The Filipino American War as seen by diarists in real time with some additional commentary and sourc

Arrived at Manila about 9:00 a.m. Where we learn that the city is taken. We do not know weather we will land today or not.

The weather is clear and hot and we commence to think the rainy season is over. We have some good fresh beef and have bread issued. Now a Chinese man is baking it for us but it is not very good. It has a sour taste. We go through our regular drills this day. [Robert] Fox, [Frank] Hustead, [Charles] Collins, [Frank] Brain, [James] Hanly and Fred Jennewine are on the sick list.

There seems to be enough work fixing up quarters here to employ all hands, so we drill not, neither do we loaf. I have been engaged on a tile drain—the one that passes the cook-house door. The section in front of our kitchen is a trifle out of repair; in fact, it resembles a mud-hole more than a well-built drain. But there are plenty of brick to be had, and the job is not a bad one.

As I was coming in with a cart loaded with brick I noticed that two companies were lined up in front of quarters. Thinking it was drill, I was going through the line when an officer shouted to drop the cart and fall in. I made a dive for my bunk and grabbed my belt and carbine, and got out just after E Troop had got outside the gates. I felt, what I had never been conscious of before, a strong desire to get with my troop to share whatever might come with the fellows I knew.

When we were lined up on the parade-ground, we could hear several scattering shots, and I can tell you it sent a thrill through us to hear two sharp cracks of the Krag-Jorgensen to every one of the singing Mausers. The shots were few, and not in volleys, and we began to feel as if we had been fooled. When two bodies were carried across the parade ground on stretchers, we knew it was no practice alarm. Extra boxes of ammunition were brought out, and every man served out with forty rounds, which brought up the number of cartridges in our belts to ninety. We had not waited long before three insurgent officers came across the green and went to the officers’ quarters. After they came out we were recalled, and attacked our late supper. The whole affair proved to be a blunder. A squad of insurgents had shot down two drunken battery men who were recklessly discharging their six-shooters on the way home from the town. The insurgents made matters worse by firing without reason at several of our outposts. The feeling to-night is one of great excitement, for there is liable to be friction at any time, as the shooting blood of the natives is up and they long to pull the trigger—officers or no officers. We sleep with gun and belt beside us, ready to fall in at any time. There is less noise and more thinking than last night.

Soon after dinner, we went aboard a small steamer boat and were taken to a small town called Cavete (Cavite). Our two [battalions] were quartered within a magnificent Roman Catholic church, connected with which are strong fortifications of solid masonry, which runs along the shore. These were put up some time in 1600 and must have cost a very large sum of money. Could the old walls speak, I little [doubt] that they would tell tales of cruelty and torture. It was at one time a fine church. The alters were a fine piece of [work]. There were 14 statues, some of them was taken down and broken. Parts of the floor taken up in places. There has been people buried by the alters. We could see the headstones laid in the floor.

General:

The 1st South Dakota Volunteer Infantry served in the Philippines during the Spanish American War and the Philippine American War.

The Unit History:

The 1st South Dakota Volunteer Infantry was formed from part of the South Dakota National Guard. The unit was ordered mobilized on April 30, 1898, under the command of Colonel Alfred S. Frost, a former U.S. Army lieutenant. Encamped at the east end of Souix Falls, the men were placed in in tents - ten to a tent - formerly used by the Madison Chautauqua. Mustering into Federal service occurred between May 12 and 19, 1898. The unit consisted of 46 men and 983 enlisted men. By the time of its muster out, the unit would decrease in size to include only 622 enlisted men.

Camp life was somewhat trying between the hard work, the boredom and the outbreaks of disease. With men brought together from all areas, often childhood diseases would spread rapidly to pockets of men not formerly exposed. Such was the case among the men of the First South Dakota, which lost several men to measles. The local citizens did their best for men, with various churches preparing dinners for the unit's different companies. It was also while they were in camp that men received their weapons. They were issued the outdated 1873 Springfield .45-70 "Trapdoor" rifle, a weapon the men would have to use during their entire term of service.

After training, the 1st South Dakota was sent to Camp Merritt. The unit departed for this camp, located at San Francisco near the Presidio, among a series of cemeteries, on May 29. At Camp Merritt, the men of the unit finally received their uniforms. Unfortunately, the color was not stable, and the uniforms soon became very "un-uniform." The uniforms were returned to the manufacturer and new uniforms supplied.

The First South Dakota left for the Philippines on July 23, 1898, with part of the unit making the journey aboard the SAINT PAUL and RIO DE JANEIRO along with troops from Colorado and Minnesota. After nine days at sea, a first for most of the South Dakotans, the unit arrived in Hawaii, where part of the unit was encamped at Queen Lili'uokalani's palace.

