Texas Heritage, Volume 18, Number 3, Summer 2000 Page: 12

two American flyers, Lt. H.G. Peterson,
pilot, and Lt. Paul H. Davis, observer-gunner,
took off from the Marfa airfield in a
two-seat DH-4 De Havilland biplane. After
flying to Lajatis on the Rio Grande,
Peterson turned the airplane upriver heading
north. When he reached Presidio, however,
Peterson mistook the Rio Conchos
for the Rio Grande and continued flying
up river, deeper and deeper into the Sierra
Madre of Mexico. Before discovering his
navigational error, the DH-4 ran out of
fuel, forcing Peterson to make a crash landing
atop a mesa near Falomir, Chihuahua,
more than 100 miles from the border.
Within hours after surviving the crash,
the two flyers fell into the hands of Jesus
Renteria, a known Villista with a reputation
as "an all around thief, with a predilection
for horse stealing." Renteria also
had a fearsome appearance having lost his
right arm and leg in a railroad accident

Dawkins Kilpatrick demonstrates his
horsemanship.

years before in Kansas. Border Mexicans

called him "Corkleg" because of his wooden
leg or "Mocho" (meaning "maimed" in
Spanish), since a steel hook replaced his
missing right hand. Renteria took his two
captives to a hideout in the mountains near
San Antonio del Bravo across the river
from Candelaria. From there, Renteria
wrote a ransom note addressed to Dawkins
Kilpatrick demanding $15,000 for the safe
return of the two aviators. On the night of
August 19, 1919, Captain Matlack, riding
alone to the river crossing at Candelaria,
delivered the ransom money in a successful
exchange for the two aviators. In the
early morning hours of August 20, the last
American punitive expedition into Mexico
was initiated when 200 cavalrymen including
Troop K dashed across the Rio Grande
in hot pursuit of Renteria. Simultaneously,
Troop A, Fifth Cavalry, and Troop E, Eight
Cavalry, commanded by Maj. James P.
Yancey, crossed at Ruidosa, while Troop C,
Fifth Cavalry, and a machine gun troop
entered Mexico at Indio. Dawkins
Kilpatrick served as a guide for Troop K and
and several Texas Rangers, but Renteria
proved elusive.
With no clear objective, the punitive
expedition rapidly turned into a fiasco. For
the next six days, the troops remained in
Mexico. When the expedition entered
Carrizo Springs, Chihuahua, they captured
four Mexican prisoners wanted
in the United States on various charges
including livestock theft, breaking out of
jail, and murder. The next day, on the way
to Coyame, Chihuahua, Major Yancey ordered
the prisoners turned over to the
Texas Rangers. When the cavalrymen
rode off in the direction of Coyame,
gunshots rang out as the Rangers executed
their captives. Startled troopers
looked back only to see the Rangers
finish off their fleeing victims. When the
expedition reached a village not far from
Coyame, a drunken celebration ensued. For
centuries, Coyame has been a unique place
where the powerful Chihuahuan liquor,
sotol, has been distilled from the sotol cactus.
When the expedition reached
Coyame, the troops were not long in locating
a sotol still and two wooden kegs of
the liquor. Perhaps more than one guilty
conscience was in existence that night as

the revelry wore on. Major Yancey, the
commanding officer, "excelled in
libationess" along with his men. The following
morning, the extremely hung over
major found himself unable to launch the
punitive expedition or even mount his
horse without assistance until after 10 a.m.,
at which point he fell off his mount, rear
end first, into a sharp-barbed Pitahayas cactus.
Two army medical doctors "rushed up
and stood the warrior on his head" and
plucked out the cactus needles before replacing
the still-intoxicated major back in
the saddle. By this point, word came that
a large detachment of Carranzista troops
were not far away, prompting Yancey to
withdraw the expedition to Candelaria
early on the morning of August 25, 1919.
By this point, only the Marfa New Era,
edited by H.H. Kilpatrick, would print J.J.'s
articles. But he persisted in writing, and as
a result, a U.S. Army court martial found
Yancey guilty of turning the prisoners over
to the Rangers and of falsifying his report of
the expedition. President Woodrow Wilson
commuted Yancey's sentence to a reprimand
in 1921, ending another exciting chapter of
life in far West Texas.

Glenn Justice, from Odessa, is managing editor
of Rim Rock Press.

HERITAGE * 12 * SUMMER 2000