The General and the Jaguar: Pershing's Hunt for Pancho Villa: A True Story of Revolution & Revenge [Paperback]

Eileen Welsome (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2006

Pulitzer Prize winner Welsome's gripping, panoramic story reveals a vicious surprise attack on the United States and America's hunt for the perpetrator, Pancho Villa.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the early morning of March 9, 1916, Pancho Villa launched an attack on Columbus, N.Mex., that cost the lives of 18 American civilians and soldiers. The American government responded by dispatching troops, led by Gen. John Pershing, into Mexico in pursuit of Villa, while tensions continued to escalate between the two countries, bringing them to the point of war. Despite its title, this book is more concerned with the Columbus attack itself—as well as its root causes and general aftermath—than it is with Pershing's hunt for the perpetrator. A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, Welsome approaches her subject with a novelistic eye for character and minutiae, devoting as much care to describing Villa's eyes as she does to his military philosophy. These digressive flourishes lend a raw humanism to her account of the attack, which plays as a series of horrifying vignettes and serves as the book's centerpiece. In the pages that follow, Welsome's anecdotal style occasionally saps the text's momentum. Overall, the vivid attention to detail compensates for whatever the narrative lacks in focus or efficiency. (June 2)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

One of the most compelling (but not necessarily admirable) figures of the Mexican Revolution was Pancho Villa. He was a violent, hot-tempered man who was absolutely ruthless in destroying perceived enemies; he was also brave, loyal, and devoted to the interests of the long-ignored campesinos. On March 9, 1916, Villa led a raid against the border town of Columbus, New Mexico, presumably to punish the U.S. government for opposing his faction as Mexico descended into civil war. In response, General John Pershing led an expedition into Mexico in a futile effort to track down Villa and his band. Welsome, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, tells the story of this obscure but fascinating episode with a fast-moving and engrossing narrative. At times, she seems to be drawing parallels with American involvement in Iraq, which bogs down the saga. But when she stays focused on the evolving story, she provides a highly readable and informative account, which also offers interesting portraits of some key figures in the Mexican Revolution. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; annotated edition edition (June 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316715999
• ISBN-13: 978-0316715997
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #782,572 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Sound familiar?, February 25, 2007

By 

Mark Dworkin (Thornhill, Ontario) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The General and the Jaguar: Pershing's Hunt for Pancho Villa: A True Story of Revolution & Revenge (Paperback)

Those with an interest in borderlands history will enjoy this account of the confrontation between Pancho Villa, the `Jaguar' of the title, and John Pershing, `the General'. The connection of the two stems of course from Pancho Villa's 1916 raid on Columbus, New Mexico, and the ensuing "punitive expedition" lead by "Black Jack" Pershing, (his nickname derived from his early command of "buffalo soldiers"). Among the byproducts of this study is an examination of the impact of a military force's presence on a porous border, a topic relevant today. Those seeking a deeper understanding of the reaction of Iraqis to the presence of foreign troops on their soil may find an instructive analogy in the reactions of Mexicans to the American punitive expedition. Students of history interested in attacks on American soil in the last one hundred years (Pearl Harbor and 9/11), have this incident for further context.

Author Eileen Welsome's tale consists of several related stories, with two of them at the heart of the book. The first is Pancho Villa force's infamous assault on American territory, the raid on the sleepy border town of Columbus. To tell this story more fully, Welsome examines why Villa turned against his ally in the convulsions of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20), the Americans. The background includes numerous pithy character sketches of Mexican revolutionary figures, from Huerta to Madero to Obregon and Zapata, and others. Welsome, who won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for reporting for the Albuquerque Tribune writes seamlessly and with verve. She deftly sorts out the conflicting and bewildering threads of the Mexican Revolution for the non-expert. The second central story is the American "Punitive Expedition" into Mexico to find and punish, and kill if necessary, Pancho Villa, commanded by future World War One Allied Expeditionary Force leader Pershing. Not to be ignored is his aide, the one-day-to-be-legendary George S. Patton, whose modern-day reputation for brutality is buttressed by a letter given context by the author, wherein Patton shows no remorse for killing a man.

Pershing, who had suffered the unspeakable loss of his wife and three young daughters in a fire, is humanized in ways many writers ignore. Villa's acts veer between murderous brutality and small courtesies. Mexican and Spanish sources are not neglected, albeit the vast majority of citations and items in the bibliography are Anglo materials. Several descendents of survivors of the Columbus raid were tracked down by the author and interviewed. A welcome source is the recollections of stalwart Maud Wright, whose husband was killed in Mexico by Villa's troops, and who was taken captive on Villa's trek north to Columbus. Along with Wright, other obscure figures with interesting stories in their own right are given full-blown portraits.