On August 10, the First South Dakota departed Hawaii on the last leg of its journey, arriving at Cavite, in Manila Bay, on August 31. The troops settled into quarters in the Cathedral of Cavite. On arriving, the men would have learned that the fighting had ended. Manila had fallen to U.S. forces on August 13, the same day that an armistice was signed between the U.S. and Spain ending the fighting.

About a month later, the First South Dakota was transferred from Cavite to Manila, where the First and Third battalions were quartered in the former home of a Spanish officer, and the second battalion was quartered in Spanish Barracks at the Malacanan Palace, where General Otis had his headquarters. The unit's work involved guarding the San Lazarus Leper Hospital, Bilibib Prison, the Bridge of Spain, as well as providing guards for Generals Otis, McArthur and Miller.

While at Manila, the unit was officially issued new cork helmets. However, the colonel ordered these destroyed, and ordered straw hats with a black tally reading "First South Dakota Volunteer Infantry" in yellow letters for the men.

On February 4, 1899, the Philippine American War broke out between the U.S. and its former defacto ally, the Filipino Insurgents. The First South Dakota saw actions in the opening phases of this conflict.

On August 11, 1899 the First South Dakota Volunteer Infantry boarded the Transport MORGAN CITY, with some members being aboard the Transport INDIANA, bound for San Francisco, by way of Japan. The unit was mustered out on October 5, 1899 at san Francisco.

During its term of service, one of its officers drowned, twenty-four enlisted men were killed in action or from wounds, thirty-five were lost to disease, one died in an accident, four men deserted. In addition, three officers and ninety men were wounded, and fifty-nine were discharged for disabilities.

Bibliography:

Hosford, Olin - Image of John L. Wells
Krueger, Herman F., "A South Dakotan's Experiences in the Spanish American War" South Dakota Historical Collections, Vol. 39 (Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society, 1979).
Statistical Exhibit of Strength of Volunteer Forces Called into Service During the War with Spain; with Losses from All Causes. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1899).

The weather is pretty. We are still doing guard duty but have no drill except for dressparade in the evening for it is too hot. We all sent mail home on the Senator which leaves for the U.S. without troops. We all receive mail after dressparade and we all went to be happy. [Robert] Fox, [Frank] Hustead, [Charles] Collins, [Frank] Brain, [James] Hanly and Fred Jennewine remain on the sick list.

We drill from 6:00 A.M. to 7:00 A.M. every morning and also from 5:00 to 6:00 P.M. We all get up at 4:30 a.m. Breakfast 5:15 A.M. Dinner at 12:00. Supper at 6:00 P.M. Retreat and roll call at 6:30 p.m. We go to bed early and if possible sleep a little in the daytime. The mosquitoes are a great annoyance.

“United States Supremacy Must Be Absolute”



On August 18, Admiral Dewey, through his aide-de-camp, informed his squadron that as a result of the preliminary talks in Paris, Manila would fall under American jurisdiction until a definite treaty would be signed."bilge rat".



A few days later, on the occasion of the farewell visit of a foreign admiral, Admiral Dewey was heard to say, “I am very pleased to have the Monterey and Monadnoch as reinforcement but I am disturbed by these insurgents who are becoming increasingly demanding.” General Merritt totally agreed with him. Nothing is more cumbersome than trying to dislodge a people from their own land. The law instituted by Judge Lynch is by its very nature the only means of extricating his American compatriots from this complicated situation.

On the 21st of August, Aguinaldo sent President McKinley a telegram requesting the representation of the revolutionary government of the Philippines at the Paris Conference. The request went unanswered. And yet, General Merritt, this “gringo” officer who wielded his authority over Manila with such clumsiness, has been designated to participate in this conference. The absence of a Filipino representative clearly proves that the United States intends to push its objectives to the utmost limits.

The Americans are keeping the Philippine capital under the strictest surveillance and unscrupulously maintain that their duty is to govern the entire archipelago. United States supremacy must be absolute.

“I am very pleased to have the Monterey and Monadnoch as reinforcement but I am disturbed by these insurgents who are becoming increasingly demanding.”

Wesley Merritt

Posted on June 28, 2016

During the Spanish-American War, U.S. Army major general Wesley Merritt commanded VIII Corps, the expeditionary force sent to the Philippines.


Wesley Merritt
Birth Date: June 16, 1836
Death Date: December 10, 1910
U. S. Army officer.

Wesley Merritt was born in New York City on June 16, 1836. He attended the United States Military Academy, West Point, graduating in the middle of his class in 1860. Following graduation, he served in Utah with the 2nd Dragoons. The American Civil War brought Lieutenant Merritt’s transfer to the East. There he turned out to be a superb cavalry officer. As a captain, he distinguished himself in the Gettysburg Campaign in the Battle of Brandy Station (June 9, 1863), the largest cavalry engagement in the history of North America. Receiving further notice, he was breveted brigadier general of volunteers and commanded the reserve cavalry of the Army of the Potomac.

