A real photo postcard documenting the cremation of Villista dead following Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico, on March 9, 1916, one of the most dramatic episodes of the Mexican Border War era. Sixty-seven Villista corpses were discovered in Columbus the morning after the raid, placed in a large heap just beyond the edge of town, soaked with gasoline, and cremated. Walter H. Horne had moved to El Paso and built a business selling postcards of battles and related scenes, and was the first photographer on the scene after Villa's attack on Columbus.

A soldier pours liquid from a large tin funnel onto two badly charred bodies lying in the open dirt, while a group of roughly eight men in field dress and wide-brimmed campaign hats look on. Horses and a wagon are visible in the background, and the arid, featureless terrain stretches to the horizon. A handwritten caption appears in white ink in the lower right corner of the image face, reading "Pouring Oil on Bodies to be cremated," with the photographer's copyright notice printed in the lower left corner reading "W.H. Horne Co. Copyrighted El Paso Tex."

Walter H. Horne (1883-1921) was an American photographer and entrepreneur based in El Paso, Texas, whose copyrighted real photo postcards of the Mexican Revolution and the Columbus Raid aftermath constitute some of the most significant photographic documents of the conflict. His postcards, now held in part by the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University, date from 1910 to 1920 and document the Mexican Revolution era across New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and Mexico.

The reverse carries a standard undivided-format postcard back with "POST CARD," "CORRESPONDENCE HERE," and "NAME AND ADDRESS HERE" printed in the publisher's stock design, with a penciled price notation of "30c" and a crossed-out figure in the upper right corner. No addressee or message is present.