The March 9, 1916 Mexican rampage by Villa's troops on Columbus followed Villa's perception of betrayal by President Wilson. Believing the U.S. had aided his Mexican enemies, and that the gringos had no respect for Mexico, he was convinced Americans were preparing an invasion, as it had invaded seventy years earlier. Eighteen Americans were killed in Columbus as a result, among the victims both soldiers and civilians, including women. The raid and the earlier summary execution of seventeen non-military Americans traveling by train in Mexico are related through the stories of ordinary people caught up in the maelstrom- the citizens of Columbus, Villa's Anglo-captives picked up during his march to the border, Villista soldiers, and American cavalrymen. The author has a keen perception of how women caught up in the events managed, coped, and reacted to tragedy. Some readers may be disappointed, however, in the author's technique of putting words in the people's mouths, words she believes they may have spoken, and this is what keeps this book from getting a fifth star. Others may find the author's attempt to humanize long dead figures through descriptions of their eyes or emotions disconcerting and overly romantic.

The book alternates between American and the Mexican stories and settings. The technique is at least as old as War and Peace, but Welsome does it effectively. Pershing is ordered to go deep into Mexico to find and punish Villa, an action that brings the U. S. and Mexico to the brink of war. Villa's enemies, legion in Mexico, resented the Americano presence on Mexican soil more than they did Villa, and react sullenly and violently. Sound familiar? Pershing's American command, nearly 5000 strong, is depicted in its ten-month failure to find Villa, with its logistical nightmares, strategic errors, and its racist misunderstandings of Mexicans. The author's style is non-judgmental, and readers will draw their own conclusions as to justifications or lack thereof for both American and Mexican actions. Historical context is not neglected; the impact of German actions in stirring up border troubles in hopes of distracting America from participation in the Great War, while not a focus of the book, is delineated. Few of the long-range impacts of the failure of the American raid are examined, the author preferring to follow up on the lives of her protagonists and antagonists, including the 1923 assassination of Villa in Mexico, and the death of Pershing with his boots off in 1948.

Welsome is a careful reporter and stylish storyteller who prefers to eschew broader interpretations of the meaning of the events upon which she reports.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should be required reading!, June 6, 2006

By 

Armchair Interviews (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The General and the Jaguar: Pershing's Hunt for Pancho Villa: A True Story of Revolution & Revenge (Paperback)

In these days of American soldiers fighting in foreign lands, the story of how the United States of America became embroiled in the Mexican Revolution almost one hundred years ago is timely.

Fresh from victory in the Spanish American War, full of pride and new quasi-colonial possessions, America was now enjoying one of our isolationist periods when we would prefer to sit back and let the world solve its own problems.

The world was gearing up for war in the first decade of the 1900s. The British had finally concluded their operations in South Africa; the Japanese had handed the Russians the most decisive naval defeat since Trafalgar; and our neighbor to the south was in open revolt against its latest cobbled-together government.

With foreign companies and foreign entrepreneurs owning more of Mexico than the Mexicans, the stage was set for one of those personalities of the people to take advantage of the situation and use it to his benefit. Enter Francisco "Pancho" Villa.

Villa could be described as the Osama Bin Laden of his day. He raided, murdered and brutalized northern Mexico, and on a fateful day in March of 1916, crossed the border and attacked Columbus, New Mexico. His raid murdered innocent men and women and sent the borders states into panic.

President Woodrow Wilson sent General John J. Pershing on a punitive expedition that quickly became so hamstrung with rules of engagement that it resembled our expedition fifty years later in Southeast Asia.

The General & The Jaguar is an extensively researched and well-developed biography of not only Pershing and Villa but the supporting cast of characters on both sides that played at a game of chess in the Mexican state of Chihuahua for ten months.

Eileen Welsome has taken great unbiased pains to portray each characters, both known and unknown, in a light that will let the reader arrive at their own verdict as to how the incidents of 1916-7 should be remembered.

Armchair Interviews says: This is a work that should be required reading in every high school American history class.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WONDERFUL, FAST PACED HISTORY, June 17, 2006

By 

C L (Illinois) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The General and the Jaguar: Pershing's Hunt for Pancho Villa: A True Story of Revolution & Revenge (Paperback)

THE GENERAL AND THE JAGUAR is a heck of a good book. It is a serious, spendidly researched work of history, but it is written as smoothly and fast paced as a thriller. This is an action filled story dealing with some famous names: Patton, Pershing, Villa. The best thing about it is that the story is all true. If you now and then like to read a book with brave heroes, murder, revenge, and suspense, but are tired of "action" novels following the same old formula, try THE GENERAL AND THE JAGUAR. You get the excitement and action, and as a bonus, you learn what happened in America and Mexico almost a hundred years ago.