USBP History, Part 3
According to Richard Dean, Historian and Archivist,
"The Villistas had a passion for looting, and they looted
every store on Broadway street which was the main street
of the town."
While women and children still
in their night clothes were being stripped of valuables,
men of the town tried to put out the fires. One victim
James T. Dean was perforated by 17 Mexican bullets
as he stood in front of a burning store.
Vayanse adelante, muchachos! was the
cry from Villas lips as his men pillaged the town. Viva Mexico!
echoed through the early morning darkness.
The U.S. Army had rejected all of the worlds
useful machine guns the 1904 Maxim, the Colt, the Browning Medium
Machine gun, the Mitrailleuse, and the Savage Arms Company Lewis.
Instead, the Army had selected the 1909 Benet-Mercie. Its co-inventor
Benet was related to the former head of US Army Ordnance.
The Benet-Mercie did not use belts of ammunition but instead
depended upon timely insertion of long stripper clips. A gun crew
must be well trained or the gun will quickly jam. Operating the
gun in the early morning darkness required an expert crew something
not present in Columbus, New Mexico in 1916.
In his after-action report to the United States
Congress regarding the poor performance of Americas arms during
this battle, General Crozier said: We have no gun of
any kind that can be used at any time except in daylight by a
man who must depend upon his eyesight for such operations...
The attack at Columbus, NM was not a minor border
incursion by ragged peasants looking for food. The U.S. Army had
to do everything it could to save the small town of Columbus.
The army loosed more than 20,000 rounds at the Mexicans from
bolt action rifles. During those dark hours Captain Hamilton Brodie
took charge of the towns defenses and sent Lieutenant Lucas and
his men to the center of the town to slow the carnage. For two
hours Pancho Villa and his gang looted, pillaged, dragged people
into the streets and wantonly murdered them.
At the end of the battle, eighteen Americans
and an unborn child were dead. Ninety Villistas were killed. While
only about 450 Villistas entered the town, nearly a thousand Villistas
participated in the attack.
