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Chapter 8: The
Orozco Rebellion
Here are your wrappings. Send
me more tamales. -- General Pascual Orozco
In March 1912, a serious revolt against Madero's government
broke out when Pascual Orozco, the tough mule skinner from
" Chihuahua who had been the leading guerrilla and fighting
chief in the battles against Diaz, threw down the gauntlet. A heavy-
shouldered six-footer with a saturnine scowl, Orozco once
ambushed a Diaz troop train in Canon de Mal Paso. After killing
the federal soldiers to a man, Orozco had them stripped, bundled up
their uniforms, and sent them to Diaz with a note, "Here are your
wrappings. Send me some more tamales."! This was a man to be
reckoned with. It was he who, disobeying Madero's orders, attacked
and captured Juarez, and brought about the collapse of the Diaz dic-
tatorship.
It was then, according to Colonel Francisco Gallegos, that
Madero made a fatal error. Gallegos, who fought under Madero and
later under Villa, in later years, wrote, "When Madero took power he
made the mistake of dismissing the majority of the revolutionary
leaders and leaving in their same political position many of Diaz's
former officials." [2] Among those most alienated was Orozco for
after victory was complete, Madero reinstated most of the Diaz
officers back into the regular army. He "rewarded the vital military
contribution of Orozco with the post of commander of the rural
guards of Chihuahua," a post that paid a salary of eight pesos per
day. [3]
Holding the dwarfish Madero in contempt and perhaps bought
off by money from Luis Terrazas, the richest man in Chihuahua,
Orozco claimed the little reformer betrayed the revolution. He
launched proposed reforms under his Plan de Empacadora. It was one
of the many political "Plans" offered by revolutionaries, promising
heaven and usually delivering nothing except more hell for the suf-
fering Mexican people.
Orozco endorsed "political and economic reform, including a
shorter workday, better working conditions, employment of
Mexicans on the railroads, and the return to the villages of lands ille-
gally seized." [4] To many his financing by Terrazas money and pro-
mulgating liberal reforms was paradoxical if not deceptive.
It has been rumored that Pancho Villa, who gave much lip ser-
vice to his "love for little Madero," offered to join the rebellion. But
the harsh-tongued Orozco rebuffed him saying, "No common ban-
dits will be accepted into this movement." [5] Another version, how-
ever, has it that Orozco urged Villa to join his junta but the former
bandit refused and pledged his loyalty to Madero. [6] Villa then recap-
tured his temporarily lost love for Madero and, along with other
former revolutionaries, took the field against Orozco's "Colorados"
or "Red Flaggers." They were named from the reddish flags they
carried, often emblazoned with the slogan "pan y tierra"-- bread
and land.
Most of the battles between the two forces were fought over
control of the Mexican railway' system. Practically all of the fight-
ing in the central plateau of northern Mexico was confined to a
zone twenty miles wide with the railroad at the center. There were
two reasons for the railroad's strategic importance; first, travel over
the northern desert country of Chihuahua and Sonora was difficult
for cavalry and impossible for infantry. Secondly, the railways trans-
ported petroleum, cotton, and copper ore exported to American
markets, which in turn supplied vital foreign currency needed to buy
military supplies.
Tactically, the contending armies destroyed the railway tracks
and bridges as they retreated and rebuilt the road as they advanced.
Gregory Mason, a war correspondent during 1914, described the
procedure,
The usual method is to rip up the
rails with a strong iron hoop passed
under both of them and attached to an engine by a heavy chain. The
engine
backs, the rails hold an instant, then come up with a groaning of
twisted
steel and a rattling shower of spikes sounding like a boiler factory, the
anvil
chorus, and a dozen machine guns in simultaneous operation.
Frequently an engine will tear up
an eighth of a mile of rails at one
rush before it is obliged to stop by a broken hoop or a snapped chain. When
the rails, twisted like grotesque corkscrews, have been accounted
for in this
fashion, the ties are piled and burned. Dynamite does for the
bridges. [7]
At first Orozco's revolution prospered. He captured Juarez,
routed Pancho Villa's troops outside Chihuahua City, and won addi-
tional battles at Santa Rosalia and Jimenez. A major setback, how
ever, which was to prove fatal to the Orozco cause, was a policy
announced by the United States government banning arms sales to
any of the battling Mexican factions. Since the "Colorados" con-
trolled only the borderlands of Chihuahua, cutting off the flow of
arms from Texas and New Mexico did them grievous harm. The
federals, however, imported massive supplies of guns and ammuni-
tion from Europe through the Mexican ports of Tampico and Vera
Cruz.
