The Great Call-Up: The Guard, the Border, and the Mexican Revolution

On June 18, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson called up virtually the entire army National Guard, some 150,000 men, to meet an armed threat to the United States: border raids covertly sponsored by a Mexican government in the throes of revolution. The Great Call-Up tells for the first time the complete story of this unprecedented deployment and its significance in the history of the National Guard, World War I, and U.S.-Mexico relations.

Often confused with the regular-army operation against Pancho Villa and overshadowed by the U.S. entry into World War I, the great call-up is finally given due treatment here by two premier authorities on the history of the Southwest border. Marshaling evidence drawn from newspapers, state archives, reports to Congress, and War Department documents, Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler trace the call-up's state-based deployment from San Antonio and Corpus Christi, along the Texas and Arizona borders, to California. Along the way, they tell the story of this mass mobilization by examining each unit as it was called up by state, considering its composition, missions, and internal politics. Through this period of intensive training, the Guard became a truly cohesive national, then international, force. Some units would even go directly from U.S. border service to the battlefields of World War I France, remaining overseas until 1919.

Balancing sweeping change over time with a keen eye for detail, The Great Call-Up unveils a little-known yet vital chapter in American military history.

Author: Charles H. Harris, Louis R. Sadler
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: 01/20/2015
Pages: 576
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.07lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.80d
ISBN: 9780806146454


Review Citation(s):
Choice 08/01/2015

About the Author
Harris, Charles H.: - Charles H. Harris III, professor emeritus of history at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces. He has coauthored half a dozen books, including The Texas Rangers and the Mexican Revolution: The Bloodiest Decade, 1910-1920, The Secret War in El Paso: Mexican Revolutionary Intrigue, 1906-1920, and The Plan de San Diego: Tejano Rebellion, Mexican Intrigue.Sadler, Louis R.: - Louis R. Sadler, professor emeritus of history at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces. He has coauthored half a dozen books, including The Texas Rangers and the Mexican Revolution: The Bloodiest Decade, 1910-1920, The Secret War in El Paso: Mexican Revolutionary Intrigue, 1906-1920, and The Plan de San Diego: Tejano Rebellion, Mexican Intrigue.