The Villista Prisoners of 1916-1917

For more than eight decades historians, documentary film producers, folklorists, and scribblers have been fascinated by Pancho Villas March 9, 1916, raid on the tiny New Mexico border town of Columbus. Villas motivations for raiding Columbus are, even today, still debated by historians of the Mexican Revolution. One of the most enduring legacies of the raid was the fate of Villas troops captured during the raid and subsequently during the so-called Punitive Expedition commanded by General John J. Black Jack Pershing. The majority of Villas 484 men who attacked Columbus were recruited at point and told to fight or be shot. Those captured during the raid were later tried for murder--some hanged, some sentenced to long terms in the New Mexico State Penitentiary in Santa Fe. Although the Villista prisoners of the Columbus Raid have received some scholarly attention in the past, James W. Hurst has now provided us with an excellent, definitive history of their story and fate. Who were they What was their purpose Where they guilty Was justice done