forty-four

losing an arm at santa ana

The retreat from the battle was a disaster; however, Obregón—either because he couldn’t yet believe it or out of his excessive caution—did not exploit the victory, staying put in Celaya, arguing that he was low on ammunition. Villa assembled his forces in Salamanca and, later, in Irapuato. He spent the day with his general staff thinking up a new battle plan. He had been defeated by Obregón twice. Villa had almost broken through his lines two times and twice Obregón’s men had held, then claiming victory in their counterattacks. What was wrong with the Division of the North and its commander?

On April 16, in Salamanca, Villa looked over the enormous line of trains stretching from Irapuato to León, many of them filled with wounded on their way to Aguascalientes. The lack of ammunition was pathetic. That same day, Villa once again telegraphed Lázaro de la Garza, stating the situation was “very urgent” and asking about the special train’s departure from New York with the three or four million cartridges. De la Garza responded to this message saying that they would be sold a half-million cartridges per day. Villa responded, “I hope they are already on their way. We are waiting for an answer here.” The train never left New York. Lázaro would later claim, in a crass display of cynicism, that the money from the deal could not be guaranteed, nor could the jewels from Hipólito’s wife.

Pancho couldn’t understand why Obregón had not taken advantage of his victory and, believing that he would do so, ordered his forces to withdraw all the way to Aguascalientes, establishing Salamanca as a rearguard in expectation of contacting Obregón’s forces anew. Villa then had second thoughts and ordered Fierro, who was in Jalisco with Canuto Reyes, to send half his troops to León and the other half to Aguascalientes where Villa would take charge. On April 17, Fierro and Pablito Seáñez arrived in Irapuato. Obregón made some timid excursions by train beginning on April 19.

Felipe Ángeles, having partially recovered from the ankle sprain he suffered when thrown from his horse, left Monterrey to meet with Pancho in Aguascalientes, insisting that the best thing to do would be to retreat to Torreón (in order to force Obregón to extend his lines), cut the railway lines, and reorganize the Division of the North. Failing that, they should abandon Bajío, León, and Lagos de Moreno and fight a defensive battle in a fortified Aguascalientes. He’d even drawn up a battle for the region. Villa didn’t agree and ordered him to carry out a reconnaissance of the area between Silao and León. Ángeles, along with his aid Col. Luna, searched for a potential site to confront Obregón. After clashing with some generals who had been out on a bender, he sat down to study the region’s possibilities. His report was entirely negative: the front was extended too far, there was no support on the flanks, and the area lacked natural defenses. Yet Villa insisted on fighting. Ángeles did not want to repeat the failed strategy in Celaya. Villa didn’t want to give up León.

On April 20, around three o’clock in the afternoon, the Villista rearguard consisting of José I. Prieto’s Artalejo brigade contacted Obregón’s scouts on the outskirts of Irapuato, turning them back; although the Villistas later withdrew to Silao, fighting the whole way back. The paradox was that Obregón, who was on the offense against the retreating Villa, acted as if he were on the defense.

Two days later in Aguascalientes, Villa personally gave out Colt pistols to the officers in his brigades. Meanwhile, Juan N. Medina, who had been having problems in Chihuahua with Gov. Ávila, had been detained. Villa, who did not have the luxury of disregarding one of his best organizers, put him in charge of Torreón, his rearguard. News came from Urbina in El Ébano saying that he was bogged down—at headquarters word spread this was because he was more interested in looting San Luis Potosí than in fighting—as well as reports that Severino Ceniceros and Máximo García were advancing on Ciudad Victoria.

During this continuous stream of telegraphs, Pancho received word that Maclovio Herrera had died. The circumstances of his death were strange. The first versions claimed that on April 17, while he was near a train reviewing Nuevo Laredo’s defenses against Villista Rosalío Hernández, his own troops had shot at him, spooking his horse who threw him. “He was thrown towards the train, with his hat in his hand, signaling them not to shoot. Unfortunately, the horse stepped in a gopher hole and did a somersault, falling on my general.” However, there were many doubts surrounding his death. Perhaps the story about the horse could explain Maclovio’s death, but not that of his aide, la Cuina (the Guinea Pig), who took a bullet in the back. There were those who said that Maclovio had been shot in the back, but the bullet had not come out the other side, rather it had remained hidden by a patch that Maclovio wore on his chest.

When it came time to identify the guilty parties, these same voices turned to the “friendly fire” theory, as opposed to the version sustained by I. Muñoz in which he asserted that Maclovio was killed in an “ambush by the same Carrancistas who later sought to justify it by claiming it was a terrible mistake. That Gen. Ricaut’s troops, Venustiano Carranza’s nephew, assassinated him.” Another version, this one told by Valadés, insinuated that the attempt had been carried out from within his own guard in which a certain Alfredo Artalejo was present who—after having served as a member of Herrera’s high command only to disappear after Maclovio’s death—had remained loyal to Villa and subsequently rejoined his forces.