As Orozco's army became starved of supplies, troops loyal to
Madero, commanded by Huerta and Villa, grew fat with modern
arms. Soon, Villa's well-armed cavalry rode to the front on the
Mexican railways, horses in the boxcars, men on the roof, singing
their theme song "La Cucaracha" ("The Cockroach").
Oh the cockroach,
Oh the cockroach,
Will not move, the old slow poke;
Because he hasn't,
Because he hasn't,
Any marijuana to smoke.
As fighting continued, ideals became corroded with bitterness,
and the hatred between Villa and Orozco led both sides to new bar-
barism. When Villa captured enemy soldiers, he always executed the
officers, but gave the common soldiers the chance to save their lives
by joining his ranks. Not so with "Colorados" who were all shot on
the spot. The "Red Flaggers" responded in kind.
As things began to go badly, Orozco drew down the wrath of
the United States, when he allowed one of his generals, Inez Salazar,
to execute an American machine-gunner. The American, Thomas
Fountain, was captured after a Villa retreat from Hidalgo del Parral.
That execution, undoubtedly, gave pause to mercenaries on both
sides. The Mexican Revolution, they realized, was not a romantic
game -- it was a bloody fight to the death.
In March 1912, the Madero government, determined to crush
Orozco, moved a large force under the command of General
Gonzalez Salas along the railroad from Mexico City north to the
rebel stronghold at Hidalgo del Parral. On March 24, the two
forces, each with about 8,000 men, clashed. An effective bombard-
ment by federal artillery drove the rebels back from their positions.
Retreating rapidly, they fell back along the railway past Jimenez into
a mountainous area north of the small town of Rellano.
Sensing victory, Salas ordered a quick advance along the railroad
tracks, ordering three troop trains still jammed full of field guns,
infantry, and ammunition to move up to the front lines. There they
would disembark, and with a quick attack, smash the enemy defens-
es. It was not a bad tactic, but he failed to reckon with the mad
antics of Sam Dreben and Tracy Richardson. These two buddies of
the Banana Wars had been recruited by Orozco, who was paying top
dollar for anyone who could operate and maintain the new-fangled
machine guns.
The rebel army dug in across the foothills bordering the railroad
tracks where they dug rifle pits and erected rock walls to provide
cover. Believing they were
heavily outnumbered, they
awaited the federal attack
with considerable appre-
hension, believing their
future looked bleak. From
a vantage point in the hills,
Dreben and Richardson
observed the federal
deployment.
As sweating troops
started manhandling field
guns and ammunition from
the boxcars, Dreben pointed out that the railroad track ran straight
through the middle of the federal position. There was nothing
blocking the tracks between the two armies. "After they unload
those field guns," he said, "they'll shell hell out of us and then the
infantry will go right up the middle." Then both men got a wild idea.
"Suppose," they pondered, "we get one of our railroad engines, load
it up with explosives and drive it right into the Federal trains. It
could blow up half their army." They agreed it was just crazy
enough to work.
They got an engine, strapped 800 pounds of dynamite to the
cowcatcher, and plugged in a dozen detonating caps. With
Richardson at the controls and Dreben working like a demon shov-
eling coal into the boiler, they got up steam and drove down the
tracks toward the federal trains. When they got within 100 yards,
Richardson said, "I threw the throttle wide open, we leaped out of
the cab, and let the engine run wild down the track." [8]
The engine roared into the federal trains with a terrible crash,
followed by a series of explosions which set off the ammunition still
loaded aboard the trains. Cannon, pieces of boxcars, and parts of
soldiers rained down upon the stunned Madero troops. Tracy
wrote, "smoke and earth
spouted up like a giant
geyser." Completely rattled,
the surviving federals,
dazed, spilled out of the
trains, while the troops
already in the front line
panicked and began to run
to the rear.
Slashing with their
sabers, federal officers
opened fire on their retreat
ing men and shot many in
the back before the retreat was stopped. Rallying the infantry, they
drove them into line and attacked the entrenched rebels. Dreben
and Richardson, meanwhile, dashed back to their own lines and took
position with their machine guns. Richardson wrote,
Sam Dreben and I ... could work a crossfire from our machine guns.
