The Literature of Intervention:
The Punitive Expedition and Its Various Authors
Andrew Steele
History 297
Professor Ferrell
April 6, 2015
Abstract
The Punitive Expedition in Mexico has been the subject of significant research, both on
its own and as an aspect of the larger revolution in Mexico. Accounts of the expedition have
changed little in the century since it occurred but the wider picture of the Expedition has been
subject to rigorous debate among historians. Basic questions, such as how to define the success
of the mission, how close the United States and Mexico came to open war, and President
Wilson’s fitness to lead, remain in contention in the modern day. This paper seeks to give the
reader an overview of the available literature on the Punitive Expedition along with descriptions
of specific works from different time periods.
1
In the early morning of March 9, 1916, Pancho Villa and five hundred Mexicans crossed
the American border and attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico; they were repulsed with
significant casualties by the 13th Cavalry Regiment stationed in the town. The American
response was decisive: Woodrow Wilson authorized an expedition, commanded by Brigadier
General John “Black Jack” Pershing, to pursue Villa into Mexico and capture him. On March 16
he crossed the border, hot on Villa’s heels. Pershing would, over the course of the expedition,
employ a force of ten thousand men (cavalry, regular army, and the first operational aircraft
squadron) upwards of seventy miles south of the border, and although they engaged Villa’s
forces on several occasions they missed their man. Under pressure from Venustiano Carranza,
the recognized leader of Mexico, and the threat of open war between the two nations, Pershing
withdrew on February 5, 1917, having precious little to show for it.1
Villa’s attack on Columbus occurred during the Mexican Revolution, a bloody upheaval
of the Mexican government which began in 1910 and would continue until 1920. As a part of
that upheaval the Punitive Expedition2 serves today as a footnote in history as it is often
overshadowed by this larger revolution and the Great War. There are many intersections of study
between the Punitive Expedition and other wide-ranging issues of the day, such as the influence
of American corporations and land holders, the anxiety of the American federal government to
find a solution to the internal crises in Mexico, and the impoverished status of much of the
Mexican population. Over time many historians have made the Punitive Expedition their study
either as part of a larger work, or as a stand alone narrative, and occasionally as the backdrop to
1
Friedrich Katz, "Pancho Villa and the Attack on Columbus, New Mexico." American Historical Review 83, no. 1:
(1978), 101.
2
Also known as the Mexican Expedition, the Mexican Punitive Expedition, or the Pershing Expedition depending
on the author, for the purpose of consistency it will be referred to as the Punitive Expedition or more simply the
Expedition in this work.
2
innovations of the time. The narrative of the Columbus Raid, the Expedition’s motions, and the
Mexican Revolution have not changed in any crucial way since the great depression; the details,
however, have been the subject of great contention with at least one major question remaining
unanswered for lack of evidence (but not lack of speculation).
During the expedition commentary from newspapers and military journals were common,
but very few attempts at a historical work were made until at least ten years after the event (and
rightfully so).3 Opinion, however, was strong during and after the Great War on just what status
Mexico held in relation to the United States. One such opinion was that of Samuel Inman, author
of Intervention in Mexico and a Protestant minister who experienced poverty first hand in the
Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York.4 Over the course of his ministry and his later
advocacy he wrote in strong favor of the social gospel, especially in Catholic Latin America.
Michael McGerr’s A Fierce Discontent summarizes the goal of the social gospel movement,
“They exhorted Christians to seek salvation by reaching out to others. . .”5 Inman wrote heavily
in favor of establishing an American sphere of influence in Mexico for the purpose of bringing
his brand of salvation to them, including, but not limited to, the reorganization of the Mexican
government to fit ideals of American democracy and the establishment of private schools to
educate Mexican citizens while indoctrinating them in the social gospel. In Inman’s opinion the
3
Refer to The Cavalry Journal (now Armor magazine) between the years of 1916 and 1927 for contemporary
analysis of the Expedition.
Sydney Rooy, “Inman, Samuel Guy (1877-1965): Advocate of Protestant Missions in Latin America.”
http://www.bu.edu/missiology/missionary-biography/i-k/inman-samuel-guy-1877-1965/ (1998).
4
5
Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920.
New York: Oxford University Press (2005), 66.
