As the Mexican Revolution was about to break out in Mexico under the leadership of Francisco I. Madero and his "antireelectionist" party, activity along the border was heating up, with Madero and his agents inside US concluding arms purchases and recruiting Mexicans living inside the US to join their rebel forces.
Luther T. Ellsworth - US Consul in Cd. Porfirio Diaz (now known as Piedras Negras) - was reporting on Nov. 20, 1910 that Madero expected a "sizable force" on insurrectionists to show up in Cd. Porfirio Diaz to support his reentry into Mexico.
When he was disappointed to find that this was not so, he returned to San Antonio and then sent to New Orleans. In the meantime, hostilities had already begun in earnest, starting with an engagement between the antireelectionist rebel leader Toribio Ortega and the federales in Cuchillo Parado on November 16, 1910. Other rebel groups already in the field were the bands led by Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco, who were nominally under the direction of Abraham Gonzalez, the chief of the antireelectionists in the state, and another group of "Magonistas" - followers of Ricardo Flores Magon , an anarchist who was largely influenced by American organizers of the IWW - the International Workers of the World. These people refused to align themselves with Madero, but fought a common enemy, the regime of Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz.
On Dec. 10 rumors began circulating in Cd. Chihuahua that rebels were going to try and take the border towns and Cd. Juarez as reported in the El Paso Morning Times
In January 1911 Madero and his agents are reported recruiting Mexicans from the US side and involved in arms purchases including one from New York to Texas. Many exiles made their way into Mexico by way of the Big Bend and Sierra del Carmen
Presidio was mainly a commercial center where traders did business with people from both sides of the border.
It is known that on Dec. 9 a band of 150 armed men crossed the river into Mexico at Ruidosa.
On or around the 10th of December it was reported by Luther T. Ellsworth - US Consul in Cd. Porfirio Diaz - to Secretary of State Philander C. Knox - that "many thousands of Mexican exiles" were on the US side of the border armed to the teeth and preparing to cross into Mexico. He also noted that Mexicans were being recruited in El Paso, Presidio, Boquillas, and Eagle Pass.
At about the same time, Presidio was reported to be "teeming with refugees crammed into houses and improvised huts" and crossing the river from Mexico daily. These were mostly women and children.
Ellsworth reported that customs inspectors in Presidio had informed him that a band of several hundred men was preparing to attack Ojinaga. Ellsworth ordered the interdiction of arms and ammunition and attempted to prevent insurrectionists from crossing into Mexico but Knox countermanded the order.
US Attorney General George W. Dickerson took a different view and ordered the arrest of Madero and his associates for violating US statutes but Madero escaped into Mexico through El Paso and went to Villa Ahumada.
Abraham Gonzales also had an arrest warrant issued against him out of El Paso but he took a train to Marfa and secretly went to the Ojinaga area to take charge of the insurrection there
As this was a secret mission the details have not been traced but he went back to El Paso shortly afterwards and crossed into Mexico and went to Zaragoza.
After that Taft authorized the sale of arms to Mexico (May 1911) and the warrants against Madero and Gonzalez were lifted, that was reversed later (March 1912) by a joint resolution in Congress banning arms sales and transport to Mexico.
In December of 1910 it is known that there were at least 1,800 rebels in the Ojinaga area but they were not unified, among them were several Americans and it was reported that the rebels were effective fighters capable of fighting pitched battles with the federales.
The first significant battle in the immediate Ojinaga region was fought on December 11, 1910 between a force of 50 rebels and 200 federales and citizens of Ojinaga led by the mayor Cardo Amarillas. In the course of the battle 60 mounted federales dismounted and fled on foot and their horses stampeded to the American side where they were rounded up by US customs inspectors. The rebels disengaged when their ammunition ran short and retreated to Mulato.
The federales gave pursuit and attacked the rebels in Rancho La Haciendita, 9 miles east of Ojinaga two days later and were turned back by the rebels, losing 30 horses which again stampeded to the American side. They looted houses and killed livestock on their way back into Ojinaga. The rebels attacked their rear and took a large number of prisoners of which 97 joined the rebels.
The federales again attacked Mulato on December 21 but were repulsed, while the entire noncombatant population took refuge in Polvo (now known as Redford), on the American side.
The rebels now controlled Mulato and San Carlos and the entire region, and they finally came under the leadership of one man by 1911, Emilio Salgado, while the suzerainty of the region held in surrogate fashion by Enrique Creel, owner of Hacienda Los Angeles and Mexican Foreign Minister, was ended.
An ex-bandit turn rebel, Antonio Carrasco, was ordered by Sanchez to take the old customs house at the ford between Presidio and Ojinaga, thus preparing the stage for a siege on April 5, 1911. However, Carrasco was working as a double agent selling secrets to the new federal commander in Ojinaga General Gonzales Luque. Gonzalez beefed up defenses there and Sanchez learned of Carrasco's treachery and sent agents to track him down. When they caught him he was shot by a firing squad consisting of four Mexicans and a Scottish mercenary named F. S. McCombs.