Those poor Federal soldiers were marched up against us in close
formation
Rank after rank, Sam and I mowed them down until it sickened us. [9]
As the federals fell back in confusion, Orozco's cavalry charged,
making shambles of the retreat as hundreds of frightened soldiers
leaped aboard the still operating third train. The frightened engineer
backed the train down the tracks and didn't stop until he deposited
the disorderly mob at Hidalgo del Parral.
Madero's broken army abandoned all their artillery, machine
guns, hundreds of rifles, and a large store of ammunition that had
not blown up. Richardson said later they counted 1,200 dead near
the scene of the explosion. "Our losses" he reported, "were only 20
killed, 100 wounded." [10]
The remaining federal train, with troops crowded into boxcars
and some hanging perilously from the roofs, fled more than 100
miles south to Torreon. There, General Salas, overcome with grief
and shame, put a revolver to his temple and blew out his brains.
President Madero became badly frightened by' Orozco's early
successes, and in an action he would later regret, he gave the sinis-
ter General Huerta overall command of his forces in the North. In
the reorganization that followed, in April 1912, Holmdahl was
ordered to report to General Geronimo Trevino in command of the
Third Military District, headquartered in Monterrey. There he was
assigned as commander of the 5th Regiment of Cavalry. General
Trevino, once a confidant and ally of Diaz, was now a rich landown-
er. In the 1870s he had cooperated with American cavalry forces
during campaigns against Apache Indians and Mexican bandits.
Later, he married the daughter of the U.S. General E.O.C. Ord. By
a curious twist of Mexican politics, he now supported Madero
against Orozco.
Holmdahl described
Trevino as "one of Mexico's oldest and
best generals but too old to take the field." He characterized
Orozco as a man who "betrayed every confidence placed in him
... and one of the biggest four-flushers that the war produced."
Holmdahl, for all his cynicism, was probably ideologically devoted
to Madero's cause.
Serving under Trevino, Holmdahl later wrote that his
"Carbineros were a fine bunch of young men and were anxious to
get to the front." For about a month the regiment skirmished with
"Red Flaggers" in northern Mexico. [11]
In May 1912, Holmdahl was assigned to the artillery section of
Huerta's army in command of a Maxim machine-gun company. It
may well have been Fountain's old outfit, and that mercenary's fate
might have crossed Holmdah1's mind. [12] The assignment must have
been a welcome one, because Maxim guns were the first easily trans
ported, reliable machine guns. The old Civil War-era multi-barreled
Gatling guns, a few of which were still used by the insurgents, were
heavy, ungainly, and could shoot only as fast as they could be
cranked. They often jammed. Most other early machine guns suf-
fered from one or more similar disadvantages.
The inventor Hiram Maxim designed a single barrel, recoil-
operated, water-cooled machine gun that was light, fired simply by
holding down the trigger, could spray out 650 rounds per minute,
and rarely jammed. First used by the British army, it enabled their
small forces to overcome native armies three or four times their
number.
Throughout the spring and early summer of 1912, in a series of
battles, Huerta's well-supplied and effectively-led troops began to
wear down Orozco's dwindling forces. On May 23, General Trevino
summoned Holmdahl to his headquarters and asked him to volun-
teer for a dangerous mission. [13] Following the disaster at Rellino,
Captain Lorenzo Aguilar, first cousin of President Madero, and two
other officers were reported missing after a bitter fight at the small
village of Pedricen.
Madero was worried about the fate of his favorite cousin and
Holmdahl's mission was to travel through enemy lines, locate
Aguilar dead or alive, and bring him or his body back to Madero-
controlled territory. With false papers identifying him as a corre-
spondent for the Monterrey Daily Mexican-American, Holmdahl board-
ed a train bound for the headquarters of his friend, General
Aureliano Blanquet, located a few miles south of Torreon.
When Blanquet learned of the mission, he refused to let
Holmdahl cross into enemy territory controlled by the Orozco
General Emilio Campa. Campa, a former medical student at an
American university, hated Americans. A mean drunk and psy-
chopath, Campa had recently trumped up charges against Sam
Dreben and Tracy Richardson. He arrested the pair and planned to
shoot them, in order to "rid Mexico of all gringos." [14] Probably, he
was jealous of their reputation for heroism (as a result of their coup
at Rellano). After a hairbreadth escape from jail, the two Americans
rode for their lives until they reached Orozco's headquarters and
safety.
