Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-06-23
z AMERICANS AND
4 MEXICANS SLAIN
IN CARRIZAL FIGHT
Thirty MexicanS Were Wound
ed and Seventeen Americans
Captured According to Mex
lean Official Claim
(By Associated Press. }


Ell PASO, Tex, June 22.-The Amer
leans lost IL dead, including their COM
mander and Il prisoners, while IA Mex
leans were killed and 80 wounded in
the battle of Carrizal, according to
the official announcement today by the
Mexican consulate.
The consulate announcement said
complete details had been received from
Villa Ahumada. The Americans re-
moved their wounded with them. The
name of the American commander still
Is unknown. The bodies of the Ameri-
can dead were counted as they lay
on the field of battle.
According to advices from San An
tonic today, General Pershing reported
to General Funston that he had not yet
received a report on the fight at Car
rial, but added that on information
sent to him, he had sent out two squad
rons of the Eleventh cavalry with in
structions to get into touch with the
troop of the Tenth that was engaged
yesterday by the Mexican forces.
General Funston made it plain that
General Pershing's first report has not
altered the general situation, and that
no special orders will be issued until
General Pershing has rendered a report
in detail of the Carrizal fight and Incl
dents which led to it.
General Pershing said that all his
men had positive orders not to do any
thing calculated to precipitate a fight
with troops of the de facto government.
Although unstated in General PERISH
ings report, officers at department
headquarters drew the inference that
Captain Charles T. Boyd was in COM
mand of Troop II, the troop believed to
have been the one engaged at Carrizal.
Details of the engagement at Car
RIAL are awaited anxiously here.
General Bell said early today that
no reports had been received from
General Pershing. the American ex-
peditionary commander, or from any
of his subordinate officers.
Confidence was expressed, however,
that the American version of the clash
would be received later in the day.
Stress was laid upon the fact that the
battle was fought approximately sixty
five miles from Colonia Dublan, General
Parshing's field Headquarters, and that
with no means of wireless communica-
ton available il would take a courier
some time to reach the eXpeditionary
commander with a report
1t was intimated that the official Mex
lean view would be that the battle be-
tween the Americans and Carranza
forces is a detached incident, having
nothing TO do with the general situa-
ton. Mexican authorities were in COM
munication with Mexico City during the
night.
AMERICANS TRAPPED.
A new version of the engagement was
brought here today by Mexican
civilian who was in Villa Ahumada ear
ly yesterday afternoon and who said he
assisted in dressing some of the Next
can wounded. He said that General
Felix Gomez. the slain Carranza leader,
had been aware of the approach of the
Americans for twelve hours and had
sent a number of couriers to them warn
ing them to return to their encampment.
When they persisted in their advance,
he said, a pitfall several hundred feet
in length was dug directly in the trail
over which the cavalrymen must ride.
This was cleverly concealed with brush.
AS the Americans rode unsuspecting-
ly through the sand dunes toward the
entrenchment, General Gomez lay con-
cealed some hundred yards away in the
mesquite The horses of the American
vanguard plunged into the pitfall I'M
seating their riders and injuring a num-
Der of them. Then. the Mexican as
serted, the Carranza forces lying in
ambush raked the American ranks with
machine run. The heavy fire forced
the Americans to withdraw 20 reog-
ganize their line and the Mexicans
captured seventeen soldiers, who had
been thrown into the pit.
He asserted that it was then that
General Gomez went forward under a
flag of truce, and that before the pro-
posed parley had begun an irrespcnsi-
BILE soldier again started the machine
gun fire.