The General and the Jaguar (21 page)

M
ANY TOWNSPEOPLE
and military officials, including Herbert Slocum, were convinced the Villistas had been aided by Mexicans living in Columbus.
The raiders knew where all the officers lived, where the horses were stabled, where the bank, hotel, and stores were located.
Even more curious, none of the homes or businesses belonging to Mexican-Americans had been damaged in the raid. Wrote the
Columbus Courier,
“Only one Mexican store had the plate-glass broken in, and there is strong suspicion that it was broken in by the owners
of the store. They have left town under orders. In the Sanford building near the depot there is a restaurant and jewelry shop
in the west part, pool hall in the center, and a store on the east that has always been occupied by Mexicans. Only the west
part of the building, occupied by Americans, was touched.”

Although the people of Columbus had lived through the same droughts and sandstorms and crop failures as their Mexican neighbors,
the closeness had not bred affection or trust and the thin veneer of civility that characterized relations between them evaporated
after the raid. “Local old-timers speak in hushed voices, warning that they are not to be quoted, saying that many of the
wounded Villistas were murdered after the fighting. Some were said to be relieved of their suffering by having their heads
slammed against wagon wheels. Other disabled were piled amidst the lifeless bodies,” wrote William Cobb in a paper for the
Columbus Historical Society. No written evidence has surfaced confirming these allegations, but two letters and a story published
in the local newspaper in the days following the raid suggest strongly that some Mexicans who were rounded up by the military
and ordered to leave town were killed as they fled toward the border.

Following the raid, Slocum declared the town under martial law and ordered the soldiers from the Thirteenth Cavalry to search
every Mexican household. Weapons were seized and Mexicans who looked “suspicious” were arrested. Alfredo Aregon, who worked
as a waiter in the Columbus Hotel, was hauled in for questioning because he was absent from his job for several hours prior
to the attack. Authorities claimed afterward they had found some of the loot taken from the stores and a U.S. military uniform
in his possession. A young man named Pablo Sánchez was charged with espionage and thrown into the guardhouse after he was
discovered to be in possession of field glasses. Others were arrested for even flimsier reasons. Slocum gave the detainees
until sundown to get five miles beyond the city limits and most “have not been heard from since,” wrote agent Stone. An elderly
man named Hidado Vavel did not heed the warning. “About 9:30 p.m. this night he was seen in the brush about 1/2 mile from
the camp here by the sentries who ordered him to halt; instead of halting, the old man kept running; the sentries shot him
down and killed him,” Stone reported.

The tension was still palpable when Marcus Marshall, the son of the wealthy investor who owned the Palomas Land and Cattle
Company, stepped down from the eastbound Golden State Limited two days later. He had come from Los Angeles to assess the property
damages from the raid. Marcus immediately rounded up all the ranch employees and any other witnesses he could find and questioned
them closely. Foreman James Fonville told him how he had seen Villa’s men on Tuesday evening. Bunk Spencer described the hangings
of Arthur McKinney and William Corbett, noting how they had laughed and joked with the Mexican troops. And Antonio Múñez recounted
his spying mission for Colonel Slocum, emphasizing that he had told the colonel that Villa was “headed this way.”

Marcus then proceeded to do an inventory of property losses. The ranch’s commissary and one of its houses, which were located
in Columbus, had not been touched, but Villa’s troops had made off with saddles and harnesses and sixty-two horses. Marshall
and several ranch employees rode out into the desert, looking for the animals. “We counted eleven dead horses, three being
ours. We also counted six dead Mexicans lying in the brush but we laid no claim to any of them. As I rode out yesterday on
the Mexican side I counted nine dead Mexicans who had not yet been picked up and in a pile burning were the bodies of 69 Mexicans.
My horse came near throwing me as we came suddenly upon the body of a dead Mexican lying behind a sage bush.”