Blanquet feared that, regardless of Holmdahl's papers, he might
become a candidate for Campa's firing squad. There was additional
danger in the fact that Campa knew Holmdahl as an old comrade in
the campaigns against Diaz. Appreciating Blanquet's concern,
Holmdahl, nevertheless, bought a horse and slipped out of camp,
riding thirty-five miles north, and reaching Hacienda Refugio.
There, unfortunately, he encountered a "Red Flagger" patrol and
was taken before General Campa.
Campa greeted him like an old friend, but then questioned him,
asking if he were still in the service of Madero. Holmdahl denied
this and presented his newspaper correspondent's papers. The mer-
curial Campa smiled, then called him a liar and a spy, and announced
he would shoot him. Again, Holmdahl's ability as a con artist prob-
ably saved his life. Talking fast, he "half convinced" Campa of his
bona fides. Campa smiled and treated Holmdahl to a delicious meal
at his officers' mess. In the morning, however, he refused to let the
"correspondent" pass through his lines.
Disappointed, but lucky to be alive, Holmdahl left the camp,
skirted the rebel patrols, got close to Pedricena and was picked up
by another scouting party. Arrested, he was brought before anoth-
er rebel general, and again he talked his way past him and finally'
reached Pedricena.
There he found an old rurale, who recounted a sad story. During
the fighting on May 14, Aguilar searching for ammunition for his
beleaguered men, ran into "Red Flaggers" disguised in federal uni-
forms. When he approached them they shouted, "Viva Madero,"
but when he got up close they leveled their rifles, shouted "Viva
Orozco" and took him prisoner. Two other officers and several
dozen men were captured when they ran out of ammunition.
Another witness, Senora Maria Pena, told Holmdahl that on
May 15, about 5:30 in the morning, she heard loud voices in a field
behind her house. Going outside she saw six federal officers lined
up in the field surrounded by "Red Flaggers." She said an Orozco
officer told the men if they shouted "Viva Orozco," their lives
would be spared, but defiantly, the prisoners shouted, "Viva
Madero." They were promptly shot and their bodies dragged to a
nearby ditch and dumped in with the rest of the casualties of the
battle.
Holmdahl purchased a shove] and a mule, and that night he went
to the mass graveyard where his witnesses said Aguilar was buried.
There he started digging and by lantern light examined each body he
dug up. The sixteenth corpse he exhumed was the young captain.
Recovering Aguilar's body, he strapped him on the mule, and
then he rode ninety miles through enemy lines until they got back to
territory under Federal control. [15] He returned the body to
Monterrey, and there Holmdahl, General Trevino, the mayor of the
city, and other high ranking officials posed for pictures around the
flower-draped casket of the unfortunate young captain. [16]
On August 9, 1912, Holmdahl wrote again to the U.S. Army
Adjutant General in Washington D.C. This time the letter was
mailed from the Montezuma Hotel, in the border city of Nogales,
Arizona. From there he reported, "Things are looking worse every
day! down here." Again offering his services, he pointed out he had
commanded 5,000 soldiers of all army branches at the beginning of
the revolution:
Am thoroughly acquainted with their country, climatic conditions,
water holes, mountain trails, their mode of fighting and supply
stations and
will gladly give you any information you wish, as I believe that am
better
posted than any other American as I have fought with them for two
years
... I am on my way to report to the general in command of the First
Military Zone in Sonora.
He signed the letter: E.H. Holmdahl, Capitan Primero Caballeria.
[17]
By September 1912, Orozco's "Colorado" movement was
smashed by Huerta and Villa, and the mule-skinner general fled to
the safety of the United States. After harrowing escapes, Tracy
Richardson and Sam Dreben also made the border safely. For the
rest of the year, Holmdahl and his machine guns did mop-up duty
in minor campaigns, fighting under Colonel Guillermo Rubio
Navarrete in Chihuahua, General Aureliano Blanquet in Durango
and Zacatecas, and with General Geronimo Trevino in Nuevo Leon,
Coahuila, and Tamaulipas. [18] In Mexico, during 1912, machine gun-
ning was a growth industry.
By October, Holmdahl was once again restless. Perhaps he
became bored with machine gunning and longed for a cavalry com-
mand with the hardened rurales he had led against Zapata. On
October 24, 1912, he received a letter from his sometimes mentor
and sometimes foe, Emilio Kosterlitzky, the tough Cossack who
commanded all the rurales in northern Mexico.
