Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1913 — JAILED BY REBELS [ARTICLE]

JAILED BY REBELS

Released American Tells of Horrors in Mexico. Crowded With Thirty-Four Others Into Sunless Dungeon About 20 Feet Square—Finally Freed by Federal Soldiersi St. Louis, Mo. —Reduced from 170 bounds to a mere shadow by,a long confinement in a Mexican dungeon. C. W. Macatee, once a resident of Chickasha, is now under the care of Dr. L. E. Manuel, the city physician, at Chickasha, Okla. Stooped, thin and sallow almost beyond recognition, it was hard for men who knew him to believe that the thin, wasted figure is the same man of sturdy physique who left here some years ago. Macatee says he went from here to Wichita, Kan., where he joined a Mexican colony, went to Mexico and purchased forty acres of land from the government. The following is Macatee’s own “I had about $250 in money and several hundred dollars’ worth of horses, cattle and mules when the present Mexican revolution broke out. When the rebels captured Chihuahua they seized all the American colonists and demanded that they turn over all they possessed to the rebel leaders. They destroyed all we had, took our live stock and money and marched us in a hollow square of soldiers to prison. In Chihuahua there are two prisons—one known as the ‘outside’ prison and the other as the ‘inside’ prison. “In company with thirty-four other Americans I was placed in the ‘outside’ prison, where for about sixteen months I did not see a ray shine nor get a breath of fresh air except that filtered into the cell by a circular pipe that reached the roof. We were thrown into prison on April 15, 1911, and were liberated Aug. 15, 1912, when Madero’s army recaptured Chihuahua. “The cell which I shared with 34 other prisoners was possibly 20 feet square, and during all the time we were there the cell door was unlocked but three times—twice to clear the cell and once to remove the bodies of four of our comrades, which removal occurred two weeks after their death. “We fared decidedly worse than a drove of hogs, and death came, to my fotfr Companions absolutely from starvation. We could not get a particle of exercise, owing to the crowded condition of our cell, and eventually put in most of our time sleeping. “We did not hear the federate when they battered down the front door of the prison, and the first knowledge we had that something unusual was taking place Was when they battered down the inner doors to the cell rooms. W« naturally that our hour of execution bad come, but were happily mistaken. Being almost naked, we were given some clothing and smuggled across the lines to El Paso, where I stayed two weeks. It was fully-that long before I dared to attempt to open my eyes in daylight. Even now I have to wear clouded glasses. ‘Though I weighed 170 pounds when I went into prison, my weight was less than 100 pounds when I arrived in El Paso. I remember three of the men who were in prison with me—Charlie Gardner of Arkansas City, a man by the name of Woods and another named Atwell, from Kansas. “The English consul visited us once, but the consul from our own nation did not come to see us.” .