Battle of Columbus - March 9, 1916

On this day in 1916, the Battle of Columbus began as a raid that Pancho Villa led on the border town of Columbus, New Mexico.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hi everyone, I'm Eves and welcome to This
Day in History Class, a podcast where we rip out
a page from the history books every day. Today is
March nine. The day was March nine, nineteen sixteen. The

(00:27):
Battle of Columbus began as a rate that Pancho Villa
led on the border town of Columbus, New Mexico. When
Ponto Villa ran into the U. S Army, the raid
turned into an all out battle. Pancho Villa was a
revolutionary and a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution. He
was the commander of the Da Vision del Norte Cavalry

(00:48):
and for a time the governor of the Mexican state
of HuaHua at the beginning of the Mexican Revolution, which
started around nineteen ten. Pancho Villa had widespread support. When
Venusti and Carranza took over as head of state in
nineteen fifteen, he met opposition from Poncho Villa and US
President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson supported Poncho Villa at least for

(01:11):
a short time. By late nineteen fifteen, after huge losses
in the Battle of Salaya, Pancho Villa had lost a
lot of support. He and his soldiers were in northern
Mexico looking for supplies, so he planned a raid on
the military garrison in the U. S town of Columbus,
New Mexico. It's not completely clear why he conducted the raid,

(01:33):
but he sent people to collect information on the garrison.
Villa led around fifteen hundred men across the border. Less
than half of that number of men attacked the garrison
in the early hours of March ninth, nineteen sixteen. The
army set about looting and burning the town, but the
US quickly returned the violence. The thirteenth Cavalry Regiment of

(01:56):
the U. S. Army was stationed at the garrison. They
shot at via men with machine guns, and civilians living
in the town fought back to The Division Del Norte
resisted the counter attacks and civilian force until they were
forced to retreat. VIA's men had managed to gather supplies
from the raid, but they suffered a lot of losses.

(02:17):
More than one hundred people in the Division Del Norte
were dead. On the U. S side, a couple of
dozen people were killed, with more wounded. The US soon
sent thousands of troops to the border. President Wilson sent
General John J. Pershing to Mexico to capture or kill
Pancho Villa in an effort known as the Punitive Expedition.

(02:38):
The The US searched for Via for months, using airplanes
and trucks to aid the operation. They did not find
Villa by February of nineteen seventeen, when the us is
entry into World War One was imminent, Pershing and the
troops abandoned the effort. Kranza withdrew permission for the occupation,
and Pershing returned to the US In nineteen Via was

(03:01):
granted amnesty and a decent pension after agreeing to cease
his independent military activities. He stayed in the hacienda into
Ohuahua until nineteen when he was assassinated. That year, a
formal commission began to negotiate claims against Mexico, including ones
from Columbus residents. Mexico didn't agree to pay off US

(03:22):
claims until more than a decade later. I'm Eve Steff Coote,
and hopefully you know a little more about history today
than you did yesterday. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
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(03:43):
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