3
expedition did not fulfill its potential but it was not too late, American leaders could yet
capitalize on the ongoing confusion of Mexican politics and establish his grand experiment.6
One of the earliest serious historical works on the Punitive Expedition was written in
1934 by Colonel Frank Tompkins who, as a major stationed at Columbus when Villa attacked,
was a first-hand witness of that attack, led the initial pursuit of Villa, and participated in the later
Expedition. The colonel begins by lamenting the need for his book saying, “After waiting nearly
two decades, hoping that some other member of the Punitive Expedition. . .would write a history
of that memorable campaign, the author. . .,has reluctantly undertaken the task.”7 This very early
narrative does not explore Villa’s motivations for attacking Columbus but instead takes pains to
paint Villa as a villain, willing to make informal negotiations with the United States on the one
hand and planning this startling attack on the other. Tompkins gives a sober and informed
account of the army’s major operations in New Mexico and northern Mexico colored by his
extreme criticism of President Woodrow Wilson and politicians in general. He relies not only on
his personal memories of the event but also official military records. Tompkins concludes that
the mission in Mexico as far as the politicians would allow it to be prosecuted was a success and
that any perceived failures of the Expedition are the fault of those politicians.8 Chasing Villa is
particularly important in the literature of the Expedition as it established the common narrative to
be found, and cited, in nearly every work to follow. Of the many technical maps first published
in Chasing Villa most can be found reproduced entirely in later works while many other authors
used the as the basis for their own original maps. For these reasons and for the legitimacy
6
Samuel Guy Inman. Intervention in Mexico. New York: George H. Doran Co., (1919).
Frank Tompkins, Chasing Villa: The Story Behind the Story of Pershing’s Expedition in Mexico. Harrisburg, PA:
The Military Service Pub. Co. (1934), xix. Tompkins refers to himself as “the author.”
7
8
Ibid., 213-220.
4
Tompkins first-hand experience lends to this work it is particularly important and worth
acquiring for related projects.
Through the 1930s and into the 1960s a static narrative of the Punitive Expedition
emerged, although not without instances of dissent.9 Clarence Clendenen writes in his preface to
The United States and Pancho Villa, published in 1961, that the goal of his work was not to
change the conventional narrative,10 and his work does in fact reflect the accepted narrative of
the previous fifteen years. Since Chasing Villa historians had mostly exonerated Woodrow
Wilson of the indecision Tompkins perceived, claiming instead that Wilson had made the best
decision available as evidenced by the forthcoming end of the Mexican Revolution. They had
also worked diligently to separate the unrest in Mexico from the larger historical events that
enveloped the United States. In his treatment of Villa, Clendenen draws the conclusion that he
was neither the brutish raider nor the Mexican Robin Hood as the static narrative authors tended
to characterized him, but an intelligent man who committed himself entirely to his cause as he
understood it. Furthermore Clendenen concludes that the Punitive Expedition was not the
“mortifying failure” as it was commonly portrayed by the static narrative authors, but had in fact
satisfied its primary mission of breaking apart Villa’s ability to harm the United States.11 While
the orthodoxy of these opinions was largely cemented a new wave of thought on the subject
would emerge in the next decade.
Examples of this static narrative include Oren Arnold’s Thunder in the Southwest: Echoes from the Wild Frontier,
1952, Haldeen Braddy’s Cock of the Walk: Qui-qui-ri-qui! The Legend of Pancho Villa, 1955, James Callahan’s
American Foreign Policy in Mexican Relations, 1952, and Larry Harris’ Pancho Villa and the Columbus Raid,
1949.
9
10
Clarence Clendenen, The United States and Pancho Villa: A Study in Unconventional Diplomacy, Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press (1961), v-vi. Clendenen limited his work as not to distract from the diplomatic history of
his book.
11
Ibid., 317
5
Friedrich Katz found the static narrative and its dissent wanting in it explanation of
Pancho Villa’s reasons for the Columbus raid, and in 1978 he published Pancho Villa and the
Attack on Columbus, New Mexico inevitably shifting the conversation. To this point most
historians of the previous fifty years (including both Tompkins and Clendenen) had strongly
asserted that Villa’s raid was prompted by Wilson’s recognition of Venustiano Carranza, Villa’s
bitter enemy, as the recognized leader of Mexico.12 Katz disagrees strongly, stating that Villa’s
reaction was mild and that he held out hope for future negotiations with the United States
government.13 The attack, according to Katz, was Villa’s reaction to his unrecorded instinct that
the United States government had a secret pact with Carranza evidenced by the frustration of
Villa to find any allies among the American government, news organizations, or major
businesses, and his defeat at the hands of Carranza at the battle of Sonora (1913). Katz explains
Villa’s motives first by eliminating possibilities proposed by previous historians and then
asserting his own.
