Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 171, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 July 1916 — CAPTAIN MOREY, TELLS THRILLING STORY OF THE CARRIZAL MASSACRE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CAPTAIN MOREY, TELLS THRILLING STORY OF THE CARRIZAL MASSACRE

Sole Surviving Officer Gives Intimate Details of the First Real Tragedy of the Campaign-Blames No One and Draws No Conclusions—Suffers Agonies of Hunger and Thirst in His Escape Back to the Headquarters of Pershing.

Field Headquarters, United States Punitive Expedition, near Casas Grandes. —Capt Lewis S. Morey, Troop K, Tenth cavalry, the sole officer to survive the Carrizal massacre, sat on the edge of a bunk in a thatched hut at headquarters here and told an attentive group of fellow officers, who gathered to congratulate him as one from the grave. Intimate details of the first real tragedy of this campaign. Morey had spent the previous night In the hospital after his arrival here In a motor car. In the morning, Ms blood-stained shirt removed, and his body cleansed and refreshed, he was able to move about the camp with his left shoulder, through which a Mauser bullet had seared its way, swathed In bandages.

Confers With Pershing. He first held a conference with General Pershing. And then he visited with his regiment in what probably will be the most remarkable reunion of this campaign. As he walked through the curious little army streets, flanked by tents and the queer woven brush quarters which the men and officers have built, there was no cheering and music. But from each group some officers walked out and, grasping Morey’s unmaimed hand, exclaimed :

“Glad you’re back, old man. Congratulations 1” Simple words these, but they were fervently spoken, for there is bo man In this command that believed he would ever see Morey again. Tells of Awful Thirst. Morey Is a studious-looking man, whiskered, lean of face and spectacled. Telling his story he spoke haltingly, without exaggeration, and with admirable restraint and modesty. He blamed no one, drew no conclusions, offered no hindsight suggestions as to what should have been or should not have been done. His voice was almost emotionless, rising in tone and pitch only when he told of going without water from six o’clock on the morning of the 21st, until four o’clock the following day, wounded and with the .blistering, searing rays of a Mexican sun beating down on him. Morey suffered thirst that will leave an impression for life. Even as he spoke of it, his hand automatically reached for a canteen and he drank long and deep.

Died Like Soldiers. How those two troops of the Tenth cavalry left Santo Domingo early that Wednesday morning and rode toward Carrizal, how Captain Boyd conferred with General'Gomez and how, flanking the Americans on the right and left, the Carranzlstas opened fire, already has been told, and Morey confirmed the details that have heretofore been related. He added little to the fight except to say that Boyd and Lieut. Henry Adair died like soldiers and gentlemen. He told also that the Carranzistas began hostilities by opening up with machine guns, and that in the firing the enemy seemed to be centering his fire on the white oflicers of the command, of which there were only three. When the battle was over there was but one. Couldn't Follow Charge. Morey’s command, consisting of only 36 men, was on the right flank when “the ball opened,” as he put IL and he could follow the charge of Troop C under Boyd and Adair only to a fringe of bush, into which men and horses disappeared. ‘ C troop men tell me,” said Morey, “that Adair died in the irrigation ditch, his head held up by a noncommissioned officer. There was water in the ditch, and even while dying Adair

would pitch face forward into it without support. / “I understand the noncommissioned officer left Adair wounded In the ditch at Adair’s order and went forward to Carrizal. Then, looking back, he saw his officer with his eyes glazing, his head wobbling against the side of the ditch, and he ran back and remained with him till death came.