Assigned temporary command of a division in May 1864, Merritt again fought with distinction in the Battle of Todd’s Tavern on May 7, the largest dismounted cavalry engagement of the war. Following further distinguished service, especially the Battle of Yellow Tavern on May 11, he received permanent command of the 1st Cavalry Division of Sheridan’s Army of the Shenandoah, leading it in a number of important Union victories. During the Appomattox Campaign of April 1865, Merritt commanded the Cavalry Corps as a brevet major general of Volunteers.

Following the Civil War, Merritt remained with the regular army as a lieutenant colonel and commander of the 9th Cavalry Regiment, one of two African American regiments in the army. This began 17 years of service on the frontier and extensive fighting against hostile Native Americans in the West. In 1876, he received promotion to colonel and took command of the 5th Cavalry Regiment, fighting in the Great Sioux War of 1876, the pursuit of the Nez Perce and in the Bannock War (1877-1878), and the Ute War (1879).

(Three of the hardest campaigns in the Native American Wars and one of the roughest outfits in the American army. M.)

In 1882, Merritt became superintendent of West Point, serving in that position until his promotion to brigadier general in 1887. He then assumed command of the Department of the Missouri at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. From 1895 to 1897, he commanded the Department of the Missouri, the Department of Dakota, and Department of the East, respectively. In 1893, he wrote a book, The Armies of Today. In the book and in articles, he advocated a large and modern regular U. S. Army. He also supported U. S. imperial expansion.

Nearing retirement age at the beginning of the Spanish- American War, Major General Merritt was the second-ranking officer in the army. On the outbreak of war, he asked for command of VIII Corps. Appointed to that position on May 12, he was informed that the corps would be headed to the Philippines. On May 19, he received his instructions to defeat the Spanish, pacify the islands, and hold them for the United States but not to ally his forces with those of Filipino insurgent leader Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy. Although the instructions left vague the future of the islands, Merritt assumed that they would be annexed by the United States.

Merritt did what he could to organize his corps prior to departure, making it a point to secure suitable tropical uniforms and supplies for the soldiers, which may have reduced deaths from heat-related illness and disease. He sailed for the Philippines in the Newport, departing San Francisco on June 29 and arriving at Manila in late July.

(He actually bollixed the uniforms issue up as we have photographic evidence that some units did not get their "khakis" until December. M.)



10th Pennsylvania at Camp Dewey. 

Styling Aguinaldo a “Chinese half-breed adventurer,” Merritt followed his instructions of operating independently of the insurgent forces, which had surrounded Manila. Rear Admiral George Dewey negotiated with the Spanish commander, General Fermin Jaudenes y Alvarez, agreeing to stage a small symbolic battle on August 13 to satisfy Spanish honor while at the same time excluding the Filipino revolutionaries. The occupation of Manila on August 14 proceeded smoothly, and Merritt’s troops quickly established order in the city. He issued a proclamation promising support and protection to all those cooperating with the U. S. troops.

On August 30, Merritt transferred command of VIII Corps to Major General Elwell S. Otis and departed the islands for Paris to brief the U. S. peace commissioners meeting with their Spanish counterparts in Paris. There, Merritt told the commissioners that it was his opinion that the United States should annex the Philippines and that the majority of Filipinos would welcome American rule.

In December 1898, Merritt assumed command of the Department of the East. He retired from the army in 1900 and died in Natural Bridge, Virginia, on December 10, 1910.

Further Reading Alberts, Don E. Brandy Station to Manila Bay: A Biography of General Wesley Merritt. Austin, TX: Presidial, 1980. Cosmas, Graham A. An Army for Empire: The United States Army in the Spanish-American War. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1994. Linn, Brian McAllister. The Philippine War, 1899-1902. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000. Feuer, A. B. America at War: The Philippines, 1898-1913. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. Trask, David F. The War with Spain in 1898. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.

Merritt and Aguinaldo

Table of Contents

Julius Caesar Act IV., Sc. 2.