Gonzales Luque had arrived in Ojinaga the first week of January with 200 men and he was reinforced with 150 more a few days later. He then had 600 men and he began offensive operations against the rebels immediately. Having intelligence that Toribio Ortega was in command of force of 170 rebels in Cuchillo Parado he sent 250 men in that direction in hopes of routing them, but Ortega ambushed them at Cuesta del Peguis and caught them in a deadly crossfire killing between 100 and 150, while the rest fled in headlong disorder back to Ojinaga. Ortega then rode to San Antonio del Bravo to join Sanchez.
By January 24, Sanchez had a force of 600 men prepared to attack Ojinaga and he invited Gonzalez Roque to surrender.
Meanwhile, in February 1911, a force of around 1500 under the command of Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa was preparing to attack Juarez.
By February in Ojinaga there were few skirmishes but the federales did not venture outside of Ojinaga. The rebels completely controlled the countryside. Ojinaga itself, being placed on a nearly impregnable location, with the 18th century fort located on a mesa with steep sides all around, was defended by a determined career soldier and well armed troops.
The city was surrounded and under siege by Sanchez and Ortega, but the stalemate was broken when the rebels began firing on Ojinaga on March 12. The rebels now had a large stock of supplies in Mulato to sustain their siege, but they needed to take the customs house in order to cut off supplies to Gonzalez Luque from Presidio. A local arms merchant, Johann "John" Kleinmann, was willing to sell ammunition and supplies to whoever could pay him in gold or gold backed currency.
Sanchez and his men, who included the Scottish mercenary F. S. McCombs, attacked the customs house on March 15. Their tactic was that of stampeding horses with branches and tin cans tied to their tails at soldiers in foxholes who were dung in around the location. This caused a panic among the defenders who imagined a massed cavalry attack such as Villa used in his attacks, a tactic that had been mastered during the Apache wars of a generation earlier. Sanchez's men began firing on them from long range when they stuck their heads up to fire at the supposed attackers. The federales panicked and attempted to flee and they were routed in the open field. The rebels continued attacking and advancing on Ojinaga and reached within 150 yards of the city and dug in, but their positions were vulnerable to cannon fire from the heights of the city and the fort there.
When 70 mounted federales slipped out of Ojinaga and crossed at another location to scout the rear of the rebels, the Americans prevented their return by the same route.
Meanwhile, Gonzales Luque refused to let women and children escape from Ojinaga, which was feeling the effects of a severe siege. He was using them as human shields to prevent an all out rebel attack.
In April a band of 200 rebels arrived from Juarez led by Antonio Villareal, including 26 Americans under the command by Captain A W Lewis, a former United States Cavalry officer. In their possession was a stolen American cannon known as the "blue whistler" with an American crew led by Captain James Bulger, and a machine gun which also had an American crew.
The federal government now sent between 500 and 1000 men under Gen. Manuel Gordillo y Escudero to reinforce Gonzales Luque. Sanchez and Ortega tried to stop them at Cuchillo Parado on April 29 but they were outnumbered and they had to retreat after stopping their advance for 6 hours. Gordillo y Escudero was intent on destroying the rebels' base in El Mulato.
Sanchez fought a pitched battle with them in La Mula the next day which lasted 12 hours and resulted in heavy casualties. He had to leave the field when Gonzalez Luque threatened to sally forth from Ojinaga and outflank him. This was the first rebel defeat of the campaign, and it effectively broke the siege because the lines maintained by Sanchez were lifted as he reorganized in El Mulato.
Ortega and Villareal (including his Americans) tried to storm Ojinaga but were repulsed. The Americans under Villareal then joined Sanchez in El Mulato.
Gordillo y Escudero took control on the plaza of Ojinaga having broken the siege, defeating Sanchez and causing the disorderly withdrawal of Villareal and Ortega, but his victory was hollow as Pascual Orozco took Juarez on May 10 and gave Madero the upper hand in signing a treaty on May 17 that caused the retirement of Porfirio Diaz and put Madero in power.
Ortega and Sanchez went on to conduct important missions later on during the various Villista campaigns, with Ortega leading his brigade into battle with Pancho Villa on numerious occasions. Sanchez, however, went on to perform even more valuable, although less glamorous service by practically single-handedly keeping the rebel cause afloat and supplied with arms through his constant smuggling of cattle into Presidio where they were bought by Presidio and Brewster county cattlemen who sold them on the open market, while the money they paid to Sanchez was mostly spent with Klienmann, who supplied Villa with massive amounts of arms and ammunition.
