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
~200 cavalry and infantry	~150 infantry
Casualties and losses
50 killed 39 wounded 24 captured	27 killed 11 wounded[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 48 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

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.

Buffalo Soldiers
Predecessors	United States Colored Troops Bureau of Colored Troops
Original units	9th Cavalry Regiment 10th Cavalry Regiment 24th Infantry Regiment 25th Infantry Regiment
Medal of Honor recipients (1866–1918)	Edward L. Baker Jr. Dennis Bell Thomas Boyne Benjamin Brown George Ritter Burnett Louis H. Carpenter John Denny Clinton Greaves Henry Johnson George Jordan Fitz Lee Isaiah Mays William McBryar Thomas Shaw Emanuel Stance Freddie Stowers William H. Thompkins Augustus Walley George H. Wanton Moses Williams William Othello Wilson Brent Woods
Notable battles (1866–1918)	American Indian Wars Saline River Texas–Indian wars Beecher Island Wichita I Beaver Creek North Fork Red River War Wichita II Apache Wars Victorio Campaign Fort Tularosa Bannock Uprising Yaqui Uprising Bear Valley Spanish–American War Las Guasimas Tayacoba El Caney San Juan Heights Santiago Philippine–American War Moro Rebellion Border War Pancho Villa Expedition Carrizal Ambos Nogales World War I Third Battle of the Aisne Second Battle of the Marne Meuse-Argonne Offensive Oise-Aisne Offensive
See also	Wham Paymaster Robbery Brownsville Affair Bisbee Riot
United States Armed Forces Military history of African Americans