On April 4, after a brisk fight, the Constitutionalist force occupied Celaya, thirty-nine miles east of Irapuato, where Villa was concentrating his forces. Celaya was, Obregon noted, a good defensive position. Flat farmland broken by few streams, tree lines, or thickets gave clear fields of fire all around. Irrigation canals and ditches also made the location suitable for the Western Front tactics he planned for the battle. They formed ready-made obstacles to mounted attackers and trenches for his riflemen and machine gunners. The nearest hills were beyond the range of the Villista artillery.

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General Angeles had urged Villa to harass Obregon’s advance and then retreat northward, thereby shortening his own lines of supply and communications while stretching his enemy’s, which Zapata could then cut. It was sound advice, but Villa believed himself a prisoner of his reputation. He always attacked and always won; men joined his Division del Norte because it was considered invincible. Although he had on hand only about eight thousand men of the famous division, and Obregon reportedly had some twelve thousand at Celaya, Villa nevertheless believed he had no choice but to ‘throw myself on Obregon and rout him, even if my troops are few and his are many….’ He must ‘pegarle al perfumado’ (’whack the dandy.’)

Villa’s troops marched on Celaya in three columns: Agustin Estrada with his own cavalry brigade as well as two others rode along the north side of the Central Mexicano Railroad; Abel Serratos, with two cavalry brigades, rode south of the line. Between the two columns of horsemen, four infantry brigades, followed by six artillery batteries, marched along a dirt road next to the tracks.

On the morning of April 6, the Division del Norte slammed into General Fortunato Maycotte’s eighteen-hundred-man advance cavalry outpost at Guaje Station, ten miles west of Celaya. Upon learning of the assault, Obregon realized he had committed a serious tactical blunder by earlier dispatching two mounted columns totaling twenty-five hundred men to screen some thirty miles to the north and south. He telegraphed the columns to return immediately, and then he quickly organized a rescue force, alerting Martin Triana’s brigade–his last seven hundred cavalrymen–and ordering a train to get up steam and the 1st Brigade’s fifteen hundred riflemen to get aboard. Obregon climbed into the locomotive and took personal command of the operation. The train pulled out at noon, flatcars carrying sandbagged machine guns, gondolas bristling with rifles, and Triana’s troopers galloping alongside. Halfway to Guaje Station, they passed clusters of Constitutionalist cavalry in headlong flight, with Villista horsemen trying to overtake them. Nearing the station, the engineer repeatedly blew the train’s whistle and the troops opened fire, diverting the Villistas’ attention and enabling Maycotte’s troopers to escape. As the train reversed, hundreds of Villa’s cavalrymen gave chase.

The train backed into Celaya at about 4 p.m. Riflemen and machine-gunners raced to their positions along the five-thousand-yard-long defense line General Hill had organized with the remaining infantry and the artillery, while Triana’s cavalry fought a delaying action at Crespo Station three miles west of town. Then, without waiting for their artillery or infantry, the pursuing cavalrymen charged straight into the Constitutionalist line. The defenders’ fire cut down many of the Villistas. The rest fell back, regrouped, and continued making wild, uncoordinated frontal attacks.

Obregon had General Castro extend and refuse the defensive line’s flanks with the dismounted survivors of Maycotte’s and Triana’s brigades, perhaps six hundred men, plus his own escort–another six hundred. Around 5 p.m. Estrada’s brigade threatened to overrun the Constitutionalists’ right, and Obregon sent his last reserve to counterattack. The desperate charge bought time to rebuild the defensive line.

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