----- Original Message -----
From: R.R.C.
To: CARRUTHERS-L(a)rootsweb.com
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 2:53 AM
Subject: [Carruthers] Mexican Civil War of 1913-1915,Carothers was the
U.S.representative and intelligence agent
A biography of Wallace Hume Carothers , b. 1896, d. 1937, entitled "Enough for One
Lifetime", Wallace Carothers, Inventor of Nylon, will be published by the American
Chemical Society, Washington, DC, late in March 1996. The book celebrates the centenary of
the inventor's birth, April 27, 1996. The author is Matt Hermes.
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I have been researching off and on for ten years the life and career of George Cupples
Carothers, who was a U.S. consular agent resident in Torréon, Neuvo Leon, Mexico in 1910.
During the Madero Revolution of 1911 he reported to the U.S. State Department on events
there and elsewhere... During the Mexican Civil War of 1913-1915, Carothers was the
U.S.representative and intelligence agent appointed to accompany the forces of Francisco
"Pancho" Villa.He was born in San Antonio, TX, in 1878 and as a young lad was
taken to Mexico, where he grew up muy simpatico; some of the more chauvinistic yanquis
resident there considered him a "traitor to his race". Because he was U.S.
consular agent, he was in place and because he was known to be friendly to the
revolutionists, he was readily accepted by Villa as a compañero. GCC continued to
accompany Villa until the Villistas' defeat in the spring of 1915 by Carranzista
forces commanded by Alvaro Obregon. In the event, the Villistas wer!
e !
driven back to the Arizona border and his forces were finally dispersed after the Battle
of Agua Prieta in October 1915. At this time the Wilson administration recognized
Villa's opponents, the Carranzistas as the de facto government of Mexico. After the
defeat, Villa and a few hundred men, withdrew into the Sierras, to emerge on March 9,1916,
making the Columbus Raid. After Carothers left the Villista forces he continued to roam
the border, while residing in El Paso, TX. It is not clear when he ceased to be an active
intelligencer but he remained friends with Gen. John J. Pershing, who, before he had
commanded the Punitive Expedition, had been the border patrol commander at Fort Bliss, El
Paso, TX. They kept in touch until GCC's death. Subsequently, GCC's widow, Minna
Hall Carothers, continued to keep in touch with Pershing until his death. I have mined the
Pershing papers in the LC for all relevent materials on GCC. Minna Hall died in the 1950s.
Both Carothers are listed in the NYT Obituary Index. GCC 3 times. He even rated a front
page article in the NYT. So many people came to his funeral that they had to stand in the
street. All in all, a once popular and well-known man but now forgotten in the mist
stirred up by subsequent events of the Great War and after. GCC's early life and
career is well documented in State Department personnel files, and his reporting and
revolutionary career is well summarized in Larry Hill's Emissaries to A Revolution.
There are scattered mentions of him in both Obregon's and Villa's memoirs; the
former did not favor him because he was considered to be on the other side, even though
that was his assigned duty, and Villa, who seems by inference to have been influenced
heavily by GCC in dealing with the crisis caused by the Vera Cruz occupation in 1914, and
the English cattleman Benton's murder by Villa's right hand man, Fierro, would
have been reluctant to publicly say so.
In the event, Carothers never returned to Mexico to live, and ended up by the twenties
in New York City, where he was in business and married Minna Hall, a businesswoman in her
own right.
In 1920 he was living in Rochester when he testified about the Columbus
Raid before the Fall Committee investigating Mexican "raids and
atrocities".
Carothers never appeared in the 1910 Census and was not important enough at the time of
compilation to be included in a Directory of American residents in Mexico which is on
Microfilm in the LC. GCC does appear in various NYC Manhattan Directories and in the 1925
NY Census but little detail is to be gained therefrom. I could not find him in any El Paso
sources of the time except for an address.
GCC was married while resident in Torréon and had one son. But in accord with the custom
of the time she is always referred to as "and wife". No record have I found
gives her name. I had originally thought she had died, because several sources said she
was sickly, and searched cemetary and death records for the period but when I got GCC and
Minna Hall's marriage certificate, it stated GCC had been divorced. Although it is not
really important to the story, I really want to find the first wife's name and what
happened to her and the son. The obituary stated that he was in Buenos Aires, Arg., but a
check of recent phone books revealed nothing of the name. There were supposed to be a
brother or cousins in 1943 living in Mexico.
I intend to write his biography and want to fill in the last twenty years of his life
and to find his personal papers, if indeed they still exist.
His existing reports in the National Archives reveal an intelligent and
hail-fellow-well-met type who enjoyed life and remained life long friends with many
persons of renown.
*The watcher reference is to the Highlander TV series.
Carter Rila can be contacted at elcutachero(a)hotmail.com
Added June 13, 1999
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