By Tom Laemlein – AmericanRifleman.org – Photo Not Credited.
On the night of April 9, 1914, a group of nine American sailors from the gunboat Dolphin were ashore at Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico, to collect fuel supplies. In the midst of the Mexican Revolution, Tampico was besieged by Constitutionalist forces. Tensions were high as the Mexican Federal troops found the unarmed U.S. sailors loading fuel drums into a whale boat. The Mexican troops could not speak English. The American sailors could not speak Spanish. The situation escalated, and the Americans were taken prisoner at gunpoint and marched to a local police station.
