For eighteen months, General John J. “Blackjack” Pershing led an expedition in Chihuahua, Mexico to capture Francisco “Pancho” Villa and destroy his army. Cavalry fanned out into a harsh desert environment marked by extremes of temperature, elevation, and terrain while a revolution raged across the countryside. When horses and railroads proved insufficient for moving men quickly through vast spaces, General Pershing and his men turned to new technology in the form of trucks and airplanes. Although the expedition failed to find, or even sight, Pancho Villa, both Regular Army troops and National Guardsmen stationed on the border gained valuable experience in these new tools of war in the year prior to the United States’ entry into WWI. Army historian Dr. Julie I. Prieto discusses this fascinating, frustrating campaign in the desert Southwest both virtually and in-person at the National Army Museum.

Dr. Julie I. Prieto is an Historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History. She received her PhD from Stanford University in 2013. She taught both United States and Latin American history at several universities before joining the Histories Directorate at CMH, where she is currently writing a book on the United States Army in Latin America from 1945 to 1963. She is the author of The Mexican Expedition, 1916-1917, which is the first publication in CMH’s series on U.S. Army campaigns of WWI. Her work has been published in the journal Book History and has appeared in edited collections.

 

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