Villa couldn’t help but feel conflicting emotions upon hearing the news. On the one hand, he was pleased to learn of the death of a friend who had betrayed him, on the other, he felt nostalgia for a commander who had been worth so much while he rode alongside Villa but who meant almost nothing on his own. Villa’s life was filling up with ghosts.

Amidst news and rumors, the argument between Ángeles and Villa over the coming battle’s strategy continued. Felipe Ángeles told Villa that he had to retreat and concentrate the maximum number of troops and then defeat his enemies one by one. Pancho proposed putting Ángeles in charge of the campaign, but he refused to accept; and finally Ángeles submitted to his superior. Villa did, however, follow Ángeles’ advice in trying to assemble the greatest possible number of Division of the North brigades, ordering José Rodríguez’s brigade to come from Monterrey, which had recently been defeated in Matamoros.

In Silao, a group of generals appeared before Madinabeytia and demanded to meet with Villa, including Ocaranza, Arroyo, and Paliza. They told him about Dionisio Triana, el Cura (the Priest), and his suspicious movements during the second Battle of Celaya. That they suspected him of being a traitor. Villa, for his part, had intercepted a message to Dionisio from Obregonista Gen. Martín Triana, Dionisio’s uncle. The two pieces of information led Villa to doubt his general’s fidelity. Villa then reviewed his brigade, which reportedly produced the following dialogue:

“This is what’s left of your brigade?” asked Villa.

Triana replied that many had deserted or been killed or wounded. And then added, “Look, I’m tired of it.”

“You’re tired of it?” responded Villa.

Villa suggested he return to Chihuahua with his officers and, after the storm passed, later return. Triana refused the offer and said that he didn’t want to go to Chihuahua, but rather to the United States. Villa had him arrested and stripped him of his command, assigning his troops to other commanders.

Pressure to shoot Triana ran high, even though the suspicions could not be proven. In fact, in the author’s opinion, they were unfounded. Villa relented. On April 20, J.B. Vargas took charge of the execution. Shortly before the firing squad assembled, the priest Triana relayed a brief message that ended up in Villa’s hands in which he wrote, “Living is the same as dying, but I am happy to go to another world where there are, perhaps, no executioners or tyrants.”

Obregón’s advances were growing in strength, and slowly he was seizing the territory that Villa was giving up. On April 23, Gen. Enríquez, who was carrying a million pesos and an equal number of cartridges, joined Obregón’s column in La Piedad, and on Sunday, April 25, Diéguez’s division and that of Murguía, with some 7,000 men, combined forces in Pénjamo. The Obregonista Army of Operations was concentrated in one spot. Maycotte was harassing Villa’s rearguard which had already abandoned Silao because Villa was concentrating his forces in León. That same day, the vanguards of the two forces once again made contact in El Saúz.

While Obregón concentrated his forces in Silao, Villa established his headquarters at Gen. Serratos’ home—who was also the state’s governor—in León. The last of Ángeles’ troops arrived from Monterrey as well as a part of Fierro’s brigade. Villa was pressuring Urbina to quickly defeat the Carrancistas in El Ébano and then join up with his main force. Only a few kilometers separated the two armies.

On April 29, Obregón’s scout train, with him on board, advanced towards the Trinidad station on a reconnaissance mission, some nineteen kilometers to the northwest of Silao and ended up in a fight with retreating Villistas. Isaac Arroyo and Canuto Reyes’ column attacked Obregón’s train on their way from León de los Aldamas, while José Rodríguez’s Villa brigade approached the location. The train retreated in the midst of a genuine firefight, shooting a cannon perched on the front of the engine. The Villista cavalry overtook the train despite the cannon and machine-gun fire mounted on the cars. One of the riders’ colonels, Petronilo Vázquez even managed to jump onto one of the flatcars, but was killed on the spot.

That same morning, Francisco Murguía, following Obregón’s orders, set out his first combat lines, meeting almost no resistance along a string of haciendas including La Sardina, La Sandía, San Cristóbal, Jagüeyes, El Lindero, El Talayote and Santa Ana del Conde, the latter being considered the most important of the list. All of these were located to the northwest of Trinidad station along an almost fourteen-kilometer stretch. This was where Obregón had chosen to confront Villa, forcing him out of León.