Major-General Wesley Merritt’s account of the operations of the troops under his command in the First Expedition to the Philippines may be found in volume i., part 2, War Department Report for 1898. He left San Francisco accompanied by his staff, June 29, 1898, arrived at Cavite, Manila Bay, July 25th, received the surrender of the city of Manila August 13th, and sailed thence August 30th, in obedience to orders from Washington to proceed without unnecessary delay to Paris, France, for conference with the Peace Commissioners. According to General Merritt’s report, about the time he arrived Aguinaldo had some 12,000 men under arms, with plenty of ammunition, and a number of field-pieces. The late lamented Frank D. Millet has preserved for us, in his Expedition to the some valuable and intimate studies of this army of Filipino besiegers whom our troops found busily at work when they arrived in the Islands:
The reader will readily understand that there were many times as many volunteers as guns. Mr. Millet continues:
(Notice the good order and discipline and professional conduct of these national liberation troops? If the politicians had been as of good quality as the NLF (Katipunan soldiers), Merritt would never have pulled off the war comedy Dewey arranged. Also, aside from the Regulars, the American "volunteers" were unlike the Filipinos, not adapted to the local conditions and lacked the common sense to boil their water. M.)  

“Although insignificant in appearance, they are fierce fighters,” wrote General Anderson to the Adjutant-General of the army in (his report).

General Merritt states in his report that Aguinaldo had “proclaimed an independent government, republican in form, with himself as President, and at the time of my arrival in the Islands the entire edifice of executive and legislative departments had been accomplished, at least on (paper.)". Of course at that time we were still officially declining to take Filipino aspirations for independence seriously, and preferred to treat Aguinaldo’s government as purely a matter of stationery. As a matter of fact, an exhaustive examination of the official documents of that period, made with a view of ascertaining just how much of that Aguinaldo government of 1898 was stationery fiction and how much was stable fact, has absolutely surprised one man who was out there from 1899 to 1905 (the writer), and I have no doubt will be interesting, as mere matter of political necrology, to any American who was there “in the days of the empire” as the “ninety-niners” called it.

(It was a functioning bureaucracy. With Aguinaldo's sticky fingers a "thieving bureaucracy", but soldiers were recruited, negotiations laid on, embassies conducted, taxes collected, laws administered, and courts functioned. The only thing lacking was recognition and a united front at the very top. Seldom has a revolution betrayed itself with such complicity with its enemies as this one. And we can blame a lot of Ilustrado treachery for it. Merritt recognized it. M.)

Early in the spring of 1899, Mr. McKinley sent out the Commission of which President Schurman of Cornell University was Chairman, to try to stop the war. They bent themselves to the task in a spirit as kindly as that in which we know Mr. McKinley himself would have acted. They failed because the war was already on and the Filipinos were bent on fighting for independence to the bitter end. But they learned a good deal about the facts of the earlier situation. Speaking of these in their report to the with especial reference to the period beginning with Aguinaldo’s landing at Cavite in May, after describing how the Filipino successes in battle with the Spaniards finally resulted in all of them being driven into Manila, where they remained hemmed in, they say:
“For three and one half months,” says General Otis in describing the facts of this same situation a year later, “the insurgents on land had kept Manila tightly bottled [meaning while Admiral Dewey had been blockading the place by water] * * * and food supplies were “We had Manila and Cavite. The rest of the island was held not by the Spanish but by the Filipinos,” said General Anderson, in the North American Review for February, 1900. “It is a fact that they were in possession, they had gotten pretty much the whole thing except Manila,” said Admiral Dewey to the Senate Committee in (his testimony).

General Merritt took Manila August 13th, and sailed away for Paris August 31st, and only a week after that General Otis wired Washington (under date of September 7th) from Manila: “Insurgents have captured all Spanish garrisons in island [of Luzon] and control affairs outside of Cavite and this (city).

The recruiting by Aguinaldo of an army of 40,000 men with guns within one hundred days after his little “Return from Elba”—“15,000 fighting men, 11,000 of them armed with guns,” in fifty (days) which number had swelled to nearly 40,000 men with guns in another fifty days (by August no more remarkable than his progress in organizing his government and making its grip on the whole island of Luzon effective in a short space of time.

