Showing posts with label Deming New Mexico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deming New Mexico. Show all posts

Thursday, April 29, 2021

April 29, 1921. "16 Raiding Villistas Not Guilty"


News hit in Cheyenne that a jury in Deming had acquitted some accused of crimes during the Columbus raid. As noted yesterday, this wasn't the first trial, and in fact this one was remarkably late.  Indeed, so late that a person really has to wonder about the justice involved in holding prisoners for six years before going to trial.  And we learn from this article that these sixteen men had been tried and convicted previously, and then pardoned, and the rearrested on new charges.  A pretty questionable set of events.

It was news in other venues as well.


The long delay may have worked in these prisoners favor as well as obviously evolving views on their role in the raid. Those tried rapidly were tried in the heat of the immediate events, which as we know included these men, received much less favorable results.

President Harding had spoken the day prior and that was front page news everywhere, including on the USS Arizona.



On another note, grocery prices for this day in 1921.

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

April 28, 1921. Jury Acquits Defendants on the Columbus Raid

Jury Acquits 16 Mexicans of Columbus Raid Murders

So read the headlines of the New York Times on this day in 1921.

This is an aspect of the raid, which started off the day by day habit here, i.e., posts in "real time", a century removed, that we still haven't broken.  We probably should have considered it before.

Villa declared the raid a success in that his forces took over 300 longarms, 80 horses, and 30 mules, from Columbus and Camp Furlong by way of the raid.  While that may be so, he directly lost 90 to 170 dead, thereby paying a steep price for low returns it its considered that the raiding force had been made up of 484 men.  Sixty-three of his men were killed during the raid and the remainder died of their wounds thereafter, explaining the imprecise tally.

Some were captured and tried rapidly, with six being sentenced to death.

Other captured men, however were tried later on with differing result, but the overall results are, unfortunately, quite unclear to me.  It hadn't occurred to me that any were tried at all, as I would have regarded Villa's army as that, an army, albeit an irregular one.  Prisoners from armies aren't tried and aren't executed for simply participating in a military action, irrespective of the action itself being illegal.

Indeed, that logic later caused at least one prisoner to have a death sentence commuted to a life sentence. But there were at least three trials and many of the men tried were those who had been taken prisoner by the Army following the launching of its expedition into Mexico.  As far as I can tell, some death sentences were carried out.  A shocking number of the prisoners simply died in captivity due to the horrible condition, in part, of the county jail in which they were held.  We have to recall here that the 1918 Flu Epidemic was ongoing.  

As things moved along there came to be a fair amount of sympathy for the prisoners, some of whom  were in bad physical shape, and many of whom had only vague connections with what had occurred.  Soldier witnesses for the trial ended up being deployed to France so conducting the trials became difficult.  One defendant was only twelve years old and was released.  

Other than the citation to this headline, I can't find any evidence of trials occurring as late as 1921, but apparently they did.  By this time, it was probably too late to really convict many.  In this trial, apparently there were twenty defendants, and sixteen were found not guilty by the jury.

Should any have been tried at all?

Well, some appear to have been tried because of direct murders of civilians, something that's illegal in any war.  That's another matter. But the wisdom of trying soldiers, at least one of whom was a conscripted Carranzaista who was sent into action on that day without ammunition, is and was questionable.  What to do with them no doubt was also problematic, something we've learned again in recent years due to our wars with the Taliban and Al Queda.


On this same day President Harding, who seems to have been photographed with visitors nearly every day, posed with Pop Anson and Anson's daughters.  Adrian "Pop" Anson had been a professional baseball player and later a vaudeville performer.  In his vaudeville role, he performed with his two daughters depicted here, Adele and Dorothy.  Anson would have been about 68 at the time this photograph was taken, and both of his daughters were in their 30s.  Anson died the following April at age 69.

The dog was Laddie Boy, an Airedale.  He was the first White House dog to be followed by the press.  He wasn't even one year old when photographed here, and would outlive his master.

Monday, March 6, 2017

The Cheyenne Leader for March 6, 1917: Deming's approval of Wyoming's troops


Wyomingites were cheered that Deming New Mexico appreciated the qualities of their National Guardsmen.

Meanwhile, a big party had occurred for the returned Colorado and  Wyoming Guardsmen in  Cheyenne.

And the Leader claimed that Americans were solidly behind Wilson's policy of "armed neutrality".

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Sunday State Leader for December 17, 1916: Measles killing Guardsmen at Deming.


Not the only news of the day, but two Arkansas Guardsmen died from the measles at Deming, New Mexico, news that surely worried Wyomingites with family members serving in the Guard at Deming.

William F. Cody  was reported very ill at his sister's house in Denver.

And death claimed the life of a former Rough Rider living in the state as well.

The State Health Officer reported, in cheerier news, on the state's healthful climate.

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Sunday State Leader for October 1, 1916: Guard arrives at border and placed under command of a Regular


The news broke that the Wyoming National Guard made it to the border; Deming New Mexico to be exact.

And UW went down to defeat against the Colorado Aggies in football.

Wilson apparently warned that voting in the GOP risked war, an ironic statement, given what we knew would happen in a few short monts.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

The Wyoming National Guard, what was it doing and where was it going?

I posted this item two years ago on the Mid Week at Work Thread.  It occurs to me that it may very well be appropriate for the Wyoming National Guard was going through in Cheyenne these few days, a century ago:

Mid-Week at Work: U.S. Troops in Mexico.


All around the water tank, waiting for a train
A thousand miles away from home, sleeping in the rain
I walked up to a brakeman just to give him a line of talk
He said "If you got money, boy, I'll see that you don't walk
I haven't got a nickel, not a penny can I show
"Get off, get off, you railroad bum" and slammed the boxcar door

He put me off in Texas, a state I dearly love
The wide open spaces all around me, the moon and the stars up above
Nobody seems to want me, or lend me a helping hand
I'm on my way from Frisco, going back to Dixieland
My pocket book is empty and my heart is full of pain
I'm a thousand miles away from home just waiting for a train.

Jimmy Rodgers, "Waiting for a Train".
As can be seen from my entry yesterday, there's some indication the Guard entrained on September 26, 1916.  And I've reported that elsewhere, years ago.  And maybe some did leave on September 26, but I now doubt it.

Rather, in looking at it more fully, the typical Army hurry up and wait seems to have been at work.  The Guard was supposed to entrain on September 26, but the cars didn't show up or didn't in adequate numbers.  It appears, also, that the Colorado National Guard was entraining at the same time, and that may have played a role in this.  Be that as it may, I now think the September 26 date that I have used, and others do use, in in error.

What seems to have happened is that most of the Guardsmen entrained on the night of September 27, late.

But where were they going? 

That will play out here as well, but original reports in these papers said they were going to San Antonio. Then it was reported that nobody knew where they were going.

Well, they went to Deming New Mexico, which isn't far from where this all started off, in Columbus.

Rodgers didn't record Waiting For A Train until 1928, and he wasn't recording in 1916.  Too bad, this would have been a popular song with those troops.