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Show VIVID ACCOUNT GIVEN OF BATTLE 0FAGUA PRIETA Lieutenant Parley D. Parkinson of the Twentieth Infantry Describes Fight in Letter to His Brother. A VIVID account of the recent battle at Aiia Prieta, In which General Gen-eral Villa made several unsuccessful unsuc-cessful attacks on the Carranza garrison In the beleaguered city, I told by Lieutenant Parley D. Parkinson Parkin-son of the Twentieth infantry In a letter to his brother, George p. ParklnBon, a Salt Lake attorney. Lieutenant Parkinson and his brother. Lieutenant J. Leo Parkinson, also of the Twentieth infantry. occupied "grandstand "grand-stand seats" at the battle. They were with their battalion in the trenches Just on the American side of the International Interna-tional boundary line and at times within a few feet of the attacking force. Both officers are Utah boys who have onlv recently re-cently completed their courses at West Point. Letter of Lieutenant. Lieutenant Parkinson writes: Rince tho official recognition of Carranza, Car-ranza, a few weeks ago, it has been the known Intention of Villa to attack at-tack tiie Carranza forces under General Gen-eral Calles at Agua Prieta. a Mexican Mexi-can town of 5000 population, lying just across the international boundary from Douglas, Ariz., and hardly separated sep-arated from it. The military authorities authori-ties feared that in the attack the population of Douglas would be exposed ex-posed to fire or that Villa might cross over into the United States in an attempt to attack Agua Prieta from the American side. Sent to the Border. We at EI Paso hadn't the slightest idea of being called here, so that the order on Wednesday, October 27, transferring us here without delay came as a complete and welcome surprise. sur-prise. The first battalion to leave Fort Bliss was the one to which Leo and I belong. It started on Thursday, Thurs-day, about noon, and reached here at 3 o'clock Friday morning. Our first surprise after arriving came upon our being Informed that the row of lights a half block directly to the south of us were on the Carranza Intrench-ments. Intrench-ments. At that time they impressed me as being rather close. We remained re-mained In the railroad yards until about 9 o'clock and in the meantime Leo and I walked over to the line to examine tho fortifications. They consisted con-sisted of trenches, completely surrounding sur-rounding the town and forming a semi-circle of half a mile in diameter. Just inside the boundary line and parallel to it was another trench, which formed the back of the semicircle semi-circle and was constructed for the purpose of repelling an attack which might be made from the American side. Completely surrounding the town and ten feet outside the trenches were four rows of barbed wire fences, made of criss-cross wire, which fences were to prevent an infantry rush from taking the trenches. The town was well supplied with cannon, ammunition and soldiers At 9 o'clock we left the railroad 'station and marched to a point a mile northeast north-east of Agua Prieta, where we made camp. All was quiet during Friday and Saturday, but during Sunday morning, in a pass in the moun-; moun-; tains six miles almost due east of us j could be seen large bodies of men and horses, all Villa's, which had i marched to that point the night before. be-fore. They remained in the vicinity all day and as dusk grew into darkness dark-ness that evening the campfires of villa dotted the mountainside for a distance of four or five miies. These fires were watched with ftn (ntor. est because of their origin, and we all expected the attack to be made Sunday night. Villa's main column which we had seen Sundav. consisted of about 10,000 infantry, artillery and cavalry, and from the southwest was expected a column of 5000 Taqui Indians In-dians to Jofn in the main attack Carranza already had 60CK troops and on Sunday 5000 more arrived through the United States to reinforce him. Cross Into Mexico. AfIer. waf,t,nS lIP Quite late Sunday night in the hope of seeing something, some-thing, T finally retired, but very shortly short-ly after was quickly aroused by an order moving our battalion Immediately Imme-diately to the boundary line, a mile and a half due west of Agua Prieta it being our special mission to prevent pre-vent the approaching column of Yaqul Indians from crossing into the United Slates at that point. We marched un-"'.o un-"'.o clock J" the morning, during -which time, as a result of faulty maps we had lost the boundary line and had gone in o Mexico about two miles We quickly retraced our steps on discovering