Murguía’s movements did not escape Villa’s watch and he sent Eulogio Ortiz’s Chao brigade out to edge around them to the west of Trinidad in order to attack their rear. Murguía was caught off guard and began withdrawing to the positions previously captured at Santa Ana del Conde. Around three o’clock in the afternoon, as told by José C. Valadés, one of Murguía’s aides, set up “at the La Sandía hacienda, where Murguía set out a line of riflemen who formed a horseshoe protected by fences along the terrain. Having great confidence in their charges, the Villistas threw nearly 5,000 riders [in fact, it might have been a lot fewer, not more than 1,000] at the line occupied by Murguía. The attackers’ courage carried them to the fences on more than a few occasions, however, the infantry and machine-gun fire was so intense that they were forced to retreat. They had hardly finished one charge when a new nucleus of cavalry would advance on Murguía’s positions again.”

Villa sent new cavalry forces to flank them and not even the arrival of Gen. Rómulo Figueroa’s forces were able to stave off the defeat. Murguía withdrew to Romita around noon. The first round had gone to the Villistas.

The problem of ammunition formed the bedrock of the next battle. Lázaro de la Garza telegraphed Villa giving him the news that, based on rumors that his retreat from Celaya stemmed from his lack of ammunition, the sellers had raised the prices of cartridges, demanding $72 per $1,000. And although there were supplies that could be delivered immediately, Lázaro advised not buying at this price. He informed Villa that another manufacturer had offered to sell 15 million bullets at $62. Instead, he suggested purchasing 5 of the 15 million at the quoted price, thereby hoping to drive down the other prices. And, of course, he asked for money for commissions and noted that Customs was demanding he go to New York while Sommerfeld would guarantee the exchange himself. He also asked Villa not to make the German compete with him. Was Villa losing faith in him, making each of them buy munitions separately?

The first deposits after these dealings were held up along the border owing to legal difficulties. In order to bypass Customs in El Paso, a network was organized that went through Columbus.

At the time, the Villista air force concocted exhibition flights to entertain the troops in their camp in Aguascalientes. During one such show, a powerful gust of wind forced down pilot Newel M. McGuire’s plane, killing him. The other American pilot, Jack Mayes, who had arrived in Aguascalientes with one of the most recent model Curtiss biplanes, died during an exhibition when his motor stalled, his plane crashing into an adobe wall on the same airfield where McGuire had lost his life. Air reconnaissance missions followed in which pilots suffered further losses. Farhum T. Fish fell victim to Yaqui snipers who shot him in the leg from their trenches, forcing him to land. Another pilot named Bonney was also wounded. Their reports were studied by Villa’s high command, with Ángeles and Villa looking over the maps. Villa himself went on a scouting mission on horseback, with his guard and Madinabeytia, to try to disentangle the enemy’s movements. What was Obregón trying to do?

He would soon find out. Over the night of May 2 and May 3, Obregón ordered a new sally from Santa Ana del Conde and the haciendas along the foothills of the mountains. Murguía set out at four o’clock in the morning. They found Gen. Manuel Madinabeytia, chief of Villa’s general staff, in Santa Ana with 3,000 horsemen. The Obgregonista vanguard was caught in an ambush, but the arrival of the bulk of their column resolved the situation and Murguía’s infantry captured the hacienda around nine o’clock. Round two for Obregón.

There was a sense that Obregón was consolidating his position through the course of the fighting, but at the cost of significant losses. Villa, in turn, appeared in principle to want Obregón to come closer to León. Perhaps he was following Ángeles’ initial advice about staging a defensive battle and was looking for the opportunity to isolate the enemy and cut off his munitions’ supply lines.

Over the course of May, the Villista government issued several decrees, signed by Villa and Escudero, constituting its most advanced social program yet. The directives began by obligating all mines located in Villista territory to pay wages in silver, gold, or dollars and they established an official exchange rate of $2 pesos to the dollar, banning company stores and any other method of forcing employees to purchase goods from company shops. The mine owners vigorously resisted the measure, claiming that the set up benefited their workers.

This first decree was followed by a second that established a minimum salary of one peso and a manifesto defending freedom of worship and against religious persecution. “We respect and pay our respects to all religious creeds,” explained the decree, standing in sharp contrast to the Carrancistas who were persecuting the Catholics and their priests and shuttering churches. Villa made his position clear. He was no Jacobin and wanted nothing to do with closing churches. Of course, expelling hundreds of priests, casting them out of political life, and seizing ill-gotten clerical possessions were all fair game, but there was a limit.

The agrarian law came next and then a decree expropriating all Huertista property and goods. In order to provide pensions for widows and orphans, Madero, Abraham González, and Pino Suárez’s assassins were expropriated, that is, the Orozquistas, Felicistas, and Huertistas, along with those who took part in the coup based in La Ciudadela military headquarters. One-third of the property confiscated went to the widows and orphans, one-third went to the state in which said goods were located, and one-third went to the national government. The last decree expropriated the US owners of the Guichapa hacienda, to be “administered by the government.”