Why Villa picked Columbus for his target is not apparent. He might have wanted to use the attack
to settle old scores. Perhaps he wanted to take his revenge on the arms deal. . .who he felt had
betrayed him. Perhaps he hoped to get money and supplies there. But such considerations were
clearly secondary; none constituted his main motive for launching an attack on the United
States—his firm conviction that Carranza had sold out Mexico to the United States.14
Katz goes on to comment that the Punitive Expedition served only to revitalize Pancho Villa
after his having been beaten nearly into obscurity by Carranza. Villa is cast into the role of a
“popular legend” who attacked the United States and got away with it, and his influence, power,
and territory expanded in kind.15 Katz also concludes that the Punitive Expedition solidified the
Clendenen makes this point in his vindication of Woodrow Wilson’s diplomatic strategy toward Mexico while
Tompkins is mostly silent on the matter.
12
13
Katz, “Pancho Villa and the Attack on Columbus”, New Mexico, 109.
14
Ibid., 117.
15
Ibid., 130.
6
independence of Mexico by showing just a small portion of the cost of full-scale intervention of
the sort Samuel Inman had advocated.
In his later works, The Secret War in Mexico (1981), and The Life and Times of Pancho
Villa (1998), Katz continued to refine and expand his theories on Pancho Villa, and while not
focusing on the Punitive Expedition in detail, The Secret War in Mexico does succeed in greatly
expanding the role of United States companies in Mexican affairs and takes great pains to
examine German influences on that stage of the Mexican Revolution.16 By 1990, however,
historians had once again found the willingness to dissent from the majority opinion.
In Joseph Stout’s Border Conflict (1999) Villa’s motivations for attacking the United
States are kept as secret as the man himself had kept them, instead Stout chooses to examine the
surprise of the other major actors. He notes that the American 13th Cavalry was under the
impression that Villa had withdrawn south, the United States government was under the
impression Villa still held out hope for support, and the Carrancistas had assumed nobody would
be so entirely inconsiderate as to poke a sleeping bear.17 In his conclusion Stout regards the
Punitive Expedition and Pershing as an overall failure in regards to Villa’s capture (the basis
upon which this author characterizes the purpose of the expedition), characterizes Wilson as
having lost the nerve to press on against Villa and Carranza in the face of German aggression
elsewhere, and Carranza as concerned primarily with crushing Villa while harboring very little
interest in antagonizing the Americans into an open war.18
16
Most high school curriculums mention the Zimmerman Telegraph as a primary motivator for war with Germany.
Few remember to mention the raging revolutionary in-fighting in the background and Germany’s willingness to fuel
the American distraction.
17
Joseph Stout, Border Conflict: Villistas, Carrancistas and the Punitive Expedition, 1915-1920 Texas Christian
University Press (1999), 42.
18
Ibid., 121-25
7
Pancho Villa and Black Jack Pershing by James Hurst and published in 2008, benefits
from decades of historical analysis of the Punitive Expedition; its bibliography lists Tompkins’
Chasing Villa, Clendenen’s The United States and Pancho Villa, Katz’s Pancho Villa and the
Attack on Columbus, New Mexico and The Life and Times of Pancho Villa, and Stout’s Border
Conflict among dozens of other books, articles, and periodicals.19 Special focus is paid to the role
of accurate intelligence in the actions of the Expedition and Pershing’s inroads with the local
population. Hurst further contends that the Expedition was an overall success, and that it had
prevented Villa from ever again attacking the United States. Both of these major claims stand in
contention with the prior historiography as illustrated by Clendenen and Katz, and Hurst’s claims
also server to second the analysis offered by Tompkins on the success of the Punitive Expedition.
Only time will tell if either breaks into the canonical account of the Punitive Expedition.
The 1990s and 2000s also saw specialized aspects of the Punitive Expedition explored in
greater detail. A Preliminary to War by Roger Miller, published in 2003, is a pearl in the rough;
although it is relatively short it describes the technical aspects of the Expedition through the lens
of early fight and its place in Pershing’s army.20 Used primarily for scouting and information
gathering, the 1st Aero Squadron laid the groundwork for necessary improvement in American
combat aviation, and aside from that they played an important role in supporting a new, gasoline
powered Army, in its growing pains. Pack animals were slow and required large amounts of
feed, which was not widely available in the desert climate of Chihuahua and New Mexico, and
Carranza had denied access to the local railways from the first days of the Expedition; the
19
James Hurst, Pancho Villa and Black Jack Pershing: The Punitive Expedition in Mexico, Westport, CT: Praeger
Publishers, (2008), 179-87.
20
Europeans by this point had deployed aircraft on nearly every front of their nearly two year old war.
8
solution to these issues was the transport truck. The 1st Aero Squadron not only brought several
trucks with them but also the tools to modify and repair many more.21
Stout as well examines a small part of the bigger action with his commentary on
prostitution in the American camps and its divergence from Army policy. Although prostitutes
were not officially sanctioned, Pershing chose not only to legalized them but the place prostitutes
under the supervision of Army doctors, Stout says that although instances of venereal disease did
increase at this time it would have likely been much worse without these measures.22 Hurst too
expands on a particular topic set to obscurity with his examination of Army intelligence
gathering, devoting an entire chapter to discuss the subject in detail.23 While not absolutely
essential to the historiography of the Punitive Expedition, these smaller innovations provide
important narrative details, context, and a great expansion to the organized maneuvers described
by Tompkins and other first-hand observers.
