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     It may well be the most famous action photograph of Pancho Villa (No. 1 ). Certainly it is a characteristic pose. An expert horseman. he was showing off for photographers, while a column of his famous cavalry, the Dorados, passed by, extending seemingly into infinity. Versions of this picture, some cropped to concentrate on Villa, others revealing the entire panorama, have been reproduced in dozens of publications. An old print. possibly dating back to 1913, is just one of some 315 photographs that comprise the John Davidson Wheelan Collection located in the Texas A&M University Archives.

     Wheelan was one of a legion of newspaper and magazine reporters and photographers who covered the Mexican Revolution. He probably arrived in Northern Mexico early in the winter of 1913-1914. The main attraction was General Francisco (Pancho) Villa, who held Ciudad Juárez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso. Texas. By this time Villa had the reputation of being the most able military commander among the Constitutionalists, a coalition of revolutionaries in rebellion against the provisional government of General Victoriano Huerta. In February, 1913, Huerta had conspired in the overthrow of the constitutionally elected government of President Francisco Madero. Villa, a devout supporter of Madero. was one of several leaders in Northern Mexico who were fighting for the restoration of constitutional government and for revolutionary reforms. 

     In October Villa scored the most impressive rebel victory up to that time when he captured Torreón, an important rail center 520 miles south of Ciudad Juárez. Then he laid siege to Chihuahua, some 280 miles north of Torreón. While the bulk of his troops pinned down the federal forces, he slipped around the city with a small detachment and captured a southbound government train. Loading his men and horses on boxcars, he turned northward and steamed into an unsuspecting Ciudad Juárez during the dead of night on November 15. By daybreak his forces had seized the federal garrison, and the city was his.

      This audacious move alone would have made him newsworthy. But his growing reputation also derived from a mixture of legend and his own contrivance. The legend originated in his childhood, when, so went the tale, he avenged the rape of his sister by murdering the son of a wealthy hacendado (owner of a large plantation or ranch). Driven to a life of outlawry, he allegedly became a Mexican Robin Hood. The revolution enabled him to attain a previously impossible respectable status. Clearly he was a larger-than-Iife figure to the peasants who rallied to his side. He inspired fear and loyalty among his followers, to whom he was fiercely dedicated in return. He was a man’s man—earthy, passionate, the very personification of Mexican machismo.

     Pure animal cunning enabled him to appreciate the value of positive publicity. Just as important, he was advised constantly by a special agent of United States President Woodrow Wilson. This agent, George C. Carothers, had been assigned to accompany Villa for the purpose of looking after the interests of Americans in Mexico. Soon Carothers was advising the revolutionary leader on a variety of matters, including the value of cordial relations with the United States. Under Carothers’ tutelage Villa took special precautions to protect the lives and property of Americans. He made public statements praising American political institutions in general and President Wilson in particular. And he made it abundantly clear that he welcomed reporters from the United States. He made himself readily available for interviews and posed willingly for photographs. These factors combined, at least for a few months, to make Villa the darling of the American press.

     Wheelan and a crew of motion picture photographers, employed by the Mutual Film Corporation, were sent to Northern Mexico for the purpose of filming Villa in battle. On January 3, 1914, Mutual’s New York office announced the signing of a contract (the records do not reveal if Wheelan played a role in its negotiation) with Villa, granting the general a $25.000 fee, plus a fifty percent royalty on earnings, in return for exclusive rights to film the revolutionary army in combat. In the weeks that followed, the Mutual crew enjoyed one of the few moderately successful efforts, prior to World War I, in making motion pictures of actual military conflict.  

     Traveling with Villa proved to be a high-wide-and-handsome adventure. The jumping-off place was El Paso (Nos. 2 and 3). A rapidly growing city with a population over 50.000. it had become a veritable Mecca for adventurers, journalists and photographers, refugees, spies, arms dealers and smugglers, and U.S. Treasury and Justice Department agents. The city literally seethed with intrigue. Since the United States government had imposed an embargo on the sale of arms to Mexico. Journalists, as well as other travelers going south of the border, were carefully searched by U.S. Army troops before being allowed to cross the international bridge into Ciudad Juarez (No. 4). From that point they traveled south by rail. For this coterie of journalists and photographers Villa outfitted baggage cars with sleeping quarters and office space. Usually they were attached to the train just ahead or behind his own private car .

     Previous efforts to film military action had proved largely unsatisfactory. So much of the fighting took the form of ambush or night attack that there had been few filmed scenes of actual combat. But stories soon began to circulate out of Mexico that Villa deferred absolutely to the wishes of the Mutual crew—that he even eschewed his favorite tactic. the night attack, to make possible the filming of his every action. Such stories were apocryphal. Villa was too good a field commander to jeopardize his success for the sake of publicity. When the films were screened in the United States, there were many scenes of preparations and aftermath, of Villa exhorting his charges to the attack, of hordes galloping off in clouds of dust, but there were precious few glimpses of actual clashes of arms. There is no question that the cameramen faced danger. that they produced the very best action sequences that their less-than-mobile equipment would allow. What proved more valuable in the long-run was their still photographs of more mundane aspects of the revolution.