Although the decrees appeared to be signed interchangeably in León or Aguascalientes, Villa’s headquarters were in León, in the La Casa de las Monas building on Cinco de Mayo Street, the home of Gen. Abel Serratos. One Sunday, around noon, some blankets were stolen, and the thieves were caught in front of the house. Villa leaned out over the balcony and ordered an aide to bring the thieves to him. Once they were assembled, they cried and begged Villa. Villa sent them under guard to be paraded through the streets naked, scandalizing the locals, who headed for the noon mass in the cathedral.

The Obregonista historians always produce troop figures favorable to Villa in each battle, however, when they report casualty lists, they also exaggerate Villista losses. It’s nonsense. If the Division of the North lost half its forces in every battle, how could its troops have surpassed Obregón’s total in the next confrontation?

After the disaster of Celaya, which left Villa with 11,000 men, the Division of the North could count on some 25,500 men (19,500 riders and 6,000 infantry) during the crucial moments of the Battle of Trinidad, including troops led by José Rodríguez, Felipe Ángeles, Raúl Madero, and Rodolfo Fierro. Obregón, for his part, had some 34,700 men (9,400 cavalry and 14,300 infantry), including those led by Benjamín Hill along with Diéguez and Murguía’s divisions, which totaled some 11,000 men.

After receiving one train with supplies and another loaded with ammunition from Veracruz, as the rail lines to Mexico City remained open, Obregón began to fortify his positions, including digging trenches, with Trinidad station serving as a central axis, at kilometer marker 401 between Silao and León. He organized a network of shallow foxholes and machine-gun nests and placed the cavalry in reserve on his flanks.

After nine days of waiting, on Wednesday, May 12, Obregón ordered Contreras and Amarillas to take a hill called La Cruz on the Villista left some ten kilometers to the west of the Trinidad station. Villa, who had decided to set up his headquarters on a lookout on the Otates hacienda, looked on, offering one of his colorful commentaries, “Look, boys, at all that Carranclanes fog,” using one of the many Carrancista nicknames then in use.

Pancho decided to deploy his best horsemen under José Rodríguez to prevent the enemy from taking the hill. Valadés recalled that “despite the difficulties in climbing the rugged terrain, and despite the incessant artillery bombardment from La Loza hacienda, the Villista general led his riders almost to the top of the hill, earning the admiration of those same Carrancistas.”

Soon after, 1,000 horsemen with Gen. Rodolfo Fierro in the lead, emerged “like devils” from a forest located one kilometer from Murguía and Diéguez’s lines. Fierro was drunk, having just polished off a bottle. Puente remarked that “he had been sober, but in the fury of battle he needed the stimulation of alcohol.”

Amado Aguirre described how “the column moved out at a long trot towards the Twentieth Battalion and when they came within four hundred or five hundred meters, opened fire with their carbines, now racing at a full gallop, they let their spent rifles dangle from their bandoliers after firing the five shots in its magazine and unholstered their revolvers, shooting them with their reins tied to their left arm.”

Aarón Sáenz completed the picture, “with an almost savage energy, their horses at a full gallop, as if they were betting on a race, wild, entranced [. . .] they fell upon our cavalry, who only had enough time to turn towards them and then, all together, run towards the hacienda [La Loza].” Obregón’s machine guns raked them. Valadés reconstructed the scene:

The Carrancista soldiers answered with terrifying volleys that turned back the dragoons who, unable to break the enemy’s lines, continued rippling past in an attempt to get a little further on, only to be received with equal firmness. At some points, the charge was so intense that the riders and horses jumped over the trenches and were shot down on the other side; at other times, the force of the charge was so great that forty of fifty riders would break into Carrancista territory as they competed in a sort of unstoppable race and were then easily hunted down by the machine gunners who had to turn their guns around to riddle the Villistas in the backs with bullets. Like an impetuous and gigantic current, the Villista cavalry swept across four or five kilometers, crashing like waves against a sea cliff.

Some made it all the way to the Carrancista infantry lines. Fierro was wounded, but kept on fighting, “coming close to the rocks at the top of the hill on his great chestnut horse whose feet were colored white, killing Yaquis with his pistol.”

