#OTD on December 26, 1917, Army Colonel George T. Langhorne led 200 men, including several Texas Rangers, on an unauthorized raid into Mexico in retaliation for the Mexican raid on the Brite Ranch the day before.

Langhorne had a long history in the military and in Texas. He had been stationed in the border region in the 1890s. In 1915 he was dispatched as a military envoy to Berlin after the outbreak of the Great War. In 1917 he returned to Texas.

Langhorne had several encounters with Mexican “bandits.” In June 1916 a group of Mexican revolutionaries raided the town of Glenn Springs. Langhorne pursued these Mexicans more than 150 miles into Mexico, capturing the leaders of the raid and killing at least 3 of them.

In December 1917, a raid purportedly committed by Chico Cano led to another engagement with American soldiers. Langhorne dispatched Captain Leonard Matlack, who crossed into Mexico and engaged the alleged raiders, killing at least 35 Mexicans. https://refusingtoforget.org/chico-cano/

Then came the raid on the Brite Ranch on December 25, 1917. A group of about forty Mexican soldiers seeking supplies for the Revolution besieged the ranch and robbed the ranch store. They killed a white postal employee and two Mexican-origin people in the raid.

In response, Langhorne mobilized about 200 men, including soldiers and Texas Rangers, to chase the Mexicans into Mexico. They killed 25 “bandits” over several days before returning to the US side of the border. This only momentarily satisfied their desire for revenge.

The following month, Rangers, Army soldiers, and others raided the village of Porvenir. Although there was no evidence linking them to the Brite raid, the Rangers executed 15 Mexican men and boys in what is now known as the Porvenir Massacre.   https://x.com/Refusing2Forget/status/1619345581725593601?s=20

Throughout the Mexican Revolution, American forces like those commanded by Langhorne frequently violated Mexico’s territorial sovereignty in punitive raids, killing dozens of Mexicans at a time, and then excusing themselves of that killing by labelling the Mexicans “bandits.”

It should be noted that these military men and Rangers frequently blamed Chico Cano for these various raids, but Cano likely committed none of them. He was simply a convenient scapegoat who gave the Americans cover for their actions.

A key sourcesfor this post is @historybrian’s https://uncpress.org/book/9781469670126/borders-of-violence-and-justice/