Christmas With Poncho Villa

By Major Van Harl USAF Ret

Poncho Villa
Christmas With Poncho Villa
AmmoLand Gun News
AmmoLand Gun News

Wisconsin –-(Ammoland.com)-  In the process of researching for my column I am always on the lookout for family members who served in the military.

I have a Revolutionary War grandfather who served on General George Washington’s staff.

He got to spend a Christmas at Valley Forge. I came across the name Dr. Charles S. Harle (my family dropped the “e” before the Civil War) who had served as a surgeon in the army of Poncho Villa, the bandit General who led Mexican troops in the turn of the 20th century revolution, in that country.

Prior to the Civil War my Harle ancestors lived in Kentucky, then members headed to Texas and that is where Dr. Charles S. Harle enters the picture. He was born about 1870 and attended medical school. It would appear he was not all that successful in his medical practice in the El Paso, Texas area or in his home town of Abilene.

Dr. Harle spoke Spanish and apparently was comfortable functioning in the Mexican culture because he moved to Chihuahua City, in the northern Mexican State of Chihuahua about 1901. In 1913 Dr. Harle was sitting in the Chihuahua City jail having served ten years of a twenty year sentence for murder. He was originally supposed to be executed by firing squad, but money and legal pull by his family in Texas dragged the process out long enough that the Mexican legal system decided to commute the sentence.

I find lots of Harles, many veterans of the Confederate army in that part of Texas and at that time, who were lawyers, judges and medical doctors so I must assume that family interests were working to save the life of Dr. Charles S. Harle MD. Life in the Chihuahua City jail was not pleasant at all. Dr. Harle’s family had to supply all his needs to sustain him in prison. Nothing was provided and the fact that Dr. Harle was a “gringo” did not do him any favors with the prison guards, except for the fact that money talks in prison.

Dr. Harle’s family money did talk to a point but it could not get the man released. As the revolution in Mexico went on for years Poncho Villa’s name became know north of the border. Contact was made with the bandit General in reference to helping to get Dr. Harle out of the Chihuahua City jail. I could find no mention of payment by the Harle family to Villa but I doubt a prison rescue was going to be taken on by Poncho Villa without some kind of business deal being made.

In November of 1913 Villa loaded a train with 2000 of his men, snuck into Ciudad Juarez and captured the city. He had vowed he would celebrate Christmas in the capital city of Chihuahua and with the loss of Juarez City the opposing troops in Chihuahua City gave up and left.

On 8 December 1913 Poncho Villa lived up to his agreement and freed Dr. Charles S. Harle from the city jail. Now to be honest Villa let everyone out of that jail, just as he had done in every other town he captured. I am sure he did not take Chihuahua City just to release a convicted murderer from Texas.

Christmas 1913 in Chihuahua City was one big fiesta for Villa’s men. They took what they wanted and bought with stolen money, whatever had been hidden from them by the locals. Dr. Harle agreed to sign on with the army of Poncho Villa as a surgeon in the rank of Major. Villa and his men enjoyed the good life of the victors, to include the delights of the local business women. Of course Villa and his men suffered medical problems arising from these activities. Dr. Harle’s medical skills were needed in Villa’s army.

Rodolfo Fierro was one of Villa’s major “enforcers” of discipline and he enjoyed executing prisoners. I found where a “gringo” doctor showed Fierro how to line men up front to back and use one bullet to kill multiple people. Dr. Harle had helped kill more than one person in Mexico in a plot to swindle money from the New York Life insurance company. He really was not a nice person and was not languishing in a Mexican prison on some trumped up charge as alleged by family and friends in Texas. He should have been shot for his crimes but instead he got to spend Christmas with Poncho Villa.

Don’t you love a happy ending?

Major Van Harl UASF Ret
[email protected]

About Major Van Harl USAF Ret.: Major Van E. Harl USAF Ret., a career Police Officer in the U.S. Air Force was born in Burlington, Iowa, USA, in 1955. He was the Deputy Chief of police at two Air Force Bases and the Commander of Law Enforcement Operations at another. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army Infantry School.  A retired Colorado Ranger and currently is an Auxiliary Police Officer with the Cudahy PD in Milwaukee County, WI.  His efforts now are directed at church campus safely and security training.  He believes “evil hates organization.”  [email protected]

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Doug Traylor, Command Chief USN ret.

I am a member of the Central Texas Traylor family. I am not sure but believe that there was a Dr.John Morgan Traylor here in Texas and Mexico about 1914. I have seen a painting of him and others of the Poncho Villa staff, he looks like close kin to us. In the picture,actually a painting, he looks very Anglo, with a vest such as doctors wore for many years in the Southwest. He was also in El Paso about that time frame, his claim too fame was as a gun dealer, buying German mauser guns for Poncho s army,… Read more »