Amado Aguirre summed up the experience, “For those who witnessed this armed confrontation, the Villista cavalry equaled [. . .] the best that has ever existed in all of the great battles of recorded history.” Obregón, too, left a record of his astonishment, “In none of the campaigns in which I have found myself present, have I ever known a cavalry charge so savagely carried out as that of the Villistas that day. It is enough to say that the most intense fire lasted, approximately, five minutes, leaving three hundred dead on the field of battle.” Eighty Dorados with their new Colt .45s lay among the cadavers.

Villa was furious when the survivors of the attack returned to Los Otates hacienda. He had not ordered them to throw themselves at Obregón’s infantry, and many Dorados from his own guard were now dead. Fierro was wounded, with blood on his face and a perforated leg. . . and he was drunk. Villa, who hated alcohol, was ready to have him shot, however, after seeing the state he was in, ordered him to be taken to a hospital in Chihuahua, although he was to be kept under guard.

The Carrancistas, in the end, had not taken La Cruz Hill; they had, however, managed to repel the Villista counterattack. The third round went to Obregón.

And Villa had exposed his greatest weakness, that is, his generals’ impatience. Having drawn up defensive battle plans, they could not help but throw their cavalry against a stationary infantry.

Ángeles interrogated prisoners to find out Gen. Obregón’s location. Villa met with Calixto Contreras, José I. Prieto, Ocaranza, Fructuoso Méndez, and the Cedillo brothers. They rebuilt the Villista lines with the railway serving as a midway point, a twenty-two-kilometer line along which they established telegraphic communications.

Over the next days, as if both parties had been frightened by the violence of the first clash, only a few instances of limited fighting broke out. The most important took place on May 14 during the middle of the night when Gen. Murguía, at the head of 700 cavalry troops, occupied El Resplandor hacienda, provoking several unsuccessful counterattacks.

One occurrence at this time in Chihuahua must have had a particularly big impact on Pancho. On May 16, Antonio Villa, his younger brother, left a bullfight and felt a strong desire to go see his ten-day-old son. Baca Valles offered to lend him his car and Antonio got in with Lt. Col. Pulido. By the corner on Sixth Street, someone opened fire, killing Antonio and gravely wounding Pulido. The assassin was a certain Simón Martínez, one of Gen. Chao’s grooms who then fled to the United States. It turned out that the groom had fired at them because he believed, mistakenly, he was shooting at Baca Valles. Toño, as Villa’s brother was known, had “many friends and no enemies,” recalled Luz Corral. Villa, in the midst of the campaign, could not attend the funeral and hardly ever spoke about the matter. In the wake of the killing, a rumor ran through the Carrancista camp that Villa wanted to kill himself.

Despite the death of his brother, to whom he was deeply connected, Villa did not abandon his principal obsession, that of securing ammunition. All throughout preparations for the Battle of Trinidad, he tried by a thousand and one means to get his hands on more munitions. The provisional governor of Durango turned over thirty thousand 7mm Mauser bullets and twenty -thousand .30-30 shells. Villa made an inventory of what he had purchased, what he was getting at the moment, and what he had on hand in León; he was furious with the results. On May 17, he ordered the contract be completed in New York for 5 million bullets at an initial cost of $180,000. Ten days later, Sommerfeld wrote to de la Garza stating that there were no funds and that if he didn’t hand over a payment of $35,000, the shipment would be lost. Lázaro passed on the news to Villa, adding that he had fought with Hipólito and that he greatly mistrusted him. The lack of trust was completely justified as Villa’s brother had opened negotiations with Krupp, Peters Cartridge Co., Western Cartridge Co., and Winchester, mediated through National City Bank of New York and a bank in Saint Louis, but he had not closed any of the deals. In the end, near the final day of the battle, Lázaro reported that the deal for 3 million cartridges that had been contracted with Peters in exchange for a $40,000 down payment had been called off because the manufacturer had received reports they would not be paid. Other shipments were held up along the way while still others had arrived in Juárez. Only a portion of the expected supply ever found its way to the Division of the North, approximately half-a-million .30-30 cartridges and two hundred rifles.

On May 21, Villa’s reinforcements arrived, namely, Raúl Madero’s troops who had evacuated Monterrey. Upon their arrival, Pancho abandoned his defensive posture, and the following day feigned a cavalry movement to cut off Obregón munitions supplies between Pachuca and Irapuato. Obregón responded by sending Murguía’s cavalry towards Dolores with the aim of protecting the railway lines.

On May 22, when Obregón pulled an important contingent of troops off the front lines, Villa launched a generalized assault. Both sides’ artillery were so active that the cannons fired four thousand shots between them. Felipe Ángeles’ artillery was particularly accurate, prompting Gen. Gavira to say that “never had so much fire and so many shells rained down on us.”

