4th South Dakota Infantry on the Mexican Border, 1916
Violence intensified along the border during the spring of 1916, causing a general mobilization. After a raid in May at Glen Springs, Texas, President Wilson called the National Guard of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas into federal service. Following another raid on 16 June, he federalized all Guard units assigned to tactical divisions designated in the Stimson Plan.[1]
This final call exposed flaws in the nation's war plans. In some states mobilization locations were inaccessible, quartermaster supplies were insufficient, and even required forms were in short supply. Guard units were under strength and poorly trained. Some men failed to honor their enlistments, while others who were physically unfit entered the service. Besides these and other deficiencies, the need to have troops on the border meant that only two divisions, the 6th from New York and the 7th from Pennsylvania, mobilized in accordance with the Stimson Plan. On 4 August the War Department directed General Funston to organize ten divisions and six brigades provisionally from the remaining Guard units. But not all of these organizations could be formed because of the rapid shifting of units to and from the border. Although the mobilization pointed out many weaknesses in the nation's preparation for war, it provided an invaluable training opportunity for the Guard.[2]
The Punitive Expedition stayed in Mexico until February 1917. When hostile acts had abated along the border during the fall of 1916, the War Department had begun to demobilize the Guard. By the end of March most units had returned to state control. Pershing, the new Southern Department commander following
- ↑ Rpt of the Chief of Staff, ARWD, 1916, pp. 186–89.
- ↑ Report on Mobilization of the Organized Militia and the National Guard of the United States, 1916, pp. 10, 50–51; "Mobilization in Spite of War Department," National Guard Magazine, 13 (Aug 1916): 153+; Ltr, George Van Horn Moseley to Leonard Wood, 3 Sep 1916, no subject, Wood Papers, LC; John F. O'Ryan, The Story of the 27th Division, 2 vols. (New York: Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co., 1921), 1:120–25; Pennsylvania in the World War: An Illustrated History of the Twenty-Eighth Division, 2 vols. (Pittsburgh: States Publications Society, 1921), pp. 1:120–25.
