Chapter XII Otis and the War (Continued)
And now, a man of head being at the centre of it, the whole matter gets vital.—Carlyle’s French Revolution.
There can surely be little doubt in any quarter that Mr. Root is, in intellectual endowment and equipment at least, one of the greatest, if he is not the greatest, of living American statesmen. Mankind will always yield due acclaim to men who, in great emergencies, see the essentials of a given situation, and at once proceed to get the thing done that ought to be done. Whether the war in the Philippines was regrettable or not, it had become, by midsummer of 1899, supremely important, from any rational and patriotic standpoint, to end it as soon as possible.
Mr. Root had not been in office as Secretary of War very long before fleets of troop-ships, carrying some twenty-five well-equipped volunteer regiments,1 were swarming out of New York harbor bound for Manila by way of the Suez Canal, and out of the Golden Gate for the same destination via Honolulu. Nor was there any confusion as in the Cuban helter-skelter. Everything went as if by clockwork. Moreover, along with the new and ample force, went a clear, masterly, comprehensive plan of campaign, prepared, not by General Otis at Manila, but in the War Department at Washington, by officers already familiar with the islands.
It was the purpose of this government at last to demonstrate conclusively to the Filipino people that the representative of the United States at Manila was “the boss of the show,” and that Aguinaldo was not—a demonstration then sorely needed by the exigencies of American prestige. The purpose can readily be appreciated, but to understand the plan of campaign, and the method of its execution, somewhat of the geography of Luzon must now be considered. Before we approach the shores of Luzon and the city of Manila, however, let us consider from a distance, in a bird’s-eye view, as it were, the relation of Luzon to the rest of the archipelago, so as to know, in a comprehensive way, what we are “going out for to see.” We may as well pause at this point, long enough to learn all we will ever need to know, for the purposes of the scope of this narrative, concerning the general geography of the Philippine archipelago, and the governmental problems it presents. (See folding map at end of volume.)
It is a common saying that Paris is France. In the same sense Manila is the Philippines. In fact, the latter expression is more accurate than the former, for Manila, besides being the capital city of the country, and its chief port, is a city of over 200,000 people, while no one of the two or three cities next to it in rank in population had more than 20,000.2 By parity of reasoning it may be said that Luzon was the Philippines, so far as the problem which confronted us when we went there was concerned, relatively both to the original conception in 1898 of the struggle for independence, its birth in 1899, its life, and its slow, lingering obstinate death in 1900–1902, in which last year the insurrection was finally correctly stated to be practically ended. To know just how and why this was true, is necessary to a clear understanding of that struggle, including not only its genesis and its exodus, but also its gospels, its acts, its revelations, and the multitudinous subsequent commentaries thereon.
The total land area of the Philippine archipelago, according to the American Census of 1903, is 115,000 square miles.3 The area of Luzon, the principal island, on which Manila is situated, is 41,000 square miles, and that of Mindanao, the only other large island, is 36,000.4 Between these two large islands, Luzon on the north, and Mindanao on the south, there are a number of smaller ones, but acquaintance with only six of these is essential to a clear understanding of the American occupation. Many Americans, too busy to have paid much attention to the Philippine Islands, which are, and must ever remain, a thing wholly apart from American life, have a vague notion that there are several thousand of them. This is true, in a way. American energy has made, for the first time in their history, an actual count of them, “including everything which at high tide appeared as a separate island.”5 The work was done for our Census of 1903 by Mr. George R. Putnam, now head of the Lighthouse Board of the United States. Mr. Putnam, counted 3141 of them.6 Of these, of course, many—many hundred perhaps—are merely rocks fit only for a resting place for birds. 2775, have an area of less than a square mile each, 262 have an area of between 1 and 10 square miles, 73 between 10 and 100 square miles, and 20 between 100 and 1000 square miles. This accounts for, and may dismiss at once from consideration 3130—all but 11. Most of these 3130 that are large enough to demand even so much as a single word here are poorly adapted to human habitation, being in most instances, without good harbors or other landing places, and usually covered either with dense jungle or inhospitable mountains, or both. Their total area is only about 8500 square miles, of the 115,500 square miles of land in the archipelago. None of them have ever had any political significance, either in Spain’s time, or our own, and therefore, the whole 3130 may at once be eliminated from consideration, leaving 11 only requiring any special notice at all—the 11 largest islands. Of these, Luzon and Mindanao have already been mentioned. The remaining 9, with their respective areas and populations, are:
| Island | Area7 in Square Miles | Population8 |
|---|---|---|
| Panay | 4,611 | 743,646 |
| Negros | 4,881 | 560,776 |
| Cebu | 1,762 | 592,247 |
| Bohol | 1,411 | 243,148 |
| Samar | 5,031 | 222,690 |
| Leyte | 2,7229 | 357,641 |
| Mindoro | 3,851 | 28,361 |
| Masbate | 1,236 | 29,451 |
| Paragua | 4,02710 | 10,918 |
| Total | 29,532 | 2,788,878 |
The political or governmental problem being now reduced from 3141 islands to eleven, the last three of the nine contained in the above table may also be eliminated as follows: (See map at end of volume.)
Paragua, the long narrow island seen at the extreme lower left of any map of the archipelago, extending northeast southwest at an angle of about 45°, is practically worthless, being fit for nothing much except a penal colony, for which purpose it is in fact now used.
Masbate—easily located on the map at a glance, because the twelfth parallel of north latitude intersects the 124th meridian of longitude east of Greenwich in its southeast corner—though noted for cattle and other quadrupeds, is not essential to a clear understanding of the human problem in its broader governmental aspects.
Mindoro, the large island just south of the main bulk of Luzon, pierced by the 121st meridian of longitude east of Greenwich, is thick with densely wooded mountains and jungle over a large part of its area, has a reputation of being very unhealthy (malarious), is also very sparsely settled, and does not now, nor has it ever, cut any figure politically, as a disturbing factor.11
Eliminating Paragua, Masbate, and Mindoro as not essential to a substantially correct general idea of the strategic and governmental problems presented by the Philippine Islands, we have left, besides Luzon and Mindanao, nothing but the half-dozen islands which appear in large type in the above table: Panay, Negros, Cebu, Bohol, Samar, Leyte, with a total area of 20,500 square miles. Add these to Luzon’s 41,000 square miles and Mindanao’s 36,000, and you have the Philippine archipelago as we are to consider it in this book, that is to say, two big islands with a half dozen little ones in between, the eight having a total area of 97,500 square miles, of which the two big islands represent nearly four-fifths.
While the great Mohammedan island of Mindanao, near Borneo, with its 36,000 square miles12 of area, requires that the Philippine archipelago be described as stretching over more than 1000 miles from north to south, still, inasmuch as Mindanao only contains about 500,000 people all told,13 half of them semi-civilized,14 the governmental problem it presents has no more to do with the main problem of whether, if ever, we are to grant independence to the 7,000,000 Christians of the other islands, than the questions that have to be passed on by our Commissioner of Indian Affairs have to do with the tariff.
Mindanao’s 36,000 square miles constitute nearly a third of the total area of the Philippine archipelago, and more than that fraction of the 97,500 square miles of territory to a consideration of which our attention is reduced by the process of elimination above indicated. Turning over Mindanao to those crudely Mohammedan, semi-civilized Moros would indeed be “like granting self-government to an Apache reservation under some local chief,” as Mr. Roosevelt, in the campaign of 1900, ignorantly declared it would be to grant self-government to Luzon under Aguinaldo.15 Furthermore, the Moros, so far as they can think, would prefer to owe allegiance to, and be entitled to recognition as subjects of, some great nation.16 Again, because, the Filipinos have no moral right to control the Moros, and could not if they would, the latter being fierce fighters and bitterly opposed to the thought of possible ultimate domination by the Filipinos, the most uncompromising advocate of the consent-of-the-governed principle has not a leg to stand on with regard to Mohammedan Mindanao. Hence I affirm that as to it, we have a distinct and separate problem, which cannot be solved in the lifetime of anybody now living. But it is a problem which need not in the least delay the advent of independence for the other fourteen-fifteenths of the inhabitants of the archipelago17—all Christians living on islands north of Mindanao. It is true that there are some Christian Filipinos on Mindanao, but in policing the Moros, our government would of course protect them from the Moros. If they did not like our government, they could move to such parts of the island as we might permit to be incorporated in an ultimate Philippine republic. Inasmuch as the 300,000 or so Moros of the Mohammedan island of Mindanao and the adjacent islets called Jolo (the “Sulu Archipelago,” so called, “reigned over” by the Sultan of comic opera fame) originally presented, as they will always present, a distinct and separate problem, and never did have anything more to do with the Philippine insurrection against us than their cousins and co-religionists over in nearby Borneo, the task which confronted Mr. Root in the fall of 1899, to wit, the suppression of the Philippine insurrection, meant, practically, the subjugation of one big island, Luzon, containing half the population and one-third the total area of the archipelago, and six neighboring smaller ones, the Visayan Islands.