Then, in the same matter-of-fact tone, he informed his father that twelve Mexicans had been killed on the three consecutive
nights following the raid. “The past two nights have just about cleaned this town out of Mexicans; Thursday night five were
shot; Friday, four, and last night, three.” The younger Marshall was so concerned about the safety of the ranch’s Mexican
employees that he told his father that he was keeping them on the ranch property and planned to send them out of town as soon
as “passes” could be secured. “Cashier Forzan left Columbus with his wife on Friday, thinking it best for him not to remain
while feeling was running intensely against Mexicans.”

Perrow Mosely, the founder of the
Columbus Courier,
who would die soon after the raid, intimated in a letter to his sister that the army was complicit in the vigilantism: “Most
of our Mexicans have been made to leave, and many of them have died very unnatural deaths since the battle. Our people are
very bitter and the soldiers are letting them (our people) do pretty much as they please—all the Mexican Prisoners were taken
out of camp and turned loose—our citizens were informed of what was to be done and shot them as they were turned loose.”

The
Courier
also alluded to the killings in its news columns. “All Mexicans,” the newspaper reported, “who were not personally known
by American citizens were ordered to leave town, and every suspicious character was forced to leave, with instructions that
they would be executed if they came back here. Those who returned are now numbered with the dead.”

Marcus’s letter was reprinted verbatim in the
New York Times.
But none of the regional or national correspondents apparently thought the deaths newsworthy enough to merit a follow-up
story. Similarly, official army records mention nothing about these killings. In fact, Colonel Slocum actually went out of
his way to assure his superiors that everything was under control. “All peaceful as summer morning at this writing,” he reported
in one of his first telegrams to the War Department.

From the beginning, Slocum sought to portray the attack in the best light, noting how quickly the cavalrymen organized to
fight off the invaders and the large number of Villistas killed. Although both statements were true, the attack nevertheless
must have been humiliating to him, as well as to the other higher-ranking officers of the Thirteenth Cavalry and the army
as a whole. Not only had a small force of foreign-born raiders stolen into town under cover of darkness, setting fire to the
buildings and killing civilians and soldiers, but most of the senior officers of the Thirteenth were huddled behind mattresses,
doors, or bushes, and had missed the opportunity to display the gallantry and bravery that the old cavalry was known for.

Slocum no doubt realized that there would be criticism; Juan Favela said later that Slocum sent for him a few hours after
the raid and gave him a pass to go anywhere in the United States. “‘Just get out,’” Favela quoted the colonel as saying. “‘I
don’t want you talking to the newspapermen who will be pouring into town.’” Favela went north to Deming for a few days, before
returning home to his wife.

Members of Colonel Slocum’s family immediately recognized the potential damage to his career and reputation. His wife, Mary,
in what appears to be an official interview on March 14, said, “Down here
everyone
understands conditions, but I was afraid in the North they would think it queer that the 13th was
surprised.
” And his son, Ted, dashed off a quick letter to General Scott on the day after the attack, imploring him to protect his father’s
name “in whatever way you can.”

One of the most public critiques came from Marcus Marshall. “The blame for the Columbus affair should rest on the U.S. Army.
They had been forewarned not only by foremen Fonville and Antonio, our men, as to Villa’s whereabouts and the directions being
followed by Villa on his march, but had information from other sources. . . . The U.S. Army was extremely lucky in having
so few soldiers killed—I believe seven in number, and luck is all that it can be called. . . . Over-confidence and the thought
that Villa would not dare attack a detachment of U.S. troops no doubt lulled our soldiers into a feeling of security.”

General Funston, ignoring his own culpability, was trying to sort out in his mind whether Slocum had taken adequate precautions
to protect the town and camp. “On the face, it looks to me like a bad piece of business, especially if it is true, as stated
in the
New York Times
clipping, that he had been warned by civilians,” he confided in a letter to General Scott. “I know that if I had been in
command there and had heard that Villa was anywhere near the border, I would have had the town and camp protected by heavy
guards and have had out strong patrols from the town in addition to those along the border from the border gate.”

