On January 10, 1916, forces belonging to Mexican revolutionary/bandit Pancho Villa stopped a train of the Mexican North Western Railway Company near Santa Ysabel, Chihuahua. They dragged 17 American miners off the train, and amid cries of “Viva Villa,” they stripped and shot the Americans in cold blood. According to Woodrow Wilson's biographer Arthur S. Link, news of the massacre “set off violent agitation in Congress,” and a “wild anger and excitement greater than any since the sinking of the Lusitania surged through part of the American people.”
Despite calls for retaliation, the Wilson administration insisted it was an internal matter for Mexican President Venustiano Carranza to deal with. Less than two months later, however, Villa's next attack would make him the target of a U.S. strategic manhunt.
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