Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 August 1900 — ALLIES FIRE ON AMERICANS. [ARTICLE]

ALLIES FIRE ON AMERICANS.

Awful Blunder During the Fighting at Yang-tsun. A dispatch from Yang-tsun, via Che Foo and Shanghai, tells of a terrible blunder that occurred during the Yrangtsun battle that nearly wiped out the Fourteenth United States Infantry. During the night, while the English and Russians were shelling the Chinese trenches, the Fourteenth was brought into position, ready to storm one of the Chinese trenches. They were observed in the deep darkness by the Russians, who took them for a body of Chinese, and immediately turned their guns upon the Americans. The Americans, thinking they were being attacked by Chinese, fought back, until some one of the Americans discovered the awful mistake that was being made and they ceased firing, but the English and Russians kept it up until an American rushed into their lines, in the face of a deadly fire and stopped the maiming of his men. Ten Americans were wounded, some of them very seriously, before the mistake was discovered. In the fighting that night ten Americans were killed and fifty-five wounded. The British bad fifty wounded and the Russians ten, including a colonel. Th® fighting lasted for four hours. The Chinese lines extended from the railway bridge eastward three miles. It is estimated that they numbered 20,000. The Russians, British, and all the Americans were engaged.