As all Americans who know the Filipinos know how fond they are of what government offices call “paper work,” and how their can work like bees in drafting documents, it might be easy to ignore Aguinaldo’s various proclamations, already hereinbefore noticed in Chapter II., as representing merely “a government on paper,” were there no other proof. But among the insurgent captured papers we found long afterward, there is a document containing the minutes of a convention of the insurrecto presidentes from all the pueblos of fifteen different provinces, on August 6, 1898, which throws a flood of light on the subject now under (consideration),. This convention was held at Bacoor, then Aguinaldo’s headquarters, a little town on the bay shore between Manila and Cavite. The minutes of the convention recite that its members had been previously chosen as presidentes of their respective pueblos in the manner prescribed by previous decrees issued by Aguinaldo (already noticed), and that thereafter they had taken the oath of office before Aguinaldo as President of the government, etc. They then declare that the Filipino people whom they speak for are “not ambitious for power, nor honors, nor riches, aside from the rational aspirations for a free and independent life,” and “proclaim solemnly, in the face of the whole world, the Independence of the Philippines.” They also re-affirm allegiance to Aguinaldo as President of the government and request him to seek recognition of it at the hands of the Powers, “because,” says the paper, “to no one is it permitted to * * * stifle the legitimate aspirations of a people”—as if Europe cared a rap what we did to them except in the way of regret that it did not have a finger in the pie. However, they were not only apprehensive, on the one hand, lest we might be tempted to take their country away from Spain for ourselves, but also, on the other hand, lest we might in the wind-up decide to leave them to Spain at the end of the war. That this last was not an idle fear is shown by the fact that during the deliberations of the Paris Peace Commission, Judge Gray urged, in behalf of his contention against taking the islands at all, that if Dewey had sunk the Spanish fleet off Cadiz, instead of in Manila Bay, and the Carlists had incidentally helped us about that time, we would have been under no resulting obligation “to stay by them at the conclusion of the (war). When the presidentes in convention assembled as aforesaid got through with their whereases and resolutions they presented them to His Excellency the President of the Republic, Aguinaldo, who then issued a proclamation which recited, among other things: “In these provinces [the fifteen represented in the convention] complete order and perfect tranquillity reign, administered by the authorities according to his previous decrees as Dictator, which decrees have already been placed before the reader. The proclamation claims that the new government has 9,000 prisoners of war and 30,000 combatants. The former claim no one having any acquaintance with those times and conditions will question for a moment. As to the 30,000 combatants, if he had 11,000 men armed with guns on July 9th and 40,000 on August 29th, why not 30,000 on August 6th? Of course, men without guns, bolo men, do not count for much in a serious connection like this now being considered. In November, 1899, at San José, in Nueva Ecija province, I heard General Lawton tell Colonel Jack Hayes to disarm and turn loose 175 bolo men the colonel had just captured and was lining up on the public square as we rode into the town. But we are considering how much of a government the Filipinos had in 1898, because the answer is pertinent to what sort of a government they could run if permitted now or at any time in the future; and, physical force being the ultimate basis of stability in all government, when we come to estimate how much of an army they had when their government was claiming recognition as a legitimate living thing, we must remember that “It was just a question of arming them. They could have had the (whole force armed if they had the means.)

Now the great significant fact about this Bacoor convention of presidentes of August 6th—a week before Manila surrendered to our forces—is that in it more than half the population of the island of Luzon was represented. The total population of the Philippines is about and, of these, one-half, or live on Luzon. The other islands may be said to dangle from Luzon like the tail of a kite. Taking the tables of the American census of the Philippines of 1903 (vol. ii., p. 123), as a basis on which to judge what Aguinaldo’s claims of August 6th amounted to if true, the population of the provinces thus duly incorporated into the new government and in working order on that date, was, in round numbers, about as follows: South of Manila:—Cavite, 135,000; Batangas, 260,000; Laguna, 150,000; Tayabas, 150,000; North of Manila:—Bulacan, 225,000; Pampamga, 225,000; Nueva Ecija, 135,000; Tarlac, 135,000; Pangasinan, 400,000; Union, 140,000; Bataan, 45,000; Zambales, 105,000. This represents a total of more than 2,000,000 of people.

(I will have some bitter things to say about this census when we finally get there. M.) 

But Aguinaldo’s claims of August 6th are not the only evidence as to the political status of the provinces of Luzon in August, 1898. Toward the end of that month, Maj. J. F. Bell, Chief of General Merritt’s Bureau of Military Information, made a report on the situation as it stood August 29th, the report being made after most careful investigation, and intended as a summary of the then situation according to the most reliable information obtainable, in order that General Merritt might know, as far as practicable, what he would be “up against” in the event of trouble with the (Katipunan).

(Major J. F. Bell was not only Merritt's functioning G-2. He was Merritt's chief spymaster. He was the one who ran the contacts within the Katipunan.)
 
This report not only corroborates Aguinaldo’s claims of August 6th, but it also concedes to the Aguinaldo people eight other important provinces—four south of the Pasig River with a total population of about the only four of southern Luzon not included in Aguinaldo’s claim of August 6th, thus conceding him practically all of Luzon south of the Pasig; and it furthermore concedes him four great provinces of northern Luzon with a total population of nearly General Bell states that these last are “still in the possession of the Spanish,” but practically certain to be with the insurgents in the very near future. “Insurgents have been dispatched to attack the Spanish in these provinces,” says the Bell report.

