Trench Commander Post #3
EL PASO, TEXAS (July 1, 1916) — One could make the case that Pancho Villa helped prepare the U.S. Army for World War I. On March 9, 1916, Pancho Villa’s renegade army of somewhere between 300 and 1,000 fighters attacked the border town of Columbus, New Mexico, killing eighteen Americans (ten soldiers and eight civilians) and wounding another eight.
It was just one of several attacks on U.S. soil that year, but it was the last straw for President Woodrow Wilson who called out the National Guard to defend the U.S. southern border and “ordered a so-called ‘Punitive Expedition’ to invade Mexico, disperse Villa’s guerilla band and, hopefully, capture or kill Villa.” (Tompkins, Col. Frank. Chasing Villa: The Last Campaign of the U.S. Cavalry. Silver City, New Mexico: High-Lonesome Books)
Four months later, the Michigan National Guard was mustered into Federal Service and sent to El Paso to help support Brigadier General John J. Pershing’s cavalry expedition.
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Learn more about the novel behind the blog — Into No Man’s Land — by clicking on the book cover. 