And now let us concentrate our attention upon Luzon as Mr. Root no doubt did, with infinite pains, in the fall of 1899. Of the 7,600,000 people of the Philippines18 almost exactly one-half, i.e., 3,800,000,19 live on Luzon, and these are practically all civilized.20 It so happens that the State of our Union which is nearer the size of Luzon than any other is the one which furnished the first American Civil Governor for the Philippine Islands, Governor Taft. President Taft’s native State of Ohio is 41,061 square miles in area, and Luzon is 40,969.21 Roughly speaking, Luzon may also be said to be about the size of Cuba,22 though it is about twice as thickly populated as the latter, Cuba, having something over 2,000,000 people to Luzon’s nearly 4,000,000.23
By all Americans in the Philippines since our occupation, the island of Luzon is always contemplated as consisting of two parts, to wit, northern Luzon, or that part north of Manila, and southern Luzon, the part south of Manila. The great central plain of Luzon, lying just north of Manila, is nearly as large as the republic of Salvador, or the State of New Jersey, i.e., in the neighborhood of 7000 square miles area24—and, like Salvador, it contains a population of something over 1,000,000 inhabitants. The area and population of the five provinces of this plain are, according to the Philippine Census of 1903, as follows:
| Province | Area25 (sq. m.) | Population26 |
|---|---|---|
| Pangasinan | 1,193 | 397,902 |
| Pampanga | 868 | 223,754 |
| Bulacan | 1,173 | 223,742 |
| Tarlac | 1,205 | 135,107 |
| Nueva Ecija | 1,950 | 134,147 |
| 6,389 | 1,114,652 |
Roughly speaking, the central plain comprising the above five provinces is bounded as follows: On the north by mountains and Lingayen Gulf, on the east by a coast range of mountains separating it from the Pacific Ocean, on the west by a similar range separating it from the China Sea, and on the south by Manila Bay and mountains. The Rio Grande de Pampanga flows obliquely across it in a southwesterly direction into Manila Bay, and near its western edge runs the railroad from Manila to Dagupan on Lingayen gulf. Dagupan is 120 miles from Manila. This plain, held by a well-equipped insurgent army backed by the moral support of the whole population, became the theatre of war as soon as the volunteers of 1899 began to arrive at Manila, the insurgent capital being then at Tarlac, a place about two-thirds of the way up the railroad from Manila to Dagupan.
Of course the first essential thing to do was to break the backbone of the insurgent army, and scatter it, and the next thing to do was to capture Aguinaldo, the head and front of the whole business, the incarnation of the aspirations of the Filipino people. The operations to this end commenced in October, and involved three movements of three separate forces:
(1) A column under General Lawton, proceeding up the Rio Grande and along the northeastern borders of the plain, and bending around westward along its northern boundary toward the gulf of Lingayen, garrisoning the towns en route, and occupying the mountain passes on the northeast which give exit over the divide into the great valleys beyond.
(2) An expedition under General Wheaton, some 2500 in all, proceeding by transports to the gulf of Lingayen, the chief port of which, Dagupan, was the northern terminus of the railroad; the objective being to land on the shore of that gulf at the northwest corner of the plain, occupy the great coast road which runs from that point to the northern extremity of the island, and also to proceed eastward and effect a junction with the Lawton column.
(3) A third column under General MacArthur, proceeding up the railroad to the capture of Tarlac, the third insurgent capital, and thence still up the railroad to its end at Dagupan, driving the enemy’s forces before it toward the line held by the first two columns.
On October 12th, General Lawton moved up the Rio Grande from a place called Aryat, a few miles up stream from where the railroad crosses the river at Calumpit, driving the insurgents before him to the northward and westward. His command was made up mainly from the 3d Cavalry and the 22d Infantry, together with several hundred scouts, American and Maccabebee. On the 20th San Isidro was again captured. That was the place Lawton had evacuated in May previous. Arriving in the Islands with Colonel E. E. Hardin’s regiment, the 29th U. S. Volunteer Infantry, on November 3, 1899, the writer was immediately detailed to the Maccabebee scouts, to take the place of Lieutenant Boutelle, of the regular artillery, a young West Pointer from Oregon, who had been killed a day or two previous, and reported to Major C. G. Starr, General Lawton’s Adjutant-General in the field (whom he had known at Santiago de Cuba the previous year) at San Isidro on or about November 8th. Major Starr said: “We took this town last spring,” stating how much our loss had been in so doing, “but, partly as a result of the Schurman Commission parleying with the insurgents General Otis had us fall back. We have just had to take it again.” General Lawton garrisoned San Isidro this time once for all, and pressed on north, capturing the successive towns en route. Meantime, General Young’s cavalry, and the Maccabebee scouts under Major Batson, a lieutenant of the regular army, and a medal-of-honor graduate of the Santiago campaign, were operating to the west of the general line of advance, striking insurgent detachments wherever found and driving them toward the line of the railroad. By November 13th, Lawton’s advance had turned to the westward, according to the concerted plan of campaign above described, garrisoning, as fast as they were taken, such of the towns of the country over which he swept as there were troops to spare for. We knew that Aguinaldo had been at Tarlac when the advance began, and every officer and enlisted man of the command was on the qui vive to catch him. By November 18th, General Lawton’s forces held a line of posts extending up the eastern side of the plain, and curving around across the northern end to within a few miles of the gulf of Lingayen.
On November 6th, General Wheaton set sail from Manila for Lingayen Gulf, with 2500 men of the 13th Regular and 33d Volunteer Infantry, and a platoon of the 6th Artillery, convoyed by the ships of the navy, and next day the expedition was successfully landed at San Fabian, “with effective assistance from the naval convoy against spirited resistance,” says Secretary of War Root, in his annual report for 1899. The navy’s assistance on that occasion was indeed “effective,” but such passing mention hardly covers the case. In the first place, they selected the landing point, their patrols being already familiar with the coasts. As soon as the transports were sighted, about eleven o’clock on the morning of November 7th, Commander Knox, the senior officer present, who commanded the Princeton, and Commander Moore, of the Helena, went out to meet and confer with General Wheaton. This done, the landing was effected under protection of the navy’s guns. Besides the naval vessels above named, there were also present the Bennington under Commander Arnold, the Manila under Lieutenant-Commander Nazro, and two captured Spanish gun-boats small enough to get close in shore, the Callao, and the Samar. The troops were disembarked in two columns of small boats towed by launches. Lieutenant-Commander Tappan in charge of the Callao, and Ensign Mustin, commanding the Samar, were especially commended in the despatches of Admiral Watson, commander-in-chief of the Asiatic squadron. Both bombarded the insurgent trenches at close range during the landing, and Mustin actually steamed in between the insurgents and the head of the column of troop-boats, so as to intercept and receive the brunt of their fire himself, and, selecting a point about seventy-five yards from the enemy’s trenches whence he could effectually pepper them, ran his ship aground so she would stick, and commenced rapid firing at point blank range, driving the enemy from his trenches, and enabling Colonel Hare of the 33d, and those who followed, to land without being subjected to further fire while on the water.27
On the 11th of November, Colonel Hare with the 33d Volunteer Infantry and one Gatling gun under Captain Charles R. Howland of the 28th Volunteer Infantry, a lieutenant of the regular army, and a member of General Wheaton’s staff, proceeded southeastward to San Jacinto, and attacked and routed some 1200 to 1600 intrenched insurgents, Major John A. Logan being among our killed. The enemy left eighty-one dead in the trenches, and suffered a total loss estimated at three hundred. While space does not permit dwelling on the details of engagements, it may be remarked here, once for all, that the 33d Volunteer Infantry, Colonel Luther R. Hare commanding, made more reputation than any other of the twenty-five regiments of the volunteer army of 1899, except, possibly, Colonel J. Franklin Bell’s regiment, the 36th. This is no reflection on the rest. These two were lucky enough to have more opportunities. In meeting his opportunities, however, Colonel Hare, like Colonel Bell, proved himself a superb soldier; his field-officers, especially Major March,28 were particularly indefatigable; and his men were mostly Texans, accustomed to handling a rifle with effect. Space also forbids following Captain Howland and his Gatling gun into the engagement of November 11th, but from the uniformity with which General Wheaton’s official reports commend his young aide’s bravery and efficiency on numerous occasions in 1899–1900, it may be safely assumed that those qualities were behind that Gatling gun at San Jacinto. There was a vicious rumor started after the San Jacinto fight and given wide circulation in the United States, that Major Logan was shot in the back by his own men. I saw a major surgeon a few days later who had been an eye-witness to his death. He said an insurgent sharpshooter shot Major Logan from a tree, and that the said sharpshooter was promptly thereafter dropped from his perch full of 33d Infantry bullets. Says General Wheaton’s despatch of November 12th: “Major Logan fell while gallantly leading his battalion.”29
On November 5th, General MacArthur, with a strong column, composed mainly of the 9th, 17th, and 36th Regiments of Infantry, two troops of the 4th Cavalry, two platoons of the 1st Artillery, and a detachment of scouts, advanced up the railroad from Angeles, in execution of his part of the programme.30 Angeles is some distance up the railroad from Calumpit, where the railroad crosses the Rio Grande.31 General MacArthur’s column encountered and overwhelmed the enemy at every point, entering Tarlac on November 12th, and effecting a junction with General Wheaton at Dagupan, the northern terminus of the Manila-Dagupan Railroad, 120 miles from Manila, on November 20th.
