Battle of Carrizal

Battle of Carrizal
Part of the Mexican Revolution, Border War
Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry who were taken prisoner during the attack on Carrizal.
Date June 21, 1916 Location Carrizal, Chihuahua, México Result Mexican victory
Belligerents
United States	Mexico
Commanders and leaders
Charles Trumbull Boyd †	Félix U. Gómez †
Strength
~100 cavalry	~150 infantry and cavalry
Casualties and losses
14 killed 39 wounded 24 captured	27 killed 11wounded[1][2]

The Battle of Carrizal occurred on the June 21, 1916. It was a major skirmish between United States Army troops of General John J. Pershing's Punitive Expedition and Carrancista troops fought at the town of Carrizal in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.

Battle

In June 1916, Gen. Pershing was informed that Pancho Villa could be taken at Carrizal, west of Ahumada.^[3] When he sent Captains Boyd and Morey to investigate with C and K troops of the 10th Cavalry, they were confronted by Mexican Army troops, not Villa's men.^[2] Boyd ordered the men to attack anyway. In the resulting battle, the American attack was repelled.

By legend Villa supposedly watched with delight as his two enemies fought it out with each other. However, this story is of doubtful veracity as Villa was badly injured at the time and being pursued by both the American Army and the federal Carrancistas. The cavalry lost two officers (Charles T. Boyd and Henry R. Adair) and 12 men killed and 24 taken prisoner. The Mexican forces lost 27, including the commanding officer, Gen. Félix U. Gómez. General Pershing was furious at this result and asked for permission to attack the Carrancista garrison at Chihuahua. President Wilson, fearing that such an attack would provoke a full-scale war with Mexico, refused. The Battle of Carrizal marked the effective end of the Mexican Expedition. Pancho Villa survived, and small raids on American soil occurred while the expedition was in Mexico. The simultaneous deterioration of German-American relations while World War I raged made any escalation in México undesirable and so negotiations followed.

Gen. Felix U. Gómez

Legacy

• Lt. Henry Rodney Adair was killed in this battle. During World War II Camp Adair was established in the Willamette Valley, Oregon, as an Army training facility in honor of his service.^[4]
• The Battle of Carrizal figured prominently in the plot of the 1917 race movie, A Trooper of Troop K.

See also

• United States involvement in the Mexican Revolution
• Mexico in World War I

References

Notes

1. "A Brief History of the Lower Rio Grande Valley". Retrieved 27 November 2014.
2. "Buffalo Soldiers at Huachuca: The Battle of Carrizal".
3. "Battle of Carrizal (1916)".
4. "Henry Adair and Camp Adair". Retrieved 27 November 2014.

Bibliography

• Braddy, Haldeen (1957). "Pancho Villa: Fact, Fiction, or Folklore." Journal of American Folklore 70 (1957).
• Calhoun, Frederick (1986). Power and Principle: Armed Intervention in Wilsonian Foreign Policy. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press.
• Eisenhower, John (1993). Intervention!: The United States and the Mexican Revolution, 1913-1917. New York: Norton.
• Mason, Herbert M (1970). The Great Pursuit. New York: Random House.
• Salinas Carranza, Alberto (1937) La Expedicion Punitiva. Mexico, DF: Ediciones Botas.
• (1916) "Seek Only Nation's Peace." New York Times June 23.
• Sweeney, William (1919). History of the American Negro in the Great War. Chicago: Sapp.