A decade earlier than Preliminary to War, The Border and the Revolution: Clandestine
Activities of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920, by Charles H. Harris and Louis R. Sadler and
published in 1990, is a collection of articles written about new and emerging documents (often
concerning previously unknown secret operations) from the Mexican Revolution. Included is a
chapter on the Columbus attack based on the contents of a Villista saddleback recently
rediscovered at the national archives; Harris and Sadler found that although they contain many
documents on the raid and internal organization of the raiders they are silent on the motivations
for the attack itself. The two conclude that the issue is still wide open and without the discovery
21
Roger Miller, A Preliminary to War: The 1st Aero Squadron and the Mexican Punitive Expedition of 1916.
Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Prog., (2003), 17-19.
22
Stout, Border Conflict, 121.
23
Hurst, Pancho Villa and Black Jack Pershing, 55-69.
9
or rediscovery of more documents (they hold out hope for a diary said to have been recovered at
the raid) all attempts to define Villa’s motivations would be speculation.24
And so the question is still out on the pivotal attack that spurred 10,000 to march, but not
for lack of speculation. The first works of length committed solely to the Punitive Expedition did
not appear until at least 1927, and the first written by an officer of that expedition was first
published in 1934. Much of that delay can be ascribed to the Expedition’s status as a sideshow in
the larger Mexican Revolution and its proximity to World War One. Tompkins’ 1934 historical
account of the expedition is wholly accurate in its military aspects but suffers from its political
content; the maps provided by this volume would not only be reprinted but would become the
basis for future depictions of the environment and troop movements. After World War Two a
narrative emerged of a petty and revengeful Villa, the failure of the Expedition in its central
goals, and a near diplomatic disaster. Friedrich Katz realigned the historiography in 1978 with
his reevaluation of the attack on Columbus and the Punitive Expedition, characterizing Villa still
as revengeful but for justifiable motivations, the failure of the Expedition not only in its primary
goal but also in the resurgence of the Villista faction, and the wholesale vindication of President
Wilson. And as recently as the late nineties historians have questioned Katz’s assertion of Villa’s
higher motive for lack of evidence, asserted the Expedition can be seen as a success in its
primary goals, dismissed the possibility of open war with Carranza, and explored at length niche
topics often overlooked in the past. Without a careful and thoughtful examination of the primary
evidence it would be difficult to dismiss many of the opinions formed after Katz’s Columbus
essay. By that time the purely military aspects of the campaign had been settled into fact, but the
repercussions and motivations continue to be subject to fierce debate and examination.
24
Charles H. Harris and Louis R. Sadler, The Border and the Revolution: Clandestine Activities of the Mexican
Revolution, 1910-1920. High-Lonesome Books: Silver City, NM (1990), 101-12.
10
Bibliography
Clendenen, Clarence C. The United States and Pancho Villa: A Study in Unconventional
Diplomacy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press (1961).
Harris, Charles H. and Louis R. Sadler. The Border and the Revolution: Clandestine Activities of
the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920. Silver City, NM: High-Lonesome Books (1990).
Hurst, James W. Pancho Villa and Black Jack Pershing: The Punitive Expedition in Mexico.
Westport, CT: Praeger Pub. (2008).
Inman, Samuel Guy. Intervention in Mexico. New York: George H. Doran Co. (1919).
Stout, Joseph A. Jr. Border Conflict: Villistas, Carrancistas and the Punitive Expedition, 19151920. Texas Christian University Press (1999).
Katz, Friedrich. "Pancho Villa and the Attack on Columbus, New Mexico." American Historical
Review 83, no. 1: 101-130, (1978).
Katz, Friedrich. The Secret War in Mexico. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1981).
McGerr, Michael. A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in
America, 1870-1920. New York: Oxford University Press (2005).
Miller, Roger G. A Preliminary to War: The 1st Aero Squadron and the Mexican Punitive
Expedition of 1916. Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program (2003).
Rooy, Sydney H. Inman, Samuel Guy (1877-1965): Advocate of Protestand Missions in Latin
America (1998). Accessed April 7, 2015. http://www.bu.edu/missiology/missionarybiography/i-k/inman-samuel-guy-1877-1965/.
Tompkins, Frank. Chasing Villa: The Story Behind the Story of Pershing's Expedition into
Mexico. Harrisburg, PA: The Military Service Pub. Co. (1934).