After General Lawton had finished his part of the round-up, he had a final conference with General Young on November 18th at Pozorubio, which is near the northeastern border of the plain, bade him good-bye, and soon afterward went south to dispose of a body of insurgents who were giving trouble near Manila. It was in this last expedition that he lost his life at San Mateo about twelve miles out of Manila on December 19, 1899.
The first of the two purposes of the great Wheaton-Lawton-MacArthur northern advance, viz., the dispersion of the insurgent army of northern Luzon had been duly accomplished. The other purpose had failed of realization. Aguinaldo had not been captured. He escaped through our lines.
Such is in brief the story of the destruction of the Aguinaldo government in 1899 by General Otis, or rather by Mr. Root. But the trouble about it was that it would not stay destroyed. It “played possum” for a while, the honorable President retiring to permanent headquarters in the mountains “with his government concealed about his person,” as Senator Lodge put it later in a summary of the case for the Administration, before the Senate, in the spring of 1900. If the distinguished and accomplished senator from Massachusetts, in adding at that time to the gaiety of nations, had had access to a certain diary kept by one of Aguinaldo’s personal staff throughout that period, subsequently submitted, in 1902, to the Senate Committee of that year, he could have swelled the innocuous merriment with such cheery entries as “Here we tightened our belts and went to bed on the ground”—the time alluded to being midnight after a hard day’s march without food, the place, some chilly mountain top up which the “Honorable Presidente” and party had that day been guided by the ever-present and ever-willing paisano (fellow countryman) of the immediate neighborhood—whatever the neighborhood—to facilitate them in eluding General Young’s hard riding cavalry and scouts. The writer has no quarrel with Senator Lodge’s witticism above quoted, having derived on reading it, in full measure, the suggestive amusement it was intended to afford. It is true that about all then left of the “Honorable Presidente’s” government, for the nonce, was in fact concealed about his person. It was of a nature easily portable. It needed neither bull trains, pack ponies, nor coolies to carry it. It consisted solely of the loyal support of the whole people, who looked to him as the incarnation of their aspirations. Said General MacArthur to the Senate Committee in 1902 concerning Aguinaldo: “He was the incarnation of the feelings of the Filipinos.” “Senator Culberson: ‘And represented the Filipino people?’ General MacArthur: ‘I think so; yes’.”32 We of the 8th Army Corps did not know what a complete structure the Philippine republic of 1898–9 was until, having shot it to pieces, we had abundant leisure to examine the ruins. To admit, in the same breath, participation in that war and profound regret that it ever had occurred, is not an incriminating admission. In this case as in any other where you have done another a wrong, by thrashing him or otherwise, under a mistake of fact, the first step toward righting the wrong is to frankly acknowledge it. As soon as Aguinaldo’s flight and wanderings terminated in the finding of permanent headquarters, he began sending messages to his various generals all over Luzon and the other islands, and wherever those orders were not intercepted they were delivered and loyally obeyed. This kept up until General Funston captured him in 1901. One traitor among all those teeming millions might have betrayed his whereabouts, but none appeared. The obstinate character and long continuance of the warfare in northern Luzon after the great round-up which terminated with the final junction of the Lawton, Wheaton, and MacArthur columns near Dagupan, as elsewhere later throughout the archipelago, was at first very surprising to our generals. It had been supposed that to disperse the insurgent army would end the insurrection. As events turned out, it only made the resistance more effective. So long as the insurgents kept together in large bodies they could not hide. And as they were poor marksmen, while the men behind our guns, like most other young Americans, knew something about shooting, the ratio of their casualties to ours was about 16 to 1.33 When General MacArthur began his advance on Tarlac, General Lawton his great march up the valley of the Rio Grande, and General Wheaton his closing in from Dagupan, Aguinaldo with his cabinet, generals, and headquarters troops abandoned Tarlac, their capital, and went up the railroad to Bayambang. Here they held a council of war, which General MacArthur describes in his report for 1900 (from information obtained later on) as follows:
At a council of war held at Bayambang, Pangasinan, about November 12, 1899, which was attended by General Aguinaldo and many of the Filipino military leaders, a resolution was adopted to the effect that the insurgent forces were incapable of further resistance in the field, and as a consequence it was decided to disband the army, the generals and the men to return to their own provinces, with a view to organizing the people for general resistance by means of guerrilla warfare.34
This had been the plan from the beginning, the council of war simply determining that the time to put the plan into effect had arrived. Accordingly, the uniformed insurgent battalions and regiments broke up into small bands which maintained a most persistent guerrilla warfare for years thereafter. During those years they seldom wore uniforms, disappearing and hiding their guns when hotly pursued, and reappearing as non-combatant peasants interrupted in agricultural pursuits, with invariable protestations of friendship. Hence all such came to be known as amigos (friends), and the word amigo, or friend, became a bitter by-word, meaning to all American soldiers throughout the archipelago an enemy falsely claiming to be a friend. And every Filipino was an “amigo.”
Still, the volunteers had arrived in time to enable Mr. Root to make a very nice showing to Congress, and through it to the people, in his annual report to the President for 1899, dated November 29th. This report is full of cheerful chirps from General Otis to the effect that the resistance was practically ended, and the substance of the information it conveyed duly found its way into the President’s message of December of that year and through it to the general public. One of the Otis despatches said: “Claim to government by insurgents can be made no longer.”35 This message went on to state that nothing was now left but “banditti,” and that the people are all friendly to our troops. Thus misled, Mr. Root repeated to the President and through him to Congress and the country the following nonsense:
It is gratifying to know that as our troops got away from the immediate vicinity of Manila they found the natives of the country exceedingly friendly * * *. This was doubtless due in some measure to the fact that the Pampangos, who inhabit the provinces of Pampanga and Tarlac, and the Pangasinanes, who inhabit Pangasinan, as well as the other more northerly tribes, are unfriendly to the Tagalogs, and had simply submitted to the military domination of that tribe, from which they were glad to be relieved.
In characterizing this as nonsense no disrespect is intended to Mr. Root. He did not know any better. He was relying on General Otis. But it is sorely difficult to convey in written words what utter nonsense those expressions about “the Pampangos” and “the Pangasinanes” are to any one who was in that northern advance in the fall of 1899. Imagine a British cabinet minister making a report to Parliament in 1776 couched in the following words, to wit:
The Massachusetts-ites, who inhabit Massachusetts, and the Virginia-ites who inhabit Virginia, as well as most of the other inhabitants are unfriendly to the New York-ites, and have simply submitted to the military domination of the last named,
and you have a faint idea of the accuracy of Mr. Root’s report. It is quite true that the Tagalos were the prime movers in the insurrection against us, as they had been in all previous insurrections against Spain. But the “Tagalo tribe” was no more alone among the Filipino people in their wishes and views than the “unterrified” Tammany tribe who inhabit the wilds of Manhattan Island, at the mouth of the Hudson River, are alone in their views among our people.