In addition to Funston’s remarks, Scott had in his files excerpts from a letter written by a Columbus resident: “You have
seen from the papers, I guess, all that has happened and the papers are lauding Colonel H. J. Slocum, but he did not get out
until the battle was over and the Mexicans were retreating. He should, in my opinion, be tried for murder, for he had notice
that night, before twelve o’clock, that they were coming and took no precautions to protect the town, nor the boys of his
own regiment. I don’t care what the papers say to the contrary, he deserves no credit for what was done, nor what has been
done since, for Major Tompkins was in command of all the actual work. It will never be safe here as long as they leave Colonel
H. J. Slocum in command.”

The colonel’s reputation grew more tarnished when reporters in Washington began asking about a fifty-thousand-dollar reward
that Slocum was said to have offered personally for the head of Villa. The War Department claimed it had no knowledge of any
such reward nor had the government authorized one. “It was learned, however,” wrote one reporter, “that the Secretary of War
had directed the Chief of Staff to send a message to General Funston asking him to make inquiries and to report the facts
as to the reputed offering of a reward. Army officers generally expressed strong doubt that Colonel Slocum had offered any
such reward. He is an officer of long experience and high reputation and knows very well that such an act would not be regarded
with favor or likely to be condoned by the Secretary of War.”

The rumor played into a sense that Slocum had blundered and was now rather desperately trying to make up for it. Slocum did
have responsibility for what happened in Columbus but to focus on him alone was to ignore the fact that virtually everyone
in the military chain of command had been informed of Villa’s approach to the border. Still, Scott had no choice but to order
an investigation. “Hints of carelessness and even cowardice on the part of some officers have been made and the inquiry may
develop an army scandal that will amaze the country,” promised the
Rocky Mountain News,
providing no explanation of the titillating pronouncement.

B
ESSIE
J
AMES AND
J
AMES
D
EAN
were buried in the little cemetery northwest of town. Both mourners and preachers carried guns. The caskets of the slain
cavalrymen and civilians who would be buried elsewhere were loaded aboard a train. The cavalry post had only enough flags
to drape three of the caskets and one of them still bore bullet holes from the raid. Behind the caskets stood several horses,
their saddles draped in black and stirrups reversed. As the train pulled out of the station, the trumpeters played taps.

Laura Ritchie accompanied her husband’s body to El Paso, where he was buried. She kept seeing his hands, trembling like pink
rabbits at the ends of his arms, as he marched down the stairs. Her youngest daughter, Blanche, was so traumatized by the
raid that she had to consult a “nerve specialist” in Philadelphia. William Ritchie had earned about three hundred dollars
a month, a good wage for the times, but now Laura and her three children were destitute, escaping the hotel with only the
clothing on their backs. To make matters worse, Mayor William Hoover, who was also the local agent for the Connecticut Fire
Insurance Company, informed her that the company would not pay anything on the small policy she had taken out covering the
hotel furnishings. The insurance company had taken the position that it was not liable for losses incurred as the result of
an “invasion, insurrection, or civil war.” Still grieving, she was forced to sit down and write them a letter: “I cannot believe
that Mr. Hoover is correct in saying you would decline my claim, which is so small considering my loss, but which seems a
large amount to me at present.”

Susan Moore accompanied her husband’s body to his hometown of Bucyrus, Ohio. When the train stopped in Chicago, newspaper
reporters crowded around her and she covered her face with a handkerchief. Susan kept seeing the gloating cruelty on the faces
of her husband’s attackers as they stabbed him, then shot him at such a close range he sounded like a pillow being fluffed.
With one bullet still lodged in her body, she dragged herself back to Columbus, determined to pay off the bills that she and
her husband had incurred. “I was badly crippled but managed to hobble around by holding on to the tables and chairs. I could
not live in the home, on account of the tragedy, and it was not safe.” She rented out her Ford runabout and Mooreview and
lived in the back of the store. She kept a gun under her pillow and another under the counter. “I just lived in fear all the
time, I was afraid of a nervous breakdown,” she would later tell a congressional committee.