It was in reply to a Holmdahl request for a transfer back to the
rurales. After complaining about a drunken lieutenant in his com-
mand, the old "Iron Fist of Porfirio Dlaz," now working for
Madero, wrote, "Believe me I deeply regret not to be able to have
you with me for the present, but hope an early opportunity to noti-
fy you of having a place for you. With warm personal regards ..."
[19]
If Kosterlitzky was sincere, and he probably was, it indicated he no
longer had the free hand he once enjoyed under Diaz. Madero
probably kept him under a short leash for trust was not overly abun-
dant in revolutionary Mexico. For good reason.
But, if the unrestrained license of
a rurale was unavailable,
Holmdahl must have again turned to espionage to succor his thirst
for adventure. In late 1912 he entered the shadowy underworld of
El Paso, Texas. El Paso was separated from the Mexican city of
Juirez by only a short bridge across the Rio Grande. The twin cities
were a crossroads for trade between northern Mexico and the U.S.
southwest with railroads linking major markets in both countries. El
Paso was also a hub of activity for gunrunners, smugglers, war cor-
respondents, and spies. It was a haven for dissident Mexican politi-
cians on the run from a government that plotted new revolts in the
coffee houses and cantinas in its crowded south side called
"Chihuahuita" ("Little Chihuahua"). [20]
A report in Holmdahl's handwriting among his personal papers
written in English indicates that in December 1912, he was working
undercover in El Paso. [21] The long report, dated December 28, 1912,
states that one Jesus Cesneros [sic], the proprietor of a barber shop
in the 500 block of South El Paso Street, had a secret back room. It
was used, Holmdahl said, as a headquarters for renegade "Red
Flaggers" who were smuggling guns and ammunition across the
border and plotting another revolt.
In the report, Holmdahl lists the names of a half-dozen former
Orozco officers. He describes how they subverted the Madero gar
rison in Juarez by offering the poorly paid soldiers large sums of
money in return for turning over their ammunition to one of their
spies. The spy, after accumulating fifty rounds of ammunition,
would give it to a young woman Simone Acosta, who would smug-
gle it across the border under her voluminous skirts. The ammuni-
tion was stored in a secret cache under the floor of the barber shop.
Then it was smuggled back across the border to the rebel army.
Holmdahl obviously had penetrated the "Red Flag" cabal and
had his own Spy' at their meetings. In his report he gave details
about a cattle-rustling scheme, the proceeds of which would go to
support the rebels. Topics of discussion among the plotters includ-
ed movements of troops under the command of General Trucy
Aubert, still loyal to Madero. The plotters also discussed way's the
soldiers could be subverted into joining the Orozco ranks.
The mastermind of the operation was General Inez Salazar.
Salazar, a giant of a man, was the chameleon of the Mexican revo-
lution. It was said he could change sides faster than a lizard could
change colors, although during the revolution that was not neces-
sarily a unique characteristic among Mexican generals. Salazar had
at various times both served under and fought against Madero,
Orozco, Huerta, and Villa, and was as quixotically cruel as he was
politically unstable. It was he who further aggravated relations
between Orozco and the U.S. government when he decided on a
whim to shoot the captured American mercenary, Thomas
Fountain. At this time he was still plotting with Orozco, but that
would soon change.
Holmdahl's report was probably written for General Aubert, but
there is circumstantial evidence that he was also providing informa
tion to the U.S. Bureau of Investigation. The bureau was the fore
runner of the FBI, and was keeping an eye on illegal activities along
the Texas-Mexican border. There is a letter dated November 4,
1913, in the Bancroft Library files from an agent in the Douglas,
Arizona, office of the Bureau to an agent presumably in El Paso
responding to a request for information about Holmdahl's where-
abouts. In it, the Douglas agent reports,
I saw Holmdahl in Douglas about Oct. 25 ... He stated to me that
he had been quite seriously wounded ... he was thin and pale, but was
wearing good clothes and appeared to be cheerful ... I do not believe he
was
suffering for the want of any necessaries ... If such had been the case I
surly [sic.) would have offered him assistance ... [22]
Holmdahl must have
been up to his neck in espionage at various
times since he first entered Mexico in 1909. There is a cryptic note,
dated September 9, 1911, in his papers which states, "Meet me on
[undecipherable word] when No.12 gets to Hermosillo-Opr.