On page 70 of this report, Secretary Root reproduces a telegram from General Otis dated November 18, 1899, stating that on the road from San Nicolas to San Manuel, a day or so previous, General Lawton was “cordially received by the inhabitants.” He announces in the same telegram the drowning of Captain Luna, a volunteer officer from New Mexico, who was one of General Lawton’s aides, and had been a captain in Colonel Roosevelt’s regiment of Rough Riders before Santiago. The writer happens to have been on that ride with General Lawton from San Nicolas to San Manuel, and was within a dozen feet of Captain Luna when the angry current of the Agno River caught him and his pony in its grip and swept both out of sight forever, along with divers troopers of the 4th Cavalry, horses and riders writhing to their death in one awful, tangled, struggling mass. He can never forget the magnificent dash back into the wide, ugly, swollen stream made by Captain Edward L. King of General Lawton’s staff, as he spurred his horse in, followed by several troopers who had responded to his call for mounted volunteers to accompany him in an effort to save the lives of the men who went down. Their generous work proved futile. But it was inspired partly by common dread of what they knew would happen to any half-drowned soldier who might be washed ashore far away from the column and captured. If an army was ever “in enemy’s country” it was then and there. When we reached San Manuel that night, Captains King and Sewall, the two surviving personal aides of General Lawton’s staff, and the writer, stopped, along with the general, in a little nipa shack on the roadside. General Lawton, was in an upper room busy with couriers and the like, but downstairs King, Sewall, and myself set to work to buscar36 something to eat. I got hold of an hombre (literally, a man; colloquially a native peasant man), who went to work with apparent alacrity, and managed to provide three ravenously hungry young men with a good meal of chicken, eggs, and rice. After supper, being new in the country, the writer remarked to the general on the alacrity of the hombre. I had brought out from the United States the notions there current about the nature of the resistance. General Lawton said, with a humorous twinkle in those fine eyes of his: “Humph! If you expected to be killed the next minute if you didn’t find a chicken, you’d probably find one too.” It is true that in the course of the campaign General Young sent a telegram to General Otis at Manila characterizing his reception at the hands of the natives as friendly. This was prompted by our column being met as it would come into a town by the town band. It did not take long to see through this, and other like hypocrisy entirely justifiable in war, though such tactics deceived us for a little while at first into thinking the people were genuine amigos (friends). General Otis, not being near the scene, remained under our original brief illusion. Let us return, however, from Mr. Root’s “patient and unconsenting millions dominated by the Tagalo tribe,” of 1899, to the facts, and follow the course of events succeeding Lawton’s junction with Wheaton and MacArthur and his farewell to Young.
General Young, with his cavalry, and the Maccabebee scouts, continued in pursuit of Aguinaldo through the passes of the mountains, the latter having managed to run the gauntlet of our lines successfully by a very close shave. How narrowly he escaped is illustrated by the fact that after a fight we had at the Aringay River on November 19th, in which Major Batson was wounded while gallantly directing the crossing of the river, we remained that night in the town of Aringay, and at the very time we were “hustling for chow” in Aringay, Aguinaldo was in the village of Naguilian an hour or so distant, as was authoritatively ascertained long afterward from a captured diary of one of his staff officers.37
General Young proceeded up the coast road, in hot haste, taking one town, San Fernando de Union, after a brief engagement led by the general in person—imagine a brigadier-general leading a charge at the head of thirty-seven men!—but Aguinaldo had turned off to the right and taken to the mountains. General Lawton wired General Otis about that time, in effect, in announcing Aguinaldo’s escape through our lines and his own tireless brigade-commander’s bold dash in pursuit of him with an inadequate force of cavalry hampered by lack of horseshoes and nails for the same, “If Young does not catch Aguinaldo, he will at least make him very unhappy.” The Young column garrisoned the towns along the route over which it went, occupying all the western part of Northern Luzon, hereafter described, and also later on rescued Lieutenant Gilmore of the navy, Mr. Albert Sonnichsen, previously an enlisted man and since a writer of some note, and other American prisoners who had been in the hands of the insurgents for many months. General Young finally made his headquarters at Vigan, in the province of Ilocos Sur, a fine town in a fine country. The Ilocanos are called “the Yankees of the Philippines,” on account of their energy and industry. Vigan is on the China sea coast of Luzon (the west coast), about one hundred miles up the old Spanish coast road, or “King’s Highway” (Camino Real), from Lingayen Gulf (where the hundred-and-twenty mile railroad from Manila to Dagupan ends) and about eighty miles from the extreme northern end of the island of Luzon.38
As subsequent policies and their effect on one’s attitude toward a great historic panorama do not interfere in the least with a proper appreciation of the bravery and efficiency of the army of one’s country, it is with much regret that this narrative cannot properly chronicle in detail what the War Department reports record of the stirring deeds of General Young, and the officers and men of his command, Colonels Hare and Howze, Captains Chase and Dodd, and the rest,39 performed during the long course of the work now under consideration. One incident, however, is appropriate in this connection, not only to a collection of genre pictures of the war itself, but also to a place among the lights and shadows of the general picture of the American occupation. On December 2, 1899, Major March of the 33d Infantry had his famous fight at Tila pass, in which young Gregorio del Pilar, one of the ablest and bravest of the insurgent generals, was killed. The locality mentioned is a wild pass in the mountains of the west coast of Luzon, that overlook the China Sea, some 4500 feet above sea level. It was strongly fortified, and was believed by the insurgents to be impregnable. The trail winds up the mountains in a sharp zigzag, and was commanded by stone barricades loop-holed for infantry fire. The advance of our people was checked at first by a heavy fire from these barricades. The approach being precipitous, it looked for a while as if the position would indeed be impregnable, and the idea of taking it by a frontal attack was abandoned. But a hill to the left front of the barricade was seized by some of our sharpshooters—those Texans of the 33d were indeed sharpshooters—and after that, under cover of their fire, our troops managed to get in a fire simultaneously both on the flank and rear of the occupants of the barricades, climbing the precipitous slope up the mountain side by means of twigs and the like, and finally killing some fifty-two of the enemy, General Pilar among the number. After the fight was over, Lieutenant Quinlan, heretofore mentioned, moved by certain indignities in the nature of looting perpetrated upon the remains of General Pilar, buried them with such military honors as could be hastily provided, after first taking from a pocket of the dead general’s uniform a souvenir in the shape of an unfinished poem written in Spanish by him the night before, addressed to his sweetheart; and, the burial finished, the American officer placed on the rude headstone left to mark the spot this generous inscription:
General Gregorio Pilar, killed at the battle of Tila Pass, December 2d, 1899, commanding Aguinaldo’s rear-guard. An officer and a gentleman. (Signed) D. P. Quinlan, 2d Lieutenant, 11th Cavalry.
The brief incident over, Quinlan hurried on, rejoined the column, and resumed the work of Benevolent Assimilation and the war against Home Rule with all the dauntless ardor of his impetuous Irish nature. Whatever the ultimate analysis of the ethics of this scene—Quinlan at the grave of Pilar—clearly the Second Lieutenant Quinlan of 1899 would hardly have agreed with the vice-presidential candidate of 1900, Colonel Roosevelt, that granting self-government to the Filipinos would be like granting self-government to an Apache reservation under some local chief.
The territory occupied and finally “pacified” by General Young, with the effective assistance of the officers heretofore mentioned, and many other good men and true, was ultimately organized into a military district, which was called the First District of the Department of Northern Luzon. As territory was fought over, occupied, and finally reduced to submission, that territory would be organized into a military district by the commanding general or colonel of the invading column, under the direction of the division commander. The military “Division of the Philippines,” which was succeeded by the Civil Government of the Philippines under Governor Taft in 1901, of course covered all the territory ceded by the Treaty of Paris. It was divided into four “Departments,” the Department of Northern Luzon, the Department of Southern Luzon, the Department of the Visayas,40 and the Department of Mindanao and Jolo. General Young commanded the First District of the Department of Northern Luzon—which included the three west coast provinces north of Lingayen Gulf, and the three adjacent mountain provinces—from the time he led his brigade into that region in pursuit of Aguinaldo until shortly before Governor Taft’s inauguration in the summer of 1901. Many were the combats, great and small, of General Young’s brigade, in compassing the task of crushing the resistance in that part of Luzon into which he led the first American troops in the winter of 1899–1900. The resistance was obstinate, desperate, and long drawn out, but when he finally reported the territory under his command “pacified,” it was pacified. A soldier’s task had been performed in a soldierly manner. The work had been done thoroughly. General Young gave the Ilocano country a lesson it never forgot, before politics had time to interfere. We have never had any trouble in that region from that day to this.