dis-covering this fact. ' lilyaf'Tday morninS we established estab-lished patrols along the boundary line my company having the section 'near- f?ftm Sl,aPrleta anfJ abont a ml'e from the town. All was quiet Sun: from uf !0wn was ,lIcen Eon tl y tn,rk of smoke from the near-by smelters. Toward cn4tai. Ck 11 waB as clear a a Our position was on a Oat plane slopmg toward (he town, and moS ?omM VeuWP'int or grandstand seat could not he des.red. Every buildln-in buildln-in town and every foot of he IveinS v,Ij!'1.be rlearI' and distinct! LJ,eCn' uV Ma 3 ,roPs. which hy now had reached a position a mile due east of the town were in a straight line with us and the town could easily be seen hy us. At twenty-five minutes min-utes to two Villa opened fire on tho roun w,tn his heavy cannon, firing projectiles weighing from one to forty pounds, and containing shrapnel and high explosives. Havoc of Artillery. The bombardment, which had opener! so suddenly, soon began to show its effect ef-fect on the town. In Villa's attempt to get the true range manv of his shots went over the town and not a few peppered the ground all around us which made our situation interesting i to say the least. We coul-i see his cannon and distinguish the guns as the shots were fired and after seeing the slab of light or flame and smoke indicating that a shot had been fired in a few seconds we could see the shell burst in the air above the trenches, scattering hot bullets over an area of 500 square yards, or at times they would blow out whole sections sec-tions of trench. Others striking on or near a house could be seen to blow the whole structure into millions of pieces. One volley of t hree shots struck in the vicinity of two houses quite widely separated, hlowing both of them Into atoms and leaving a "ap-ing "ap-ing hole where they had stood. In one of these houses three women and three children were killed outright and three other women injured. The bombardment bom-bardment continued all afternoon and the destruction of the town was awful Carranza's forces replied lo the bombardment bom-bardment and made great holes in Villa's advancing line of men. During the afternoon almost the entire en-tire firing was done by Carranza and from our viewpoint, we being able to see oft ch shot fired and its destructive destruct-ive effect, you can imagine what an Impressive as well as terrible spectacle spec-tacle it was for us. We were relieved at 5 o' i -lock Monday afternoon and marched back to camp. Hut just before be-fore leaving the column of Ya-pii Indians In-dians whhh we had been expecting appeared on the Mexican side of the line a half a block distant and we niHiiaged. before going, to see Carranza Car-ranza scatter them out by two well- ' pher-d cannon shots. i Monday iiihi was I he fiercest one of the entire battle, and with cannon can-non and high explosives bursting at. the rate of more than fiftv per minute min-ute and rifle fire at the rate of fifteen fif-teen or twenty shots per minute, the noise was deafening and beyond all description. Villa made three distinct attempts to take the town that night by infantry infan-try attacks and rushes, but was repulsed re-pulsed each time with heavy losses. Tuesday morning the attack began to subside, with desultory shooting the remainder of the day. Tuesday afternoon after-noon our battalion was given its liberty lib-erty and Leo and 1 went over to the boundary fence east of Agua Prieta to witness the effect of the rifle fire. We stayed at a point not . more than 100 feet from the dividing divid-ing fence, just beyond which was Villa's first line of infantry, it being be-ing at a distance of a quarter of a mile from Carranza's intrenchments. As the fence was the line beyond which the shooting had to stop for fear of bullets coming into the United States, many of Villa's soldiers sought protection bv coming to it and his wounded dragged themselves to it for protection. Villa's soldiers had marched two days and nights without food or water and it was a pitiful sight to see them at the fence begging beg-ging for something to eat of our soldiers, who gave them most of what they had. At the opportunity of getting get-ting food or water they would get up from their position on the firing line and come to the fence, seemingly unmindful un-mindful of the deadly fire from Car ranza s guns. Young Boys Fighting. A large percentage of the soldiers on each side ranged from 15 to 20 years of age and their bravery under fire was remarkable. Many times 1 saw fellows not more than IB years old get up and unconcernedly walk along the line collecting canteens for our soldiers to fill at the