Obregón, realizing that he had fallen into a trap, quickly recalled Murguía’s forces. At sunrise that same day, Villa’s infantry began their advance. They attacked using handmade bombs, but they ran into a well dug in infantry with excellent positions. Still, Villa’s infantry, backed up by a column of cavalry, advanced time and again on the Carrancistas’ network of shallow foxholes. They were thrown back three times.

In parallel with the infantry assault, Villa initiated an enveloping movement, attacking Obregón’s rearguard with his cavalry and causing a great deal of damage. They managed to get all the way to Los Sauces, La Loza, and Santa Ana haciendas. Obregón ordered Gen. Cesáreo Castro to cut off the enemy’s advance with his 3,000 riders. Castro attacked the Villistas with great energy, but the latter’s numerical superiority almost compromised his objective. The Villista cavalry had gained the upper hand and was forcing the Carrancistas to retreat just when Pancho Murguía’s cavalry, some 2,500 horsemen, arrived at a providential moment, saving them by launching a tremendous charge against José Rodríguez’s cavalry, who were forced to withdraw.

On May 22, Gavira reported that the Villistas had conducted fourteen charges in the zone he was defending; Mena Brito, exaggerating as always, called it eighty. Obregón had turned back Villa’s infantry as well as Rodríguez’s cavalry, thanks to the opportune return of Murguía’s cavalry, but at the cost of 2,000 casualties and a great drain on his munitions. Round four went to Obregón, but it was debatable.

A new supply train arrived for the Carrancistas from Tula, carrying one million cartridges. Gen. Murguía pressed Obregón to launch a counterattack before their supplies ran low, but Obregón repeated his schema from the Battles of Celaya, believing the moment had not yet arrived. For him, it was a war of patience.

Not so for Pancho Villa who didn’t know how to fight on the defensive. One morning towards the end of May, Felipe Ángeles was summoned by Pancho Villa to his lodgings in León. He found the general of the Division of the North naked and stretched out on the floor. Villa told him that he had a plan to withdraw the infantry and flank Obregón with his cavalry in order to surround him, cutting him off from Silao and leaving him isolated. Villa reportedly declared, “My general, you will command the infantry. You will cut down the Carrancistas’ advance they will surely launch once they feel rearguarded.”

Ángeles liked the plan, but pointed out a weakness: the front would be left without reserves. Villa had to move quickly. With no delay, Pancho put things in motion. On May 30, he reviewed Fierro’s brigade—still without its commander, who lay wounded in Chihuahua—as well as José Rodríguez’s Villa’s brigade, Chao’s brigade, and Raúl’s Madero brigade. Ángeles and Madinabeytia took charge of headquarters in Los Otates.

With Villa himself in command and Manuel Chao as second-in-command, the cavalry left León and moved quietly under the cover of darkness through trails and canyons. On May 31, they assembled at the mouth of a mine called La Luz. Their identifying sign was a red and white ribbon and they rolled up their combat jackets’ sleeves. Around ten o’clock in the morning on June 1, they took Obregón’s rearguard by surprise at the Nápoles hacienda. El Güero, Eulogio Ortiz, rode out front carrying the banner in his hand. They broke through the infantry troops from Veracruz and forced the Carrancista cavalry to retreat. Villa stopped at a point close to Nápoles and left Chao in charge of directing the operation. A few hours later, they seized Silao from Gen. Fortunato Maycotte’s troops and inflicted heavy losses, forcing him to retreat to Irapuato. The Villistas captured troop trains and a wagon filled with Mauser ammunition and then set fire to the Silao station. This maneuver made a clean sweep of the Army of Operations. Simultaneously, Villa mobilized to attack the Carrancista’s right held by Gen. Rodríguez’s forces, thus putting almost 7,000 riders behind Obregón’s back.

The fifth round went to the Villistas.

Villa continued on to Santa Ana where his namesake brigade of veteran Chihuahuans led by José Rodríguez applied the pressure. On the morning of June 1, they led a furious attack on Murguía’s cavalry. Valadés reported:

The first charge had not even ended, when new, fresh troops charged as well. Murguía defended his position desperately. At various points, with the chief of his general staff, Col. Arnulfo González and his aides, he counterattacked the enemy, however, their numbers were growing, and it was necessary to retreat. But this was always done in an orderly fashion, fighting hand-to-hand to defend their territory. There were times when the Villistas and Carrancistas intertwined in such a way that people from one or the other band became confused. Gen. Murguía himself was once surrounded by a group of enemy riders, but instead of keeping quiet, he shouted to them, This way, boys, follow me! And the Villistas, bewildered for a moment, followed Gen. Murguía until he reached his own men and then turned on the Villistas violently, cutting them to pieces.