Before the army of occupation had had time to do in southern Luzon what General Young did in northern Luzon and thereby secure like permanent results in that region, a “peace-at-any-price” policy was inaugurated to meet the exigencies of Mr. McKinley’s campaign for the Presidency in 1900. Our last martyred President clung all through that campaign to his original assumption that Benevolent Assimilation would work, and that the single burning need of the hour was to make clear to the Filipinos what our intentions were—as if powder and lead did not spell denial of independence plain enough, as if that were not the sole issue, and as if that issue had not been submitted, with deadly finality, to the stern arbitrament of war. However, neither Lord Roberts in India, nor Lord Kitchener in Egypt ever more effectively convinced the people of those countries that his flag must be respected as an emblem of sovereignty, than General Young did the Ilocanos. Take the month of April, 1900 for instance. Several days after the expiration of said month (on May 5th) General Otis was relieved and went home. During the month of April, General Young killed five hundred insurgents in his district.41 But this did not prevent General Otis, arriving as he did in the United States in the month of June, when the national political conventions meet, from “repeating the same old story about the insurrection going to pieces”42—only, not “going” now, but “gone.” Nor did it, and like sputterings of insurrection all over the place, prevent Judge Taft—the “Mark Tapley of this Philippine business” as he humorously told the Senate Committee of 1902 he had been called—from cabling home, during the presidential campaign of 1900, a series of superlatively optimistic bulletins,43 based on the testimony of Filipinos who had abandoned the cause of their country as soon as patriotism meant personal peril, all such testimony being eagerly accepted, as testimony of the kind one wants and needs badly usually is, in total disregard of information directly to the contrary furnished by General MacArthur and other distinguished soldiers who had been then on the ground for two years.
The area and population of the territory occupied by General Young, the “First District of the Department of Northern Luzon,” was, according to the Census of 1903, as follows:
| Province | Area (sq. m.)44 | Population45 |
|---|---|---|
| Ilocos Norte | 1,330 | 178,995 |
| Ilocos Sur | 471 | 187,411 |
| Union | 634 | 137,839 |
| Abra | 1,171 | 51,860 |
| Lepanto-Bontoc46 | 2,005 | 72,750 |
| Benguet | 822 | 22,745 |
| 6,433 | 651,600 |
As this narrative purposes so to present the geography of the Philippine Islands as to facilitate an easy remembrance of the essentials only of the governmental problem there presented, we will hereafter speak of the First District as containing, roughly, 6500 square miles, and 650,000 people. Whenever, if ever, a Philippine republic is set up, these six provinces are very likely, for geographical and other reasons, to become one of the original states comprising that republic, just as the states of Mexico are made up of groups of provinces.47
The rest of the story of the northern campaign of 1899–1900 immediately following Aguinaldo’s escape into the mountains through General Young’s and General Lawton’s lines, being a necessary part of the American occupation of the Philippines, may also serve as a text for further acquainting the reader with the geography of Luzon. War is the best possible teacher of geography, and it may be well to communicate in broken doses, as we received them, the lessons on the subject which the 8th Army Corps learned in 1899 and the subsequent years so thoroughly that we could all pronounce with astonishing glibness, the most unpronounceable names imaginable.
When the great Wheaton-Lawton-MacArthur “Round-up” reached the mountains on the northeast of the great central plain, in the latter part of November 1899, Captain Joseph B. Batchelor, with one battalion of the 24th (negro) Infantry, and some scouts under Lieutenant Castner, a very intrepid and tireless officer, boldly cut loose from the column of which he was a part, and, pressing on over the Caranglan pass, overran the province of Nueva Vizcaya, which is part of the watershed of north central Luzon, proceeding from Bayombong, the capital of Nueva Vizcaya, down the valley of the Magat River, by the same route Messrs. Wilcox and Sargent of the navy had made their pleasant junket in the fall of 1898 as described in Chapter VI (ante). Following this route Captain Batchelor finally came into Isabela province, where the Magat empties into the Cagayan River, reaching Iligan, the capital of Isabela, ninety miles northeast of Bayombong, about December 8th. From Iligan Batchelor went on, promptly overcoming all resistance offered, down the great Cagayan valley, some 110 miles due north, to the sea at Aparri, the northernmost town of Luzon and of the archipelago, where he met two vessels of our navy, the Newark and the Helena, under Captain McCalla, and found, to his inexpressible (but partially and rather fervently expressed) chagrin, that the insurgents who had fled before him, and also the garrison at Aparri, had already surrendered to the navy. The territory thus covered by Batchelor’s bold, brilliant, and memorable march over two hundred miles of hostile country from the mountains of central Luzon down the Cagayan valley to the northern end of the island, at Aparri,48 consisted of the three provinces of Cagayan, Isabela, and Nueva Vizcaya. The area and population of these three, according to the census tables of 1903, are as follows:
| Province | Area (sq. m.)49 | Population50 |
|---|---|---|
| Cagayan | 5,052 | 156,239 |
| Isabela | 5,018 | 76,431 |
| Nueva Vizcaya | 1,950 | 62,541 |
| Total | 12,020 | 295,211 |
The troops of Captain Batchelor’s command were later on relieved by the 16th Infantry, commanded by Colonel Hood, under whom the above group of three provinces finally became the “Second District of the Department of Northern Luzon.” As part of the plan to provide the reader with a fair general idea of Luzon conveniently portable in memory, he is requested to note, at this point, that hereinafter the Cagayan valley, with its three provinces,51 will be alluded to as a district containing 12,000 square miles and 300,000 people. As was remarked concerning the original military district commanded by General Young, to wit, the First District, so of Colonel Hood’s district, the Second—that is to say, as the Ilocano country may some day become the state of Ilocos, so, for like geographical and other governmental reasons, the three provinces of the Cagayan valley may some day become the state of Cagayan in the possible Philippine republic of the future.
Having now followed the “far-flung battle line” of the volunteers of ’99 and their comrades in arms, the regulars, from Manila northward across the rice paddies of central Luzon and over the mountains to the northern extremity of the island, let us return to the central plain, for reasons which will be stated in so doing. Between the China Sea and the coast range which forms the western boundary of the central plain of Luzon, there is a long strip of territory—a west wing of the plain, as it were—about 125 miles long, with an average width of not more than twenty miles, stretching from Manila Bay to Lingayen Gulf. This is divided, for governmental purposes into two provinces, Bataan on the south, whose southern extremity lay on Admiral Dewey’s port side as he entered Manila Bay the night before the naval battle of May 1, 1898, and Zambales on the north. The area and population of this territory are as follows:
| Province | Area (sq. m.) | Population |
|---|---|---|
| Bataan | 537 | 46,787 |
| Zambales | 2,125 | 104,549 |
| 2,662 | 151,336 |
Also, between the Pacific Ocean and the coast range which forms the eastern boundary of the plain is a longer, narrower, and very sparsely populated strip, or east wing, divided also into two provinces, Principe on the north and Infanta on the south, each supposed to contain about fifteen thousand people. Principe and Infanta are wholly unimportant, except that, to avoid confusion, we must account for all the provinces visible on the maps of Luzon. These two provinces never gave any trouble and no one ever bothered about them.52 In the mountains of Zambales and Bataan, however, as in most of the other provinces of the archipelago, the struggle was long kept up, just as the Boers kept up their war for independence against Great Britain about the same time, by guerrilla warfare.
The central plain with five provinces has already been fully described. If to this plain you add its two wings, above mentioned, you have the nine provinces of central Luzon you see on the map. And if to them you add the six provinces of the Ilocos country and the three of the Cagayan valley, you have clearly before you the political make-up of northern Luzon—eighteen provinces in all. When central Luzon was arranged by districts under the military occupation, it was divided into three parts, the Third, Fourth, and Fifth districts of the Department of Northern Luzon, the Third District being under General Jacob H. Smith of Samar fame,53 the Fourth under General Funston, and the Fifth under General Grant. The Sixth and last district of northern Luzon was made up of the city of Manila and adjacent territory.
General Smith’s district, the Third, comprised the provinces of
| Province | Area (sq. m.) | Population |
|---|---|---|
| Zambales | 2,125 | 104,549 |
| Pangasinan | 1,193 | 397,902 |
| Tarlac | 1,205 | 135,107 |
| 4,523 | 637,558 |
Pangasinan with its near 400,000 people is the largest, in point of population, of the twenty-five provinces of Luzon, and the third largest of the archipelago.