     Most of the photographs in the Wheelan Collection were apparently taken between November, 1913, and May, 1914. Many of them appear to be stills cut from motion picture film. Since none of the photographs bear markings crediting them to any specific photographer, there is no way to determine if they were all taken by the Mutual crew. The first recognizable location in Mexico to appear in any of the pictures is the city of Chihuahua, approximately 230 miles south of Ciudad Juárez. An untenable position for Huerta’s military forces. since it was located between Villa-held Ciudad Juárez and Torreón, the federals evacuated Chihuahua on November 29. The rebels occupied the city on December 8, and cameramen were on hand to capture the celebration as Villa and his staff reviewed the troops from the steps of a public building (Nos. 5 and 6).

      There are more pictures of Villa in the Wheelan Collection than of any other single person. He particularly enjoyed posing while sitting in an automobile (No.7). He had an almost childish fascination with automobiles, airplanes, and other modern machines. Although Villa was the center of attention, he frequently posed with other notable personalities. For example, seated to his right in the automobile pose noted above (No.7) was Rudolfo Fierro, a trusted bodyguard and bloodthirsty assassin. It was said that on one memorable afternoon, Fierro, with Villa’s approval, personally gunned down with a revolver 150 federal prisoners. In another photograph (No.8). Villa, dressed in a military uniform, appeared to be glancing at Raúl Madero, second from the right. Brother of fallen President Francisco Madero, Raúl subordinated himself to Villa, serving as a military and political adviser.  Madero’s upper-class background is revealed in this and other photographs by his attire and aristocratic bearing. Nor was he the only one of his class to affiliate with Villa. Ex-federal general, Felipe Angeles (No.9), a graduate of the military academy at Chapultepec (Mexico.s West Point) and artillery school in France, commanded Villa’s artillery contingent. In this scene Angeles was explaining an upcoming military action to reporters and cameramen.

     Some scenes captured by the photographers were clearly contrived for their benefit. In one such picture. rebel soldiers. standing bolt upright in the open, aim their weapons at a mock enemy (No.10). In another, revolutionary troops brandish newly acquired rifles. perhaps just smuggled from the United States (No.11).  A third such situation reveals a man in a business suit trying his hand at firing a Hotchkiss machine gun, while another man, holding binoculars, watches for the impact of the bullets (No.12). 

     Some of the more notable journalists of the day covered the Mexican Revolution. including Lincoln Steffens, Jack London, and John Reed.  Many of them were radicals and tended to romanticize what they saw. The camera’s eye was more discerning. Photographs revealed the work-a-day details of the revolution. For example. repairing railroad tracks was a frequent occurrence in a war fought mainly along rail lines (No. 13). Scenes of ragtag revolutionary soldiers, with their camp followers, indeed their whole families, perched precariously atop boxcars became some of the more frequently reproduced photographs of the Mexican Revolution (Nos. 14 and 15).  In this manner literally thousands traveled from place to place, while cargoes, including horses and ammunition. were tucked more safely inside.

      The cameramen also captured oddities, such as a group of Indians (probably Yaquis or Tarahumaras) come down from the mountains to the city (No.16). Some Indians served in the revolutionary armies, but these did not appear to be bearing arms.

     The cameramen also captured some of the unsavory aspects of the revolution. While Villa enjoyed the reputation of being a modern Robin Hood, photographs reveal that he did not give to the poor everything he took from the rich. After occupying Chihuahua, he kept for his own residence one of the city's most sumptuous mansions (No.17). Meanwhile, out in the streets his troops went about the ugly business of disposing of the dead (No.18). And there is a poignant scene of a man trudging down a cobblestone street, the coffin hoisted on his shoulders destined perhaps to be the last resting for a fallen comrade (No.19).

     Glimpses of the losers are also provided in the photographs.  After the federal forces evacuated Chihuahua, they and their sympathizers fled 150 miles northeastward to Ojinaga on the border across from Presidio, Texas.  The Wheelan Collection contains pictures of the beleaguered travelers (No.20).  Harried by small bands of Villistas, the evacuees struggled across the desert by horseback or on foot without wafer or rest. Over one hundred died of wounds or exhaustion before the survivors staggered into Ojinaga. They no sooner arrived than their new outpost was besieged by a larger force of Villa's army.  Early in January, 1914, most of the refugees splashed frantically across the Rio Grande to safety in the United States. There they were herded by U.S. Army troops into makeshift compounds, then transported to a more permanent internment camp at Fort Bliss in El Paso.

      The camera captured the nature of life for the internees. There were the omnipresent U.S. soldiers, who inspected everything passed through the barbwire by friends and relatives (No. 21). For the American troops, this was just one more task to add to the tedium of garrison life (No. 22). The photographs also reveal that those who had resisted the revolution, or at least , had supported the federals for one reason or another, were not unlike the revolutionaries themselves. Most of the refugees did not come from the propertied classes. Yet even those who had not enjoyed a day of privileged status also became displaced persons (Nos. 23, 24. and 25). Many of them, both rich and poor, would never return to their homeland.

     These are just a few of the impressions of the Mexican Revolution that may be found in the John Davidson Wheelan Collection. It is a limited collection, encompassing only a brief period of time. Yet it is a valuable supplement to the larger and more extensive collections, such as those in the Gustavo Casasola Archives in Mexico City and the El Paso Public library. As much as any others, the Wheelan photographs help give us a clearer picture of the Mexican Revolution.

Keepsake Number Ten
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