However, the Villistas were getting the better of it and Obregón had to send off Gen. Pedro Morales—the same who had arrived just in time to protect Murguía—because his troops had suffered so many casualties.

The Villistas in the thick of the fighting, for instance, Calixto Contreras’s brigade, once again ran into problems with ammunition. It seems that some of the defective ammunition from Celaya had been mixed in with the good and some of the bullets dropped to the ground after only thirty meters. “What the hell is going on? This rifle doesn’t work,” remembered a combatant many years later. They were not only fighting for positions, but for control over the wells as both sides were running low on water.

The attack became concentrated on Santa Ana on June 2, under highly effective artillery fire that was wreaking havoc on the hacienda while Villa’s cavalry and infantry approached, taking the perimeter in hand-to-hand fighting. Murguía, who took charge of the defenses, held the position throughout the night.

Valadés maintained that Villa’s tactical advantage was significant and that “Obregón’s cavalry was nearly exhausted, if not ruined,” while the Santa Ana hacienda, the central axis of his entire defensive schema, was “partially surrounded by the enemy with infantry as its only remaining defenses.” Thus, Obregón ordered those troops defending El Resplandor hacienda, which was at the point of collapse, to reassemble in Santa Ana during the night of June 3.

The battlefield was littered with bodies. Cervantes recorded the testimony of a Capt. Espinoza who described the size of the green flies, the number of rats, the stench of the unburied dead, and nits that were so swollen they didn’t know how to walk, almost the size of a grain of rice.

Villa’s medical brigade, organized by Dr. Villarreal, was working at peak efficiency. It included fourteen brigades divided between all the fronts, each one with a colonel in command and four doctors on staff, eight assistants, and twenty-four stretcher bearers in a four-car train with beds, operating tables, sterilizers, and abundant medical supplies. In Trinidad, they attended to 2,000 wounded, transferring the more serious cases to the North, even sending some all the way to El Paso. Villarreal was given the rank of general for his efforts.

Ángeles, in Villa’s absence, issued a statement to the press that was widely reproduced, including in US papers. Obregón was surrounded. His luck was running out.

On June 3, the Villistas unleashed a damaging bombardment on the Carrancistas’ positions, indicating that Villa was preparing for a generalized assault. Villa stood on a hill to the south of Trinidad station and sent a message to Ángeles, “I’m not going to let a single tortilla get through to them.”

At seven in the morning, Obregón arrived at Santa Ana for a meeting of his high command, attended by Diéguez, Murguía, and Castro, at which they were able to obtain a clear perspective of the situation all along the front. After determining that the balance of forces was not in their favor, the generals returned to their combat zones. At that moment, Obregón spied a Villista column approaching with the support of artillery. From his point of view with the advancing Villistas, Práxedis Giner recalled that “After carefully observing the enemy’s position, we realized that a circular stone wall ran along the main house in a north/south direction behind which the Carrancista cavalry soldiers were taking cover.” Miguel Saavedra’s battery took up its position at this point and set up its guns. The first volley was short.

Obregón commented that he had to move cautiously because he was sure that Felipe Ángeles’ artillery had good aim. He had just left his observation position when, while he was crossing the courtyard, a broadside hit its “target, throwing up a big cloud of dust and causing confusion among the troops.”

Obregón himself later explained, “right in front of us, we felt the unexpected explosion of a shell that knocked us all to the ground. Before realizing what had happened, I sat up straight and I could see that I was missing my right arm.” Dr. Gracia, chief of the Carrancista medical services recalled, “Around nine in the morning, he was mutilated by a shell fragment at the lower third of his right arm which also contused his adjacent hemithorax. He took his pistol in his left hand and aimed it at his left temple, his suicide attempt was foiled because there wasn’t a bullet in the chamber. His gun was then taken from him.” Aarón Sáenz described how Lt. Col. Garza grabbed the gun from his hand and that Obregón shouted ¡Viva Mexico! and fell to the ground. This narrator can’t believe the tale, but that’s how the testimony goes.

Drs. López and (Jorge) Blum attended to Obregón. Believing he would die, Obregón sent Aarón Sáenz to look for his generals. When he found them meeting with Gen. Murguía, he asked for a doctor and, in a low voice, told him that the commander-in-chief had been wounded. Over behind the Villista lines, they noticed a strange commotion at the hacienda as a group departed for Trinidad carrying a wounded man. They figured it was a high-ranking officer without knowing it was Obregón.

There is a photo that shows a column of officers on foot carrying the stretcher. It’s an intriguing photo, absent of tension, showing a group of motley soldiers on foot in a state of disorder, carrying a stretcher flanked by more soldiers and another group on horseback. The stretcher is blocked from view, but one can guess it’s in the center of the group. The caption on the photo states it depicts officers from the general staff, but it looks more like a disorganized pilgrimage. Obregón arrived at the Trinidad camp at one in the afternoon, where Col. Senorino Cendejas operated on him. The sixth round had gone to the Villistas.