General Funston’s district, the Fourth, comprised the provinces of
| Province | Area (sq. m.) | Population |
|---|---|---|
| Nueva Ecija | 2,169 | 134,147 |
| Principe54 | 331 | 15,853 |
| 2,500 | 150,000 |
General Grant’s district, the Fifth, comprised the provinces of
| Province | Area (sq. m.) | Population |
|---|---|---|
| Bataan | 537 | 46,787 |
| Pampanga | 868 | 223,754 |
| Bulacan | 1,173 | 223,742 |
| 2,578 | 494,283 | |
| 2,500 | 150,000 | |
| Totals, 4th and 5th Districts: | 5,078 | 644,283 |
It will be seen from the foregoing that the Third District was nearly equal in area to the Fourth and Fifth added together, and that the same was true as to its population figure.
Just as the six provinces of the Ilocano country, first occupied by General Young and organized as “The First District of the Department of Northern Luzon,” should some day evolve into a State of Ilocos, and the three provinces of the Cagayan valley, occupied by Colonel Hood as the Second District, into an ultimate State of Cagayan, so the provinces of General Smith’s old district, the Third, should finally become a State of Pangasinan.55 This Third District may be conveniently recollected as accounting for, roughly speaking, 4500 square miles of territory and 625,000 people. The total combined area of General Funston’s old district, the Fourth,56 and the adjacent one, the Fifth, General Grant’s district, is—roughly—5000 square miles, and its total population 650,000. No reason is apparent why these two districts, the Fourth and Fifth, should not ultimately evolve into a State of Pampanga. The five original military districts,57 which in 1900 constituted all of the Department of Northern Luzon except the city of Manila and vicinity, might make four ultimate states, with names, areas, and populations as follows:
| State | Area (sq. m.) | Population |
|---|---|---|
| Ilocos | 6,500 | 650,000 |
| Cagayan | 12,000 | 300,000 |
| Pangasinan | 4,500 | 625,000 |
| Pampanga | 5,000 | 650,000 |
| 28,000 | 2,225,000 |
It may surprise the reader after all the blood and thunder to which his attention has hereinabove been subjected, apropos of northern Luzon and the winter of 1899–1900, to know that the insurgents were still bearding the lion in his den, i. e., General Otis in Manila, by operating in very considerable force in the village-dotted country within cannon-shot of the road from Manila to Cavite in January, 1900. Nevertheless such was the case.
On the 4th of January, 1900, General J. C. Bates was assigned to the command of the First Division of the Eighth Army Corps, General Lawton’s old division, and an active campaign was commenced in southern Luzon. The plan adopted was that General Wheaton with a strong force should engage and hold the enemy in the neighborhood of Cavite, while General Schwan, starting at the western horn of the half moon to which the great lake called Laguna de Bay has already been likened, should move rapidly down the west shore of the lake, and around its south shore to Santa Cruz near its eastern end, or horn, garrisoning the towns en route, as taken, instead of leaving them to be re-occupied by the insurgents. Santa Cruz is the same place where General Lawton had “touched second base,” as it were, with a flying column in April, 1899.
This plan was duly carried out. The Schwan column started from San Pedro Macati, the initial rendezvous, a few miles out of Manila, on January 4, 1900, now garrisoning the towns en route, instead of leaving them to be fought over and captured again as heretofore. The first stiff fight we had in that campaign was at Biñan, on January 6, 1900, one of the places General Lawton’s expedition had taken when he fought his way over the same country the year before. O. K. Davis and John T. McCutcheon, who were in that fight and campaign—in fact one of them had the ice-cold nerve to photograph the Biñan fight while it was going on, as I learned when we all went down to the creek near the town, after we took it, to freshen up—can testify that we did not then hear any nonsense about a “Tagal” insurrection, such as Secretary of War Root’s Report for 1899, published shortly before, is full of, and that on the contrary the whole country was as much a unit against us and as loyal to the Aguinaldo government as northern Luzon had been. And inasmuch as I am doing some “testifying” along here myself, and assuming to brush aside without the slightest hesitation, as wholly erroneous, information conveyed to the American public at the time in the state papers of President McKinley and Secretary of War Root, it is only due the reader, whose attention is being seriously asked, that “the witness” should “qualify” as to the opportunities he may have had, if any, to know whereof he speaks, concerning the character of the opposition. To that end, the following document, which General Schwan was kind enough to send me afterwards, is submitted as sent:
EXTRACT COPY.
Headquarters Detachment Macabebe Scouts.
The Adjutant General, Schwan’s Expeditionary Brigade:
Sir: I have the honor to submit the following report of the operations of the Detachment of Macabebe Scouts, under my command, while forming a part of your Brigade.
The Detachment, consisting of five (5) officers and one hundred and forty (140) men, was divided into two companies, commanded by 1st Lt. J. Lee Hall, 33rd Inf., and 1st Lt. Blount, 29th Inf., left San Pedro Macati the afternoon of Jan. 4th, 1900 * * *.
I wish to invite your attention, especially, to the good work done in the fight at Biñan by Lieut. Blount, 29th Inf., who led the line by at least twenty-five yards * * *.
Very Respectfully,
Wm. C. Geiger, 1st Lt. 14th Inf., Com’d’g Det.
I hereby certify that the above is a true copy of extracts from the report of the operations of the Detachment of Macabebe Scouts forming part of an Expeditionary Brigade under my command, in the months of January and February, 1900.
Theo. Schwan,
Brig. General, U. S. Vols.
Aug. 16, 1900.
The activities of Generals Bates and Wheaton, and the Schwan Expedition of January-February, 1900, extended the American occupation, so far as there were troops enough immediately available to go around, over the lake-shore portions and the principal towns of the two great provinces of southern Luzon bordering on the Laguna de Bay, viz., Cavite and Laguna; and over parts of the two adjacent provinces of Batangas and Tayabas.
Batangas bounds Cavite on the south, and is itself bounded on the south by the sea, where a fairly good port offered a fine gateway for smuggling arms into the interior from abroad. Tayabas province adjoins Laguna on the southeast. Cavite province has always been, since the opening of the Suez Canal, about 1869, and the agitations for political reform in Spain which culminated in the Spanish republic of 1873, quickened the thought of Spain’s East Indies, the home of insurrection, the breeding place of political agitation. Aguinaldo himself was born within its limits in 1869. Laguna province comprehends most of the country lying between the southern and eastern lake-shore of the Laguna de Bay and the mountains which skirt that body of water in the blue distance, all parts of it being thus in easy and safe touch by water transportation by night with Cavite, the home and headquarters of insurgency.
Just as northern Luzon had been gradually organized into military districts as conquered, so was southern Luzon. The territory, over-run, as above described, by Generals Bates, Wheaton, and Schwan, was divided into two districts.58 Colonel Hare commanded the First District, Cavite province and vicinity. General Hall commanded the Second District, Batangas, Laguna, and Tayabas. The area and population of these four provinces, according to the Census of 1903, were as follows:
| Province | Area (sq. m.) | Population |
|---|---|---|
| Cavite | 619 | 134,779 |
| Batangas | 1,201 | 257,715 |
| Laguna | 629 | 148,606 |
| Tayabas | 5,993 | 153,065 |
| 8,442 | 694,165 |
For convenience of subsequent allusion, this group of provinces may be treated as representing roughly 8500 square miles of territory and 700,000 people. These four provinces group themselves together naturally from a military standpoint. As physical force is the final basis of all government, these four provinces constitute a logical administrative governmental unit, as shown by the action of our military authorities in their extension of the American occupation. It would seem therefore that if there should ever be a Philippine republic, they would probably constitute one of its states—the State, let us say, of Cavite.