fence, at the same time the enemy's bullets striking all around them. Several of these boys dropped in their tracks, not making another move. Others would get up in groups of four to drag a dead or wounded comrade to the rear or to a safer place. One man stood up for a few seconds, was shot down and immediately im-mediately several others dragged him across the unprotected plain to the shelter of a board fence which projected pro-jected into their territory. Of the half dozen who started to drag him away two besides himself reached the fence. By Wednesday Villa realized the futility fu-tility of further fightting and retrea'ted to the soutii, having lost his first battle bat-tle in the state of Sonora. He had confidently con-fidently expected to take (the town in a few hours. Due to the armored protection and bomb-proofs in Carranza's Car-ranza's trenches, Carranza's losses were comparatively small, but Villa lost about 500 killed and four or five times as many wounded. When the firing first began the women and children chil-dren of Agua Prieta fairly streamed across the line Into America and by nightfall the refugee camp had 2300 members, all women and children. The population of Agua Prieta is, at best, a filthy, poverty-stricken one, and with 2300 of them collected in a crowd, without food, water or shelter, the sight was not pleasant to behold. The nights here are piercing cold and on Monday night they remained in camp without shelter, but we did the best we could possibly do for them. Six babies were born thart night and later there were several others. On i Wednesday, knowing that all danger had passed, we herded the refugees back Into Agna Prieta. and by Thursday Thurs-day afternoon they were all back in Mexico. Difference in Caste. There Is a great difference of caste among the Mexicans and just as soon as the refugee camp was formed they divided themselves into itwo groups, the higher class having nothing to do with the others in spite of the fact that they were common sufferers. 1 talked with several of each class as best I could, their Spanish being cor-ni cor-ni ited with dialects of the locality, and they all informed me that the living conditions were much better in the refugee camp than in Agua Prieta. when the latter is at its best. Their poverty and filthiness can hardly be imagined. - The experience of (the past week has been of inestimable value to me. Of the six regiments located at Fort Bliss the Twentieth was one of the two to come here, and of (the three battalions of the Twentieth regiment, the one in which Leo and I are was the only one to see the battle. We consider ourselves part icularly fortunate fortu-nate in (this regard. Thousands of people came from the southwest to see the engagement and they all went away satisfied. To most of , them it was as interesting as a good bull fight. Many people. since the "European war commenced, have spentf months and small fortunes for the opportunity to witness a single Furopean battle. But the recent battle between Carranza's Car-ranza's and Villa's forces al Agua Prieta was, perhaps, more destructive and horrifying than many of it hose whieh take place in the great war now raging in th old world. Our situation situa-tion for viewing the battle could not have been better had it been planned with that end in view. Certainly T had never expected i lo fall to my lol so soon after leaving West Point to witness a modern ba ttle from a selected and perfect viewpoint. It could be compared to witnessing the whole action on a moving picture screen, from the besft. seat In the ; house. But our situation was so much more real that such a comparison would not bring to you the vividness of It. Yesterdav T spent the entire afternoon after-noon with Leo riding along the boundary boun-dary line on horseback watching (the 1 Carranza forces collect and hum the bodies of the Villa dead. Villa has effected ef-fected his escape and all Is quiet again except for the numerous military and other, brass bands, which play continuously contin-uously in the streets of Agua Prieta. We hourly expect our orders to return re-turn to Fort Bliss and are prepared to go on a minute's notice. T think our experience of the past week has been the nearest that we will come to participating In any battle. It was near enough, though, to be comfortable, com-fortable, for we were expecting at any minute to have to give orders for our troops to repulse the' Indians. T imagined myself on several occasions, during the dark niirht. fighting for my life with a horde of half savages, hut as it turned mi I . we were not under the necessity of firing a single shot. |