In this same report Major Bell said: “There is not a particle of doubt but what Aguinaldo and his leaders will resist any attempt of any government to reorganize a colonial government When the insurgent government was finally dislodged from its last capital and Aguinaldo became a fugitive hotly pursued by our troops, he started for the mountains of northern Luzon, passing through provinces he had never visited before. The diary of one of his staff officers, Major Villa, in describing a brief stop they made in a town en route (Aringay, in Union province) says: “After the honorable President had urged them [the townspeople] to be patriotic, we continued the They certainly did “continue the march.” The Maccabebe scouts, of which the writer commanded a company at the time, took the town a few hours later, Aguinaldo’s rear-guard retiring after a brief resistance, following which we found, among the dead in the trenches, a major other than Villa. Certainly, to read this little extract from the diary of Aguinaldo’s retreat is to feel the pulse of northern Luzon as to its loyalty to the revolution at that time, and is corroborative of these claims of Aguinaldo made in August, 1898, supplemented, as we have seen them, by General Bell’s appraisal.

As to the political conditions which prevailed in southern Luzon, particularly in the Camarines, in August and the fall of 1898, information derived from one who was there then would seem appropriate here. Major Blanton Winship, Judge Advocate’s Corps, U. S. A., Major Archibald W. Butt, the late lamented military aide to President Taft, and the writer, lived together in Manila, in 1900, at the house of a Spanish physician, a Dr. Lopez, who had been a “prisoner” at Nueva Caceres, a town situated in one of the provinces of southern Luzon (Camarines) in the fall of 1898. Dr. Lopez had a large family. They had also been “prisoners” down there. No evil befell them at the hands of their “captors.” They had the freedom of the town they were in. They had good reason to be pretty well scared as to what the insurgents might do to them. But they were never maltreated. The main impression we got from Dr. Lopez and his family was that the political grip of the Aguinaldo government on southern Luzon was complete during the time they were “prisoners” there. If anybody doubts the absoluteness of the grip of the Revolutionary government on the situation in the provinces which were represented at the Bacoor convention of August 6, 1898, above mentioned, when the Filipino Declaration of Independence was signed and proclaimed, let him ask any American who had a part in putting down the Philippine insurrection what a presidente, an insurrecto presidente, in a Filipino town, was in 1899 and 1900. He was “the whole thing.” Even to-day the presidente of a pueblo is as absolute boss of his town as Charles F. Murphy is of Tammany Hall. And a town or pueblo in the Philippines is more than an area covered by more or less contiguous buildings and grounds. It is more like a township in Massachusetts. So that when you account governmentally for the pueblos of a given province, you account for every square foot of that province and for every man in it. For several years before our war with Spain, nearly every Filipino of any education and spirit in the archipelago belonged to the secret revolutionary society known as the Katipunan. This had its organization in every town when Dewey sank the Spanish fleet and landed Aguinaldo at Cavite. The rest may be imagined.

By September, 1898, Aguinaldo was absolute master of the whole of Luzon. Before the Treaty of Paris was signed (December 10, 1898), in fact while Judge Gray of the Peace Commission was cabling President McKinley that not to leave the government of the Philippines to the people thereof “would be to make a mockery of instructions,” Aguinaldo had become equally absolute master of the situation throughout the rest of the archipelago outside of Manila.

Toward the end of July, 1898, our Manila Consul, Mr. Williams, who was one of our consular triumvirate of would-be Warwicks, or “original Aguinaldo men,” of 1898, used to have nice talks with Aguinaldo about the lion and the lamb lying down together without the lion eating the lamb, and in one instance, at least, he goes so far as to represent Aguinaldo as willing to some such annexation, or some vague scheme of dependence. But whenever we hear from Aguinaldo over his own signature, we hear him saying whatever means in Tagalo “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.” For instance, at page 15, of Senate Document he writes Williams, under date of August 1st, with fine courtesy:
Now that we know what was in the Filipino mind when General Merritt arrived in the Philippines, let us see what was in the American military mind out there at the same time. Says General Merritt: “General Aguinaldo did not visit me on my arrival nor offer his services as a subordinate leader.” We trust the reason of this at once suggests itself from what has preceded, including General Anderson’s dealings with the insurgent chief. The latter wanted some understanding as to what the intentions of our government and what was to be the programme afterward, should he and his countrymen assist in the little fighting that now remained necessary to complete the taking of Manila. Those intentions were precisely what Merritt was determined to conceal. “As my instructions from the President fully contemplated the occupation of the Islands by the American land forces, and stated that ‘the powers of the military occupant are absolute and supreme and immediately operate upon the political condition of the inhabitants,’ I did not consider it wise to hold any direct communication with the insurgent leader until I should be in possession of the city of (Manila).;