The rest of southern Luzon below that part above described consists of a peninsula which, owing to its odd formation, is easy to remember. The mainland of Luzon, that is to-say, that part of the island which our narrative has already covered, remotely suggests, in shape, the State of Illinois. At least it resembles Illinois more than it does any other State of our Union, in that its length runs north and south, and its average length and width are nearer that of Illinois than any other. At the southeast corner of this mainland, the observer of the map will see, jutting off to the southeast from the mainland, the peninsula in question. It is about a hundred and fifty miles long, with an average width of possibly thirty miles—a minimum width of, say, ten miles, and a maximum of fifty,—and is separated from Samar by the narrow, swift, and treacherous San Bernardino Strait, which connects the Pacific Ocean with the China Sea. This peninsula is frequently called “the Hemp Peninsula.” The importance of controlling the hemp ports prompted General Otis to send General Bates with an expedition to those ports on February 15, 1900.59 This expedition did little more than occupy those ports. The great interior continued under insurgent control some time afterward. The report of the Secretary of War, Mr. Root, for 1900, goes on to describe an engagement, or two, sustained by the Bates Expedition shortly after it landed, and concludes, with a complacency almost Otis-like, by stating that shortly thereafter “the normal conditions of industry and trade relations with Manila were resumed by the inhabitants.” Of course Mr. Root believed this, and so did Mr. McKinley. More the pity, as we shall later see. General Otis was now getting anxious to go home, and hastened to “occupy” and organize the rest of the archipelago, on paper, at least, the hemp peninsula becoming, on March 20, 1900, the Third District of the Department of Southern Luzon, Brigadier-General James M. Bell commanding. The provinces comprised in this district, with their areas and populations as given by the Census of 1903, were as follows:
| Province | Area (sq. m.) | Population |
|---|---|---|
| Camarines60 | 3,279 | 239,405 |
| Albay | 1,783 | 240,326 |
| Sorsogon | 755 | 120,495 |
| 5,817 | 600,226 |
For convenience of subsequent allusion, these three provinces of the hemp peninsula which constituted the Third Military District of the Military Department of Southern Luzon in 1900, may be regarded as comprising, roughly, 6000 square miles of territory and 600,000 people. If the Philippine republic of the future which is the dream of the Filipino people, prove other than an idle dream, the hemp peninsula will probably some day constitute a state of that republic, an appropriate and probable name for which would be the State of Camarines.
The Fourth District of southern Luzon—there were but four—was occupied by the 29th U. S. Volunteer Infantry, commanded by Colonel E. E. Hardin, one of the best executive officers General Otis had in his whole command. The Fourth District comprised a lot of islands unnecessary to be considered at length in this bird’s-eye view of the panorama, but necessary to be mentioned in outlining the military occupation. The 29th, like the other twenty-four volunteer regiments, settled down with equanimity to the business of policing a hostile country, sang with zest, like the rest of the twenty-five volunteer regiments, that old familiar song, “Damn, Damn, Damn the Filipino,” etc., and waited with the uniquely admirable stoicism of the American soldier for the season of their home-going to roll round, which, under the Act of Congress,61 would be the spring of the following year.
In volume i., part 5, War Department Report, 1899, at pages 5 et seq., may be found a journal illustrating the nature of the “police” work done by the volunteers of 1899, in 1900, and at pages 5 et seq. of the same report for 1900 (volume i., part 4) may be found a similar diary carried up to June 30, 1901. Throughout the period covered by those reports, scarcely a day passed without what the military folk coolly call “contacts” with the enemy.
The Visayan Islands were in course of time duly organized, as Luzon had previously been, departmentally and by military districts. The Visayan Islands became the Department of Visayas, divided into districts commanded either by regimental commanders having a regiment or more with them, or by general officers. For a long time no attempt to make military occupation effective in these various islands, save in the coast towns, was attempted. However, the indicated disposition of troops completed, technically at least, the American occupation of the Visayan Islands.
Pursuant to the plan followed, as we have hitherto followed the army in our narrative, first throughout northern Luzon and later through southern Luzon, some data are now in order concerning the Visayan Islands.
As already made clear, there are but six of the Visayan Islands with which any one interested in the Philippines merely as a student of world politics or of history need bother. The area and population of these are as follows:62
| Island | Area (sq. m.) | Population |
|---|---|---|
| Panay | 4,611 | 743,646 |
| Negros | 4,881 | 460,776 |
| Cebu | 1,762 | 592,247 |
| Leyte | 2,722 | 356,641 |
| Samar | 5,031 | 222,090 |
| Bohol | 1,441 | 243,148 |
Whenever, if ever, an independent republic is established in the Philippines, the six islands above mentioned could and should constitute self-governing commonwealths similar to the several States of the American Union. The rest of the islands lying between Luzon and Mindanao could easily be disposed of governmentally by being attached to the jurisdiction of one of the said six islands.
Mindanao and the adjacent islets called Jolo were organized as the Department of Mindanao and Jolo, under General Kobbe, with the 31st Volunteer Infantry, Colonel Pettit’s regiment, the 40th Volunteer Infantry, Colonel Godwin’s regiment, and the 23rd Regular Infantry. Thus the archipelago was completely accounted for, for the time being, just as all the territory of the United States was long accounted for by our military authorities at home, with the Department of the East, headquarters Governor’s Island, New York; the Department of the Lakes, headquarters Chicago; the Department of the Gulf, headquarters Atlanta, etc. In this state of the case, General Otis re-embraced his early pet delusion—if it was a delusion, which charity and the probabilities suggest it should be called—about the insurrection having gone to pieces; and decided to come home. Possibly, also, he was homesick. General Otis was a very positive character, a strong man. But even strong men get homesick after long exile. When you hear the call of the homeland after long residence “east of Suez,” you must answer the call, duty not forbidding. General Otis had stood by his ink wells and the Administration with unswerving devotion for twenty months, and was entitled to come back home and tell the public all about the fighting in the Philippines, and how entirely over it was, and how wholly right Mr. McKinley was in his theory that the visible opposition to our rule and the seeming desire to be free and independent did not represent the wishes of the Filipino people at all, but only the “sinister ambitions of a few unscrupulous Tagalo leaders.” Accordingly on May 5, 1900, he was relieved at his own request, and departed for the United States. He was succeeded in command by a very different type of man, Major-General Arthur MacArthur, upon whom now devolved the problem of holding down the situation and of actually getting it stably “well in hand” by June 30, 1901, the date of expiration of the term of enlistment of the twenty-five volunteer regiments organized under the Act of March 2, 1899.
Notes
1 Strictly speaking, only twenty-three regiments were sent out from the United States. Under the Act of March 2, 1899, providing the volunteer army of 35,000 men for the Philippines, twenty-four regiments of infantry and one of cavalry were organized. The infantry regiments were numbered Twenty-six to Forty-nine, both inclusive, the numbering taking up where the numbering of the regular infantry regiments then ended, with the Twenty-fifth. The cavalry regiment was called the Eleventh Cavalry, the regular cavalry regimental enumeration ending at that time with the Tenth. The Eleventh Cavalry and the Thirty-sixth Infantry were organized, officered, and largely recruited from men of the State Volunteers sent out in ’98, who, in consideration of liberal inducements offered by the Government, consented to remain.
2 The population of the city of Manila according to the Philippine Census of 1903, vol. ii., p. 16; was 219,928. The three next largest towns are: Laoag, in the province of Ilocos Norte, about 270 miles north of Manila, near the northwest corner of Luzon, population 19,699; Iloilo, capital of the island of Panay and chief city and port of the Visayan Islands, some 300 miles south of Manila, population 19,054; and Cebu, capital and chief port of the island of Cebu, a day’s voyage from Iloilo, population 18,330. See Philippine Census of 1903, vol. ii., p. 38.
3 115,026 is the exact figure. See Philippine Census, vol. i., p. 57.
4 The exact figure for Luzon is 40,969, and that for Mindanao, 36,292. Ib.
5 Philippine Census, vol. i., p. 56.
6 Ibid.
7 Table of Areas, Census, 1903, vol. i., p. 263.
8 Table of Populations, ib., vol. ii., p. 126.
9 Total of these six in large type 20,418 square miles, say roughly 20,500.
10 Total of these last three in smaller type 9114 square miles.
11 There is a large sugar estate on Mindoro, supposed to contain over 60,000 acres or, say, ninety odd square miles, which in 1911 figured in a congressional investigation of certain charges against Professor Worcester, a member of the Philippine Commission, but this is wholly separate from the original problem of public order.
12 The exact figure is 36,292. Philippine Census, vol. i., p. 263.
13 499,634, Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 126.
14 The semi-civilized Moros of Mindanao live mostly in the interior, and have a crude form of Mohammedanism. The civilized Christian Filipinos of Mindanao live mostly on the littoral.
15 This was said in no mere speech. Speeches are often misquoted. It was a letter signed by the foremost man of this age, Mr. Roosevelt, written September 15, 1900, accepting the nomination for the Vice-Presidency. (See Proceedings of the Republican National Committee, 1900, p. 86.) Yet it represented then one of the many current misapprehensions about the Filipinos which moved this great nation to destroy a young republic set up in a spirit of intelligent and generous emulation of our own.
16 One of the sultans, or head-men, was believed in 1899, to have tried on his return from a pilgrimage to Mecca made before we took the Philippines, by some dickering at Singapore or near there in the Straits Settlements, to sell out for a consideration to Great Britain, so as to be under the protection and in the pay of British North Borneo.
