Interesting book about the Poncho Villa raid of Columbus, New Mexico in March 1916, and the subsequent ‘Punitive Expedition’ when President Woodrow Wilson sent 5,000 troops under General Pershing into Mexico to capture or kill Villa. I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone interested in this period of Mexican-American relations. The book is as engrossing as any fiction. There are plenty of glossy photos to put faces to the names, and sketches to show the progress and dispersal of troops for the different encounters. The descriptions of the battles are thrilling and her accounts of the politics involved in the incident are no less interesting. Her research goes beyond actual small unit warfare and gives the reader an understanding of the people and events involved in this border fray. Welsome has done an outstanding job in writing this. Interestingly, Pershing's Aide was a young George Patton, a man who needs no introduction. This force of hard and determined troops drove deep into Mexico in pursuit of equally hard men who had the home field advantage. His pursuit of Villa was a mix of new technology and old-fashioned blood and sweat mounted cavalry supplied by trucks and supported by aircraft.

He was the survivor of many scraps, an officer who led from the front and shared the hardships of the men under his command. The surviving raiders retreated into Mexico to be followed up by US forces under the command of John (Black Jack) Pershing. Civilians were murdered, buildings were burned, crockery was broken. Understandably, the US troops stationed in Columbus took a dim view of the incursion and a vigorous shootout ensued. In 1916, Pancho Villa and his troops (or bandidos, it was never clear what to call them) crossed the border and attacked the small town of Columbus, NM.

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