Villa Raid at Columbus
VILLA RAID AT COLUMBUS
VILLA RAID AT COLUMBUS (9 March 1916). Mexican outlaw raids against U.S. nationals and their property on both sides of the border culminated on the night of 8–9 March 1916, in Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus, N.M. Units of the U.S. Thirteenth Cavalry stationed at Columbus, totaling 12 officers and 341 enlisted men, drove the Mexicans, variously estimated to number from 500 to 1,000 men, back across the border. American losses were seven soldiers killed, five soldiers wounded, eight civilians killed, and two civilians wounded; Mexican losses were approximately 190 killed or wounded. The raid was directly responsible for U.S. Gen. John J. Pershing's punitive expedition into Mexico.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eisenhower, John S. D. Intervention!: The United States and the Mexican Revolution, 1913–1917. New York: Norton, 1995.
Link, Arthur S. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era, 1910–1917. New York: Harper and Row, 1954.
Mason, Herbert M., Jr. The Great Pursuit. New York: Random House, 1970.
Stout, Joseph A. Border Conflict: Villistas, Carrancistas, and the Punitive Expedition, 1915–1920. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1999.
C. A.Willoughby/a. r.
See alsoArmy, United States ; Cavalry, Horse ; Foreign Policy ; Mexican-American War ; Mexico, Punitive Expedition into ; Mexico, Relations with ; New Mexico ; Southwest .