However, Pancho was unaware of the situation and failed to exploit it on that June 3, nor did he take advantage of the successful encirclement and the decapitation of the Army of Operations after Obregón’s injury. If he had done so, he most likely would have won the Battle of Trinidad.

The Carrancista generals met on the night of June 4. The traditional versions state that Benjamín Hill took command and set out to follow Obregón’s plan; however, it seems that things were not so simple. It wasn’t an easy decision; they were cut off from their rearguard and the fighting from the previous days had bloodied their forces. At first, Hill proposed withdrawing to Irapuato. Diéguez and Castro supported him, but Gen. Francisco R. Serrano’s opinion was not known. Gen. Pancho Murguía, however, opposed the withdrawal and forced the decision, stating that he would attack León with or without the others. In the end, he imposed his will on his compañeros and, at four in the morning on June 5, the entire Carrancista infantry was prepared to go on the offensive.

The first action was the mobilization of 2,000 riders under the command of Gen. Rómulo Figueroa who rode out of Santa Ana and attacked the Villista left.

Valadés explained that “The bugle calls at the center of the line sounded ‘Attack and fire’ and Murguía’s buglers repeated ‘Attack and fire!’ and then ‘Gallop!’ and ‘Spread out and Charge!’ Murguía—at the front of his cavalry and part of Gen. Cesáreo Castro’s forces, along with the Eighth, Seventeenth, and Twentieth infantry battalions—initiated the advance. At the same time the Carrancista artillery, stationed on El Mirador Hill, opened fire on the Villista positions.”

The first reaction from Villa’s front line was very weak—perhaps owing to being surprised that their enemy, who had remained on the defensive for a month was now going on the offense—and they began to retreat. Groups of Villista riders counterattacked, giving the infantry time to reorganize and their artillery to begin working.

However, during those moments, the area defended by colonels Canales and Congo in command of Cedillo’s troops gave way and their men abandoned the fighting. The two colonels were later accused of treachery by the Villistas. Next, the Cedillo brothers’ entire brigade collapsed, withdrawing, and leaving an eleven-kilometer hole in the line. The absence of reserves—who were out of communication far behind Obregón’s lines—made it impossible to close the hole.

Ángeles ask Villa to order a retreat while he personally organized the artillery’s withdrawal. Villa returned with Martín López and some of the Dorados to witness the events.

Gen. Pancho Murguía’s division advanced toward León despite Canuto Reyes’ constant cavalry charges—who hoped to hold their movement—withering fire from the Villista artillery, and stiff resistance from the Villista infantry, which would fall back fifty or one hundred meters and then turn and fight. Gen. Margarito Orozco moved up and down the front lines with Villa’s written orders pinned on the sleeve of his amputated arm, “I will hold personally responsible all commanders and officers who do not reorganize their people and counterattack.”

When Murguía arrived at El Resplendor hacienda, Benjamín Hill ordered his remaining forces to advance and to occupy the center and right of the front. The official versions state that Murguía advanced further than he had been ordered to and that Hill had to move forward without having wanted to, in order to cover him while Diéguez contained the Villista cavalry, which, without knowing clearly what was happening, continued to pressure the Carrancista rearguard.

By midday, Murguía had León in front of him. The Villistas had retreated to the railway line between León and Aguascalientes, taking cover in the terraces where they set up machine guns. Giving the battle up for lost, Villa took charge of organizing the departure of the trains and ordered that space be made for widows and the soldaderas so that they were not abused by the Carrancistas.

Fierce fighting broke out in the train station. Murguía tried to flank the resisters with cavalry while Villa and Ángeles, attending to the extreme rearguard, fought with pistols in hand. They resisted for a half an hour and then withdrew. Ángeles received his orders to retreat to Aguascalientes and to reorganize the Division there.

The last holdouts were the men from Calixto Contreras’s brigade who assembled at the city center, intending to continue defending it. That afternoon, after three hours of fighting, they were finally dislodged. Around six that evening, the Carrancistas took possession of León, which they plundered without mercy.

Although some Obregonista sources exaggerate the casualties to an absurd degree—for instance, Miguel Alessio noted, “The entire Villista infantry was captured”—the battle, which Pancho and the Division of the North had been winning at one point, was lost. Villismo had suffered a terrible blow to its morale. Still, it was a long way from being destroyed.

Constitutionalist (Carrancista) soldiers standing on top of railroad cars of an S.P. de Mexico train, ca. 1914.