The Mexican Revolution began in 1910, throwing the country into upheaval and creating a void in government throughout the land. This resulted in many areas being controlled, not by government officials, but by gangs of outlaws. This was particularly true in northern Mexico, where travel was extremely dangerous; bandits took advantage of the lack of governmental control to kidnap travelers and hold them for ransom. The chaos that enveloped northern Mexico often made revolutionaries into bandits and bandits into revolutionaries.
Chihuahua’s governor, Gen. Francisco “Pancho” Villa, was perhaps, the most famous of those who seemed to walk the fine line between revolution and lawlessness. There were others, however, who simply embraced banditry and took advantage of the void in authority in the region. In 1915, one such group, the Chavez Brothers, a gang of approximately 50 men, terrorized northern Mexico and thrust an ordinary Arkansan into heroism and fame.
The railroads became a frequent target for bandits in northern Mexico. Lawbreakers quickly learned that trains were often full of either large amounts of money or passengers who could be swapped for large bounties. Of course, such activities could be highly dangerous and unpredictable. For instance, in 1914, the bandit Maximo Castillo wrecked a train as it made its way through the Chihuahua region, killing more than 70 people.
Railroad officials working in northern Mexico often took their lives in their hands when they traveled through the area. Edward Ledwidge, a former Arkansan who was living in El Paso, Texas, travelled the area often. It should not have been much of a surprise when his train was targeted by bandits; it came with the territory.
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Edward Ledwidge was born in Birkenhead, England, in 1863, before moving with his family to America in 1870. He lived in Little Rock before moving to El Paso, Texas, where he was the commissary manager of the El Paso and Southwestern railroad, El Paso Milling Co. and the Madera Co., the latter being a large company in northern Mexico.
On Sept. 12, 1915, Ledwidge was traveling in the Mexican state of Chihuahua with his boss, J.C. Paddock and the Paddock family. The train was traveling slowly from Ciudad Juarez to Madero. It was known to be a dangerous, ill-maintained stretch of track, and trains usually went slowly through the region for fear of derailing. Unfortunately, this made this stretch of track prime real estate for bandits, who found it easier to ambush a slow-moving train. As the train wound its way through the rough terrain, the Chavez Brothers’ gang emerged from the hills and surrounded the train.
Having no other option, the train came to a stop. The bandits pulled J.C. Paddock and another passenger from the train. They had found quite the prize: Paddock was an official of the El Paso and Southwestern railroad and likely would be worth a large ransom. Unfortunately, the bandits did not know this. To them, Paddock was just another American traveling in the area.
When Ledwidge saw that the bandits were likely going to hold Paddock and the other passenger for ransom, he approached the bandits. “Take me in their places. These two men have wives on the train
and they would die of fright if their husbands are taken,” he told the bandits. Eventually, the bandits relented and agreed to take Ledwidge instead.
The bandits took Ledwidge to their hideout in the Sierra Mountains. While there, he was forced to sleep outside and was given little food. Ledwidge was able to convince the bandits that he was not a flight risk. After all, he was in the middle of the desert and was not familiar with the terrain. An escape attempt would result in death, either from a bullet fired by his captors, or from exposure to the elements in the harsh Chihuahuan desert.
On Sept. 13, the Chavez brothers issued their demands for Ledwidge’s release: They demanded $10,000 in gold for his return. They threatened to execute Ledwidge unless the ransom was paid by 9 O’clock on the morning of Sept. 14; they set the Cumbre tunnel, near where the train had been ambushed days before, as the exchange site. Upon hearing of the ransom demand, prominent Little Rock official Chris Ledwidge, who was brother of the captive, began working from his Little Rock office to secure the money, with the assistance of the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad. Once the $10,000 in gold was collected, Chris Ledwidge hired the Fred Stark Pearson Co. to deliver the ransom to the Chavez Brothers. The gold was loaded onto a heavily guarded train and rushed toward to Cumbre tunnel. As the train wound its way through northern Mexico, it was suddenly stopped by Pancho Villa’s soldiers. Villa argued that giving in to ransom demands would only increase the number of kidnappings in Mexico. It was better, he explained, to lose one American than to endanger more people in the future.
Chris Ledwidge begged Villa to release the train and reminded him that the demands included a threat on his brother’s life. Villa decided to attempt to negotiate Edward Ledwidge’s release. He offered $13,000 in “Villa money” (The villista army issued its own currency in the areas which they controlled), but the bandits turned down the offer, especially because $13,000 in Villa paper money was worth no more than $65 in gold, far short of the original demand amount.
On the day of the exchange, Villa’s soldiers packed the train. Additionally, as the train arrived at the predetermined place in Chico, Chihuahua, to exchange the money for Ledwidge, additional troops were hidden throughout the valley. J.C. Paddock, representing the railroad, went to meet the head of the Chavez Brothers. The plan was for the bandit to receive the money and then signal for his men holding Ledwidge in the mountains to release him. Unknown to the Americans trying to secure Ledwidge’s release, Villa had ordered his soldiers to kill the bandits.
Paddock brought the money to the Chavez brothers, but it seems that both sides were nervous about the transaction because the railroad man began counting the money very rapidly--so rapidly, in fact, that the bandit became confused and ended up accepting only half of the ransom. He then signaled for his comrades to release Ledwidge. As the two were talking, the bandit saw one of Villa’s hidden soldiers, grabbed the money and leapt onto his horse and began charging in the other direction. The hidden soldiers and the soldiers on the train immediately began to fire upon him. Ledwidge started at a sprint, making his way behind Villa’s soldiers and to safety. After a week in captivity, Ledwidge’s appearance was ragged. He had grown a beard and his clothes were in tatters, but he was safe.
Angered over the problems they had had with ransoming captives, the Chavez Brothers declared open warfare on both the Villa soldiers and any American found in northern Mexico. As a result, railroad officials urged all Americans living in northern Mexico to flee to the United States. The El Paso and Southwestern Railroad worked feverishly to evacuate as many Americans from the area as they could.
Villa’s soldiers spent much of the remainder of 1915 searching for the Chavez Brothers. The group seemed to disappear into the chaos that characterized northern Mexico during the Revolution. Pancho Villa continued to command guerilla campaigns that blurred the line between revolutionary activity and banditry, often resulting in atrocities toward farmers and peaceful villagers who got caught in the crossfire. After a raid on an American border town, United States Gen. John J. Pershing was tasked with arresting Villa and bringing him to justice. Villa evaded Pershing’s soldiers until Pershing was called away to direct the American Expeditionary Force in France in 1917. Villa ultimately made his peace with the Mexican Constitutionalist government and settled down on a farm but was assassinated in 1923.
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Soon after his ordeal, Ledwidge returned to the United States. Newspapers across the country clamored for stories about the man who selflessly volunteered himself as a hostage, but he was tightlipped about his ordeal. Eventually, the newspapers found other stories to chase, and his story was quickly forgotten. Life returned to normal for the railroad man. Ledwidge continued to work for the railroad before retiring and settling in El Paso. He died in El Paso in 1934 and was buried in the Calvary Cemetery in Little Rock. He stayed mum about his kidnapping to the end of his life. His obituary in the El Paso Times extolled his career as a philanthropist and amateur archaeologist but said nothing of the episode of his life in which he was held hostage by bandits during the Mexican Revolution.