17 The fraction used is based on 500,000 (the population of Mindanao), being that fraction of 7,500,000 (which last is, roughly speaking, the total population of the archipelago). The census figures being 499,634 and 7,635,426 respectively, as heretofore stated.
18 7,635,426. Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 15.
19 3,798,507. Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 125.
20 223,506 is the total of the uncivilized tribes still extant in Luzon, Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 125, but they live in the mountains and you might live in the Philippines a long lifetime without ever seeing a sample of them, unless you happen to be an energetic ethnologist fond of mountain climbing.
21 Philippine Census of 1903, vol. i., p. 57.
22 The area of Cuba is about 44,000 square miles.
23 Except Ohio, the States of Pennsylvania and Tennessee are nearer the size of Luzon than any others of the Union, the former containing about 45,000 square miles and the latter about 42,000.
24 This comparison does not pretend to be mathematically exact. New Jersey’s area is nearer 8000 than 7000 square miles. For further illustration by comparison, it may be noted in this connection that the area of Massachusetts is over 8000 square miles (8315) and that of Vermont between 9000 and 10,000 (9565). As Costa Rica has only 368,780 inhabitants (Statesman’s Year Book), the province of Pangasinan alone contains more people than the republic of Costa Rica. The average of intelligence and industry of the masses in both is doubtless about the same, with the probabilities in favor of Pangasinan.
25 Table of Areas, Philippine Census of 1903, vol. i., p. 58.
26 Table of Populations, ib., vol. ii., p. 123.
27 In alluding, in complimentary terms, to this officer’s gallant conduct on that occasion, Harper’s History of the War in the Philippines spells the name “Hustin,” as it had previously misspelled the name of the star actor among the younger officers who participated in the Zapote River fight “Kanly.” “Such is fame.” The gentleman’s right name is Mustin. He is now a lieutenant-commander, well known in the navy to-day, as the inventor of the “Mustin gun-sight.”
28 There is a notable unanimity, among the men in the army of about Major March’s age and rank, in the opinion that he is a man of very extraordinary ability. This unanimity is so generous and genuine that I deem it a duty as well as a pleasure to emphasize it here.
29 See Otis’s Report covering September 1, 1899, to May 5, 1900, War Dept. Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 261.
30 The 12th, part of the 25th, and the 32d Infantry being used to guard the railroad and for other purposes.
31 Calumpit will be remembered as the place where in the previous spring Colonel Funston and his Kansans performed the daring and successful manœuvre of crossing the Bagbag River under fire.
32 Senate Document 331, pt. 2 (1902), p. 1926.
33 This ratio is no jest. It is a statistical fact, figured out from one of the War Department Reports.
34 War Department Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 59.
35 Report of Secretary of War, 1899, p. 12.
36 Campaign Spanish for “look for.” Generals Lawton and Young had cut loose from their base of supplies and their command was trusting for subsistence to living upon the country.
37 See translation of diary of Major Simeon Villa, Senate Document 331, pt. 3, 57th Cong., 1st Sess. (1902), p. 1988. It was in this Aringay fight that one of the narrowest escapes from death in battle ever officially authenticated occurred. Lieutenant Dennis P. Quinlan, now a captain of the 5th U. S. Cavalry, was struck just over the heart by an insurgent bullet (probably more or less spent) while crossing the river in the face of a hot fire, the bullet being deflected by a plug of tobacco carried in the breast pocket of the regulation campaign blue shirt he was wearing, which pocket, any one acquainted with that shirt will remember, is at the left breast just over the heart (War Department Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 6, pp. 166, 279). He was knocked over, but soon recovered and went on. The flesh of the left breast over the heart was bruised black and blue. He was recommended for a medal of honor on account of the incident (War Department Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 7, p. 136).
38 If these figures are not exact, they are approximately correct. We always called it three hundred miles from Manila to the northern end of Luzon via Vigan and the lighthouse at Cape Bojeador.
39 For instance, there was what used to be known to the 8th Corps as “Col. Jim Parker’s night attack at Vigan,” which occurred early in December, 1899, soon after that place was occupied, the insurgents coming into the town in large numbers, at night under command of General Tiñio, through a tunnel so it was said, and being driven out only after desperate close quarters’ fighting from about two o’clock in the morning until after broad daylight, leaving the streets and plaza of Vigan much cumbered with their dead. Again, later on, there was the sudden order, swiftly executed, in obedience to which Lieutenant Grayson V. Heidt with a part of a troop of the 3d Cavalry, rode from Laoag to Batac to the rescue of a besieged garrison at the latter place, arriving in time to prevent a small Custer massacre, the garrison having gotten short of ammunition, and having just managed to telegraph for reinforcements a few moments before the enemy cut the telegraph wire. Then, there was Lieutenant Hannay, of the 22d Infantry, who being at the front, received an order from General Lawton to come back to build a bridge. The order made him sick, the surgeon reported him sick, the messenger returned with that message, and then Hannay promptly got well, and stayed at the front. And so on, ad infinitum.
40 The Visayan Islands—the half-dozen islands between Luzon and Mindanao already mentioned, as the only ones worth mentioning for our purposes, together with the various smaller islands, islets, and rocks “visible at high water.”
41 “During April, in the First District, comprising the provinces of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Union, Abra, Lepanto, Benguet, and Bontoc, Brigadier General S. B. M. Young, commanding, the insurgents manifested considerable activity and endeavored to take the offensive against the scattered detachments in the district. The insurgents were in every instance defeated, and lost more than 500 men killed.” War Dept. Report 1900, vol. i., pt. 5, p. 196.
42 The language quoted is that employed by Robert Collins, Associated Press Correspondent, in connection with the Round Robin incident of nine months previous, described in the concluding part of the chapter preceding this.
43 Hereinafter more fully set forth.
44 For the Table of Areas, see Philippine Census, vol. i., p. 58.
45 For the Table of Populations, see Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 123.
46 Under the Spaniards, these were two provinces. They were combined by us.
47 A province in Latin countries corresponds more nearly to what we call a county than to anything else familiar to our system of political divisions.
48 For the details of this march, see War Department Report, 1900, vol. i., pt. 4, p. 309. Captain Batchelor had neither orders nor permission to do what he did. When he cut loose from the command he belonged to, he took very long chances on finding subsistence for his men in the unknown country he had set out to conquer, to say nothing of the highly probable chances of annihilation of his whole command. When an officer commanding troops does this in time of war, he does so at his peril, and signal success is his only salvation.
49 Area tables, Philippine Census, vol. i., p. 58.
50 Population tables, Philippine Census, vol. ii., p. 123.
51 Though Nueva Vizcaya is not in the Cagayan valley, but on a plateau of the great divide, still, its streams all flow into the Cagayan valley, and that term will be used in this book, as it is colloquially in the Philippines, to include not only the Cagayan valley proper, but also the adjoining tributary province of Nueva Vizcaya.
52 The only thing of interest to the American people that ever happened over there was the capture of Lieutenant Gilmore of the Navy, and his men, at Baler, on the Pacific coast, in Principe, a capture which, it will be recollected, was followed by long captivity, and ultimately terminated in rescue. The interested student will see these two provinces on the American maps of the islands, but they were each attached by the Taft government for administration purposes to another province, and do not appear in the American census list of provinces. Therefore, they cut no figure in the census totals, either of area or population.
53 The officer on whom public attention in the United States was later focussed by an alleged order, charged to have been issued by him in a campaign in Samar to “kill everything over ten years old.” This alleged order was called by the American newspapers of the period “Jake Smith’s Kill and Burn Order.”
54 The figures as to Principe are mere arbitrary guesses, the exact figures used being fixed on merely to get convenient round numbers, there being no statistics as to Principe.
55 Of course the Filipinos should be consulted as to what provinces should constitute each state, but I am simply sketching a tentative governmental scheme based upon the way our army perfected its original grip on public order and the general administrative situation.
56 All along here we, of course, deal in round numbers only.
57 See War Department Report, 1900, vol. i., part 5, pp. 45 et seq. The city of Manila and vicinity constituted the Sixth District of the Department of Northern Luzon.
58 War Dept. Report, 1900, vol. i., part 5, pp. 47–8.
59 War Dept. Report, 1900, vol. i., part 1, p. 9.
60 The Spanish word camarin means a warehouse. The province of Camarines was originally two provinces, and is still referred to as two, though governmentally but one.
61 Of March 2, 1899. Under it the term of enlistment of the volunteers was to expire June 30, 1901.
62 Table of Areas, Philippine Census of 1903, vol. i., p. 263. Table of Population, ib., vol. ii., pp. 123 et seq.