, it's not called the hatch chili plant, but but uh, that that air reconnaissance wasn't successful. Um, in fact, nothing was successful. Uh, in terms of catching via, he gets another nickname. He gets the nickname the centaur of the north because he's you know, he uses everything. He uses automobiles, he's his motorcycle. At one point he rides horseback across the rugged terrain. Um, and the planes that they sent weren't really successful, that within um, within a few weeks, they're, they're, they're losing planes to the? Um. I don't see a lot of reports of crashes or anything, but they, the planes aren't holding up. Basically, they're down to two planes within a couple months.

Speaker 2: 27:48

So the punitive expedition lasted for about a year. Uh, if I remember correctly from reading, way back when it served as a training ground, getting the truth ready for world war one. We tested out a lot of our machinery machine guns, planes.

Speaker 1: 28:08

Harvick cars yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:09

Yeah, armored cars? We never. But we didn't catch. We didn't catch via and um what's the same? Maybe we didn't really intend to.

Speaker 1: 28:24

Yeah, yeah, there's, there's some speculation there, um, and eventually they're. They're Pulled back, not because out of despair. They they feel like via is no longer a threat to the united states. They feel like um. The president says you know, I that the he feels the border has been secured, essentially, um, and via doesn't read you know the united states again at any point. Um, meanwhile, you know soldiers like patin and pershing, or learning how the shape of warfare is changing. It's a moment, not unlike what we're seeing today. We're um drone warfare and unmanned vehicles are revolutionizing war. Um, at that point, it's armored cars and tanks and airplanes that are changing the shape of war, and we'll see that in a more dramatic fashion during world war one. Just a yeah just, with the united states coming in just within that year.

Speaker 2: 29:29

I think you know. One thing I find interesting about this piece of history is obviously this was Columbus in this area is in the what was known as the geths and purchase. Yes, right, and one of the how do I say? One of the clauses of the treaty of Guadalupe Haldago, prior to the geths and purchase. One of those clauses was to ensure safety and peace on in this strip, of course. Then the geths and purchase came along and that supposedly, was going to fix some of those issues of who is going to be responsible for the Safety of the people. So it's interesting to me that I don't know, for a hundred years or so this area was one of the most I don't know if you would say dangerous, but One of the more interesting periods or places in the united states when it came to safety and peace of the People. And this kind of just furthered that fear that had been there for a long time already, in that in that area, no, you're right, it's uh.

Speaker 1: 30:55

One of the headlines of the El Paso times from that next day said the attack on Mexico border town was carried out with cruelty and ruthless cunning Unknown in the united states since the days of Geronimo.

Speaker 1: 31:07

And of course, geronimo had also Been operating in that same strip from, you know, the, the mountains of southern new mexico to the mountains of northern air of northern mexico, that's, that's where he'd been Fighting and and even the train ride. It's one of our theories, johnny, they, where they let the mexican soldiers pass from ego pass to douglas, ego pass texas to douglas, arizona, that that very train is put in Um Along a path that we really didn't have access to without the gadden purchase that another reason for the united states have tried to purchase, that is, to get a railway connection to the pacific and um, and to get a way to bypass some of those rugged mountains that, uh, that we know of as the white mountains and the healer wilderness today. So, um, that's part of why that area was so dangerous was people, you know, rebels and revolutionaries, and um, and you know People like geronimo could hide out in those mountains, and getting that train travel was essential to pacifying it. So we commemorate that that uh raid today, right, johnny?

Speaker 2: 32:32

Yeah, it's, it's now at new mexico steak park, where the armory was. I don't know if you've been there drew, but you can camp.

Speaker 2: 32:41

There's a nice little museum, you can camp there yeah it has some Buildings that are still standing under Protected areas. It's pretty neat. I camped there a few years ago, so it's pretty remote. You can see the border from it and pretty eerily. If you head West from it on the most southern road in new mexico and the most southern road in the united states, you can see that border patrol wall. Okay, that's out there. That's pretty creepy.

Speaker 2: 33:13

It goes past the. The Continental divide starts just west of columbus. Right there the continental divide trail and the continental divide is just west, maybe 30, 40, 50 miles.

Speaker 1: 33:28

Yeah, it is interesting territory. If you drive down there, actually I think you Uh along one of those roads that you can take um, there's the Columbus Highway, but a little over from there is a stationary blimp run by the Border Patrol. But you know, as long as it's not too windy, you'll see that blimp hovering in the air and I'm sure it's got all kinds of cameras and sensors and arrays that it uses to watch that border along through that patch of desert in Luna County. But yeah, I have been to the museum. It's well worth a visit. You'll see some of those early I don't even know if you wouldn't even really call them tanks or like armored cars and and things that we were kind of testing out at that time that became a staple of, you know, world War One and World War Two military technology. So you can see a lot of that and and and you'll hear a little more about Pantra via how he was assassinated in Mexico City, I think in 1923, a kind of funny rumor that I've heard. And again, this cannot be corroborated, but supposedly after he was gunned down in a hail of bullets. Supposedly his last words were it can't end like this. Tell them I said something which kind of fits into Pantra, via his reputation as a man of action and not of words. But but I'm pretty sure that's an apocryphal story. I just it's kind of an interesting one.

Speaker 1: 35:18

I recommend going to visit that museum. I've never camped there like you have, johnny, but it's a. It's a really interesting place to see and an interesting part of New Mexico down there in Columbus. And visit the Deming Museum too. While you're at it. Go see some of that historical and prehistorical exhibits they have there. It's one of the better museums in New Mexico, I think so.

Speaker 2: 35:44

I think it's pretty great. It's what about 20 miles? Columbus is about 20 miles south of Deming.

Speaker 1: 35:48

Yeah, I think so. I think it's maybe a little more, but not much so. But yeah, well, thanks, johnny. This has been another episode of the Enchantment Chronicles highlighting the last invasion of the United States and the first since 1812. The Pantra via raid on Columbus, new Mexico.

Speaker 2: 36:15

The mainland United States. Obviously, we had Pearl Harbor.

Speaker 1: 36:18

Oh yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. Mainland, yeah, no problem.

Speaker 2: 36:24

Yeah, I just thought about that.

Speaker 1: 36:25

Yeah, I guess I mentioned invasion, you know, because Pearl Harbor is a bombing, obviously. But yeah, you're right. You're right, but it's remarkable We've we've managed to stay pretty safe in turbulent times since then. All right, well, thanks Johnny.

Speaker 2: 36:46

All right, we'll see you later next, next time, guys. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 36:52

Thank you yeah.