The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-03
From the San Francisco Call.

| 1 HE fighting power of an American
 9 shows in the desperate battle of Fred Mills in the battle of Amiseglr in the recnt war between Hon duras and Nicaragua.
 John P. Poe, who once kicked field goal for Princeton, winning the most sen sational football game on record, has just returned to Nevada from Honduras, where he served as captain in the Hon. duran army. About his own service he has little to say, but while in San Fran cisco on his way to Nevada he told the story of Mills, an American adventurer, recently of Goldfield, New, who, with his 1 back to an adobe wall, held the whole 1 Nicaraguan army of invasion at bay and killed twenty-five of President Zeaya's men before he was finally borne down by overwhelming numbers.
 | The story comes from an officer in the Nicaraguan forces who came in on the close of Mills great fight.
 Mills belonged to the class of men who pioneer before the pioneers. His first great ancestor was Ulysses and his for bears harrled the Spanish main. The spirit that lived in him and kept him up against that adobe wall when almost cut to pieces was what made a soldier of for tune of him. He drifted along the from 1 tier of America from Nome to Panama, and no one ever cared to ask where he 1 came from originally. As man he was all there and he was known for having | heavy hand when trouble arose. And | that was enough.
 When there was rumor of war in Cen tral America, Mills, who was at that time in Goldheld. went to San Francisco and shipped on the first boat. He readily ob- tained captaincy in the Honduran army and in the upset state of affairs just be- fore the war broke out helped get the army into shape.
 Then came the rumor that the Nicara- guan troops were preparing to cross the Honduran frontier in the interior Mills was detailed with a company of native soldiers to go out into the mountains where the Nicaraguans were expected to cross, and, avoiding the main body of troops. to pick up any skirmishing parties he could ind and learn the number of l the Nicaraguans.
 At Amisegir, a mountain town which l the Nicaraguans were advancing upon and were forced to occupy as a key to the position, Mills found himself the only man in the Honduran forces who realized what was at stake. He prepared to hold the place against all corners.
 The town lies high up on the hills, with nothing but zlgzag mountain trails lead ing to it. They are the highways-cami- nos reales-of Honduras, though in any civilized country they would be called | goat paths.
 Mills realized that he could not be forced from the town by artillery, as it could only be moved against him on the backs of mules. He took up his position in an old graveyard, commanding the last angle of the road with thick adobe walls jutting out at sharp angle over the hillside.
 The value of this place for him lay not in the fact that these walls formed a first barrier against the enemy, but also that once he got his handful of barefooted, hungry soldiery into the graveyard he was able to take up his stand at the | gateway, the only exit from the place, to keep his men from running away as the enemy approached. This was only ac- |
 complished after he had shot down one of his own men who tried to brush past him and had locked the front gate, throw ing the key over the wall. Seeing them selves trapped, his men after one futile rush which stretched two of them at his feet recognized their master and manned their positions. Mills made them knock holes through the wall on the side com manding the trail, through which, had they been Americans, they could have kept off the enemy almost forever. What he had not reckoned with, though, was their propensity to blaze away all their ammunition regardless of whether they are hitting anything not. As soon as | their fire slackened the Nicarag guam gen eral, with the help of a machine gun placed behind his men, forced them up the steep hill They outnumbered their foes ten to one. Swarming along the trail, although the first ranks went down from the fire of the men behind the wall.