On one occasion General Merritt passed through the village of Bacoor where Aguinaldo had his headquarters, but, says in mentioning this, “They never met.” After the taking of the city, General Merritt remembered that with some 13,000 Spanish prisoners to guard, and a city of 300,000 people, all but a sprinkling of whom were in sympathy with the insurgent cause, on his hands, and an army of at least 14,000 insurgents—probably far more than that—clamoring without the gates of that city, and only 10,000 men of his own with whom to handle such a situation, frankness was out of the question, in view of his orders from the (ptrsident). Therefore, on the day after the city surrendered, General Merritt issued a proclamation, verbatim from Mr. McKinley’s instructions such innocuous milk-and-water passages as the one which assured the people that our government “has not come to wage war upon them * * * but to protect them in their homes, in their employments, and in their personal and religious rights; all persons who, by active aid or honest submission, co-operate with the United States * * * will receive the reward of its support and protection.” But he carefully omitted the words quoted above about the powers of the military occupant being absolute and supreme, “lest his [Aguinaldo’s] pretensions,” to use General Merritt’s expression, “should clash with my designs.” “For these reasons,” says General Merritt (p. 40), “the preparations for the attack on the city were * * * conducted without reference to the situation of the insurgent forces.”

Here General Merritt is speaking frankly but not accurately. He means he made his preparations without any more reference to the situation of the insurgent forces than he could help. As a matter of fact, their situation bothered him a good deal. They were in the way. For instance, there was a whole brigade of them at one point between our people and Manila. “This,” says General Merritt (p. 41), “was overcome by instructions to General Greene to arrange if possible with the insurgent brigade commander in his immediate vicinity to move to the right and allow the American forces unobstructed control of the roads in their immediate front. No objection was made,” etc. That reads very well—that about “arrange if possible,” “no objection was made,” etc.—does it not? Nothing there through which “the lustre and the moral strength” of the motives that prompted the Spanish war might be “dimmed by ulterior designs which might tempt is there? It was stated above that General Merritt was speaking frankly in this report. He was. He probably did not know how General Greene carried out the order to “arrange if possible with the insurgent brigadier-commander.” But it so happened that there was a newspaper correspondent along with General Greene who has since told us. This gentleman was Mr. Frank D. Millet, from whom we have already above quoted, the correspondent of the London Times and of Harper’s General Greene had known him years before in the campaigns of the Turco-Russian war. Mr. Millet had been a war correspondent in those campaigns also, and General Greene was there taking observations. So that in the operations against Manila, Mr. Millet, being an old friend of General Greene’s, known to be a handy man to have around in a close place, was acting as a civilian volunteer aide to the Here is Mr. Millet’s account of what happened, taken from his book, The Expedition to the (Philippines):
Mr. Millet then goes on to tell how General Greene persuaded one of Aguinaldo’s generals (Noriel) to evacuate certain trenches so he (Greene) could occupy them, “with a condition attached that General Greene must give a written receipt for the entrenchments.” This condition, Mr. Millet says, was imposed by “the astute leader” (Aguinaldo). General Greene’s “cleverness” consisted in purposely failing and omitting to give the receipt, which Mr. Millet says “looked very much like a bargain concluded over a signature, and was a little more formal than General Greene thought advisable.” The key to this sorry business may be found in the first paragraph of General Merritt’s instructions to all his generals at the time:
“I am quite unable to explain,” says Mr. Millet (p. 61), “why we did not in the very beginning make them understand that we were masters of the situation, and that they must come strictly under our authority.” The obvious reason was that a war of conquest to subjugate a remote people struggling to be free from the yoke of alien domination was sure to be more or less unpopular with many of the sovereign voters of a republic, and more or less dangerous therefore, like all unpopular wars, to the tenure of office of the party in power. So that in entering upon a war for conquest, a republic must “play politics,” using the military arm of the government for the twofold purpose of crushing opposition and proving that there is none.

(I note, with sarcasm, that sending the equivalent of 10 regiments of US combat troops to take on twice that many Spaniards in a fortified city, is a lot easier if there is a national liberation army bamboozled^2 into doing 90% of the work.  This is what amazes me about Aguinaldo. He KNEW how the Americans handled the Native American nations. He was not ignorant that he dealt with veteran officers of those wars. M.   

^2 Technical term "bamboozled" in advertising and business means "closing the sale" by confusing the customer as to what the terms and conditions of the sale really mean. M.) 