Nogales can give you time." The note was signed, H.J. Temple. A
later addition to the note, in Holmdahl's handwriting, states,
"Temple was general manager SP.RR of Mexico. Shot himself when
confronted by U.S. Agents making arrest for selling information to
Germans." There is no date on Holmdahl's addition. [23]
In several letters to the U.S. War Department, Holmdahl had
given information about conditions in Mexico and offered to be a
conduit for further information. He was at least intermittently act-
ing as an agent for the U.S. government. There was no ambiguity' in
his reporting both to General Aubert and to U.S. officials, since the
American government supported Madero as the legitimate head of
Mexico and considered Orozco a bandit or rebel, at best. Finally,
whatever else Holmdahl was, he was a loyal American who was
always ready to put his life on the line for his country.
General Huerta, meanwhile, returned to Mexico City as a hero,
and after being appointed commander-in-chief of the Mexican
armies, he began to plot against his president. While Zapata on the
left felt betrayed, the old Diaz rightwing, led by Huerta, viewed
Madero as a usurper "with the common aim of toppling the
Mexican president." [24] On February'9, 1913, the "Decena Trigica,"
the tragic ten days, a phony war was staged in Mexico City between
conservative forces and federal troops under Huerta. During the
intense fighting, innocent civilians were killed until the farce
ended.25
During that time, U.S. Ambassador Henry Lane Wilson acted as a
go-between for the contending forces as Wilson, opposed to
Madero, supported the coup led by Huerta.
On the night of February 17, Huerta had Madero arrested on
trumped-up charges, and on February 22 had him assassinated. [26]
Huerta seized power and Mexico again was held in the grip of a
ruthless dictator, but Huerta had unleashed a hornet's nest of
opposition. "The Maderistas had no intention of allowing the
Huertistas to savor their ill-gotten laurels." [27] Venustiano Carranza,
the governor of Coahuila, refused to recognize the Huerta regime.
With the backing of Pancho Villa in Chihuahua and Alvaro
Obregon, a bean planter in Sonora, Carranza went to war against the
murderer of "The Apostle of the Mexican Revolution." [28]
While many of the old revolutionaries took up arms against
Huerta, a new ally was his recently defeated foe, Pascual Orozco.
The Mexican scorecard was by now almost unfathomable. Pancho
Villa, after shedding public tears for his "beloved little president,"
crossed from his refuge in El Paso and started recruiting a new
army.
On December 24, 1913, Holmdahl, writing the adjutant general
from El Paso, stated he deserted the federal forces in Juarez on
February 18,1913. His reason for doing so was the assassination of
Madero. Holmdahl escaped to Sonora and joined the constitution-
alist forces, where he was commissioned a first captain of Artillery.
[29]
After learning of Madero's murder, and probably suspecting that
his old boss General Aureliano Blanquet was involved, Holmdahl
decided to desert and return to the United States. Whatever other
inducements may have been offered, Holmdahl was always loyal to
Madero, and if a cold-blooded soldier of fortune had any passion
for a cause, Madero's selfless passion to free Mexico from dictator-
ship resonated deeply within him.
On that cold night in February, Holmdahl swam his horse across
the Rio Grande and dismounted, but while drying himself an
American patrol approached, spotted him, and let out a shout. Not
wishing to be hauled in as a border jumper, Holmdahl leaped into
the frigid Rio Grande. The river was high, and a swift current car-
ried him downstream, washing him up on the Mexican bank. His
luck failed, and a patrol of troops loyal to the rebel General Inez
Salazar took him prisoner.
By this time, Holmdahl was well known on both sides of the
border, and when he was brought before the general, Salazar
laughed and said Holmdahl would be shot in the morning. He was
promptly thrown into a local prison, but lady luck had not com-
pletely turned against him, and he managed to bribe a guard,
escaping in the early morning darkness. He now had cheated a fir-
ing squad twice; it was not to be the last time.
Holmdahl gave up thoughts about leaving Mexico; perhaps he
wanted a crack at Salazar, who was now allied with Huerta in estab-
lishing a dictatorship as evil as that of Diaz. Holmdahl traveled to
Hermosillo, Sonora, where he joined the army of General Benjamin
J. Hill, in rebellion against Huerta. The Yaquis were rebelling again
on the west coast of Sonora, and on General Hill's orders Holmdahl
again campaigned against them.
After the Yaquis had been subdued, Holmdahl wrote that he was
sent to help put down Huerta loyalists in Sonora and Sinaloa. When
a number of Yaqu1 tribesmen changed sides and became allies, he
joined with his old foes and returned to Chihuahua. There he was
assigned to the Francisco Villa Brigade under the command of
General Juan M. Medina.
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