Caught In Angle of Fire. “Boyd was killed when his troop made the rush for the trench in which Carranzistas had the machine guns. Just how he died I don’t know.” Caught in a right angle of Are, Morey’s small detachment, as previous dispatches have related, was forced to retire. Mounts had been sent to the rear, and every man, including the leader, was afoot. Alternately lying flat on their faces and then rising and fighting desperately, the little band maneuvered to the rear. It continued to withdraw until Morey, with one of the corporals, who was bleeding profusely from the shoulder and who wore Boyd’s hat, found themselves with seven men behind an adobe wall near a dry hole which offered protection from the bullets, but not from the sun. Taree hundred yards to the south were the Carranzistas, some mounted, some afoot, advancing, firing and yelling. .They had become emboldened by the Americans’ retirement

Walked as If Dazed. “When I got behind that wall,” resumed Morey in a matter-of-fact tone, “I toid the men I proposed to stay there. Those who wished to go, I told to go.” Four men, including one wounded man, elected to make the desperate attempt to escape, and Morey told how he saw them ascend the hill which stretched away to the north. “I never saw men act so strangely/’ be said. “They didn’t run or seem to exert themselves; they simply moved away as if dazed up the hill, and by so doing they probably saved us. We who remained behind the wall saw the Carranzlsta horsemen riding to outflank them. The Carranzistas apparently thought they had us behind the wall safely, and bent all their efforts on getting the four who were trying to escape. We were unmolested.” With the enemy beating try on all sides, Morey and three'black troopers lay in the hole behind the wall all that long, waterless day, with the sun beating squarely down on them. Night came, and with it came a welcome drop in temperature, and the stars. The wounded officer and men started trailing west on the first leg of the 70-mile journey to Pershing’s line.

Too Weak to Walk. Morey was so weak that he could only walk a hundred yards or so at a stretch, and as the night wore on and he necame weaker and weaker he concluded that It was humanly impossible for him to go farther. •So he first requested—and when they, refused —he ordered the three negro troopers to leave him. “I reasoned,” he said today, “that they could go on and I couldn’L so I made them go.” The three went on. Morey, his wounds bandaged as best they could be, lay down on the desert and slept The stars were still out but dawn was breaking when he awoke, strengthened by .he rest He forced himself to his feet and staggered on tn the direction in which he thought lay Santo Domingo ranch, eight miles from Carrizal, and the point where the command had bivouacked the night before the tight He traveled compassless, haring giv-

en his compass to the three men who left him, along with a telegram to be sent to his wife and dlspaflrhes to Pershing. About 4:30 tn the morning, as nearly as he could judge It, he made the ranch house and found it deserted and desolate. Manager J. T. McCabe hud fled, as had the Chinese cook. Morey sprawled face downward tn a hole near the ranch house, in which there was a little brackish water. Ho rinsed his parched mouth and drank sparingly. * Then, rejuvenated, he staggered into the adobe building and found, as if by a miracle, a quantity of beefsteak, coffee tn a pot on the stove and cornbread. As he ate be gained strength in body and spirit. His meal concluded, he began an Investigation of his surroundings. Near the ranch he found five troopers of the Tenth, stragglers from the confused fight, and gathering them together he prepared to march on. The jerked beef tn the ranch house they stowed in their pockets. Those who carried canteens filled them. Morey had no canteen, so he carried an old baking powder can. “I had learned my lesson,” he said,, “and bad determined never to be without water again.” After considering the sun awhile, Morey decided it would be better to wait until the heat of the day had passed. So the men washed up, and after stuffing the last bit of the beef into the first-aid kit, a start was made as evening approached. They headed for San Luts ranch, miles to the east.

Mule Team a Godsend. After ten miles, accomplished tn feverish relays, they encountered the ranch manager, McCabe, with a mule team. This was a godsend, as Morey termed it All piled in the wagon and rode to San Luis ranch, where they arrived at midnight Saturday, joining there with Major Howze’s squadron of Eleventh cavalrymen, which had been sent out by General Pershing to find' them. With the Howze squadron was a motor truck train, and in a truck Morey and his men, headed for headquarters. Thirty-five miles from this camp Lieut James Collins, General Pershing’s aid, met the trucks with four autos, find Morey, transferred to the smaller car, reached here at dusk.

The above diagram of the battle In which Troops C and K of the Tenth cavalry were nearly annihilated by Carranza troops was drawn from a description given by Captain Morey. The Americans, advancing from the west along the road from Colonia Dubian, were enfiladed by machine gun Are as they advanced on the outskirts of the town. At the same time a force of Mexicans circled to the rear of the American troops and stampeded their horses. The survivors of the Tenth cavalry retreated to the northwest along the trail to Santa Maria.