Pancho Villa Attacks Columbus: U.S. Launches Punitive Expedition

Pancho Villa led approximately 500 mounted guerrillas across the US-Mexico border on March 9, 1916, and attacked the town of Columbus, New Mexico, burning buildings and killing 18 Americans. Villa's motives remain debated: he may have been retaliating against an arms dealer who had defrauded him, or he may have been trying to provoke a US intervention that would destabilize his rival, President Carranza. Whatever the reason, the raid was the first armed invasion of the continental United States since the War of 1812. President Wilson ordered General John 'Black Jack' Pershing to lead a Punitive Expedition of 10,000 troops into Mexico to capture Villa. The expedition spent eleven months searching the vast Chihuahuan Desert without catching its target. Villa knew the terrain and had the support of the local population. The failed expedition did, however, serve as a training ground for American officers, including George S. Patton, who gained valuable experience in mobile warfare that they would later apply in World War I.