Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 306, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1913 — LAFAYETTE DOCTOR VISITED MEXICO [ARTICLE]

LAFAYETTE DOCTOR VISITED MEXICO

Tells of Grewsome Sights Following Battle of Jaurea Saw 31 Federals Shot. *

Dr. W. M. Byers, of Lafayette, has just returned from what he termed a “hunting trip” down at Cloud-' croftr New Mexico. * Before he started out to hunt, however, he took a trip over into, Mexico to view the battlefield south of Jaurez, where the federals and constitutionalists had clashed two days before, resulting in a loss of 192 dead and 347 wounded to the federate. ' Among other grewsome fights be saw 31 federal officers—General Villa’s (pronounced Vee-yah’s), cousin included—shot by their captors. The condemned officers were blindfolded, lined up against on adobe .wall with their backs to the executioners and all killed instantly with a volley from 70 or 80 rifles. Some-of the wounded were still lying on the battlefield two days after the fight and subsequently taken to the temporary hospitals in Jaurez, for the most part located in billiard'parlors or rooms above saloons. They were deplorably filthy, he stated and with only the most primitive conveniences for the care of the wounded soldiers. Some were stretched out on billiaird tables, others on the floor and a few on improvised eats. The operating room in the makeshift hospitals consist-d of a small space curtained off with sheets and in many cases the operating table was nothing but an ordinary card tabla >