Haldeen Braddy is a well-known professor of literature, and is a recognized authority on the folklore that has grown up about Pancho Villa. In his little history of the punitive expedition of 1916 he has produced a vivid, well-written narrative. His research has been careful, and he traces accurately the American movements and operations and the principal events.
There are, however, certain statements and inferences that are open to question or subject to categorical denial. He states, for example, that “Pershing agreed not to use the railroads of Mexico to supply his forces….” The fact is that Pershing was anxious to use the railroads and to seize them if necessary. But he was bound by orders from Washington—and Pershing was never insubordinate. As for the inference that Pershing himself may have made the decision to retain the expedition in Mexico, little need be said. Such a decision was far beyond his authority, and could be made only in Washington, as anyone familiar with the administration of the United States Army will realize instantly.
The inference that throwing away sabers was general throughout the expedition is unsupported by any evidence. Some organizations did not carry sabers into Mexico, while others retained them to the end. If anyone deliberately threw away weapons it was probably semi-trained recruits, of which the expedition had a large number. It might be added that any soldier who “lost” a saber probably found it noted on his next payday. As for the remarks about the precautions that frightened Mexican women took to avoid rape by the Americans, several veterans of the expedition (all of them enlisted men) have informed the reviewer that they never heard of such a thing.
The strictures on the McClellan saddle sound strange to an old cavalryman and also the statement that the American horses were mostly half-bred animals from Fort Reno, Oklahoma. According to the reviewer’s memory (which could be wrong in this instance), the government remount-breeding stations were not established until after World War I. In fact until the horse cavalry was finally abolished, nearly all of the horses were purchased in the open market by the Quartermaster Corps.
Although Braddy’s research was careful and conscientious, he seems to have overlooked what is probably the most important American source of material, the Punitive Expedition Records in the National Archives. These records include such important items as General Pershing’s personal notebooks, carried in the campaign, the actual correspondence (with blood stains) that passed between Captain Boyd and General Gómez before the Carrizal fight, and numerous other documents essential to an understanding of the American cause.
In spite of the foregoing criticisms the book is a valuable contribution to the historical literature on the expedition. Braddy has rendered the historian a distinct service by revealing the previously unknown figure of Elisa Griensen as the probable cause of the explosion at Parral.