The maxim which makes all fair in war often covers a multitude of sins. But let us turn for a moment from strategy to principle, and see what two other distinguished American war correspondents were thinking and saying about the same time. Writing to Harper’s Weekly from Cavite, under date of July 16th, concerning the work of the Filipinos during the eight weeks before that, Mr. O. K. Davis said: “The insurgents have driven them [the Spaniards] back over twenty miles of country practically impassable for our men. * * * Aguinaldo has saved our troops a lot of desperately hard campaigning * * *. The insurgent works extend clear around Manila, and the Spaniards are completely hemmed in. There is no hope for them but surrender.” Writing to the same paper under date of August 6th, Mr. John F. Bass says: “We forget that they drove the Spaniards from Cavite to their present intrenched position, thus saving us a long-continued fight through the jungle.” This gentleman did not tackle the question of inventing a new definition of liberty consistent with alien domination. He simply says: “Give them their liberty and guarantee it to them.” In the face of such plucky patriotism as he had witnessed, political casuistry about “capacity for self-government” would have hung its head. Yet Mr. Bass was by no means a novice. He had served with the British army in Egypt in 1895, through the Armenian massacres of 1896, and in the Cretan rebellion and Greek War of 1897. His sentiments were simply precisely what those of the average American not under military orders would have been at the time. After the fall of Manila he wrote (August 17th): “I am inclined to think that the insurgents intend to fight us if we stay and Spain if we go.”

There were 8500 American troops in the taking of the city of Manila, on August 13, 1898. The Filipinos were ignored by them, although they afterwards claimed to have helped. As a matter of fact, the Spanish officers in command were very anxious to surrender and get back to Spain. The Filipinos had already made them “long for peace,” to use a famous expression of General J. F. Bell. The garrison only put up a very slight resistance, “to save their face,” as the Chinese say, to save themselves from being court-martialed under some quixotic article of the Spanish army regulations. The assault was begun about 9.30 and early that afternoon the Spanish flag had been lowered from the flag-staff in the main square and the Stars and Stripes run up in its stead, amid the convulsive sobs of dark-eyed señoritas and the muttered curses of melodramatic Spanish cavaliers. Thanks to the Filipinos’ three and one half months’ work, the performance only cost us five men killed out of the 8500. The list of wounded totalled 43. Our antecedent loss in the trenches prior to the day of the assault had been fourteen killed and sixty wounded. So the job was completed, so far as the records show, at a cost of less than a score of American (dead).

As Aguinaldo’s troops surged forward in the wake of the American advance they were stopped by orders from the American commander, and prevented from following the retreating Spaniards into Manila. They were not even allowed what is known to the modern small boy as “a look-in.” They were not permitted to come into the city to see the surrender. President McKinley’s message to Congress of December, 1898, describes “the last scene of the war” as having been “enacted at Manila its starting It says: “On August 13th, after a brief assault upon the works by the land forces, in which the squadron assisted, the capital surrendered unconditionally.” In this connection, by way of explaining Aguinaldo’s treatment at the hands of our generals from the beginning, the message says, “Divided victory was not permissible.” “It was fitting that whatever was to be done * * * should be accomplished by the strong arm of the United States alone.” But what takes much of the virtue out of the “strong arm” proposition is that Generals Merritt and Anderson were carrying out President McKinley’s orders all the time they were juggling Aguinaldo out of his positions before Manila, and giving him evasive answers, until the city could be taken by the said “strong arm” For, as the message puts it, in speaking of the taking of the city, “By this the conquest of the Philippine Islands * * * was formally sealed.”

When General Merritt left Manila on August 30th, he proceeded to Paris to appear before the Peace Commission there. His views doubtless had great weight with them on the momentous questions they had to decide. But his views were wholly erroneous, and that they were so is not surprising. As above stated, he did not even meet Aguinaldo, purposely holding himself aloof from him and his leaders. He never did know how deeply they were incensed at being shut out of Manila when the city surrendered. In his report prepared aboard the steamship en route for Paris, he says: “Doubtless much dissatisfaction is felt by the rank and file of the insurgents, but * * * I am of the opinion that the leaders will be able to prevent serious disturbances,” etc. (p. 40). If General Merritt had caught the temper of the trenches he would have known better, but he saw nothing of the fighting prior to the final scene, nor did he take the field in person on the day of the combined assault on the city, August 13th, and therefore missed the supreme opportunity to understand how the Filipinos felt. Says General Anderson in his report:
^3 The USS Petrel was not exactly a dispatch boat or aviso. It was what we would call today a 'heavy torpedo boat destroyer' in terms of 1898. 

Indeed, so reduced was Manila, by reason of the long siege conducted by the insurgents, that the assault of August 13th, not only was, but was expected to be, little more than a sham battle. Says Lieutenant-Colonel Pope, chief quartermaster, “On the evening of August 12th an order was sent me to report with two battalions of the Second Oregon Volunteers, under Colonel Summers the next day on the Kwong Hoi to the commanding general on the as an escort on his entrance into Manila. At the hour named, I reported As soon as Spanish “honor” was satisfied, up went the white flag and General Merritt was duly escorted ashore and into the city, where he received the surrender of the Spanish general.

In the Civil War, General Merritt had received six successive promotions for gallantry, at Gettysburg, Yellow Tavern, Five Forks, etc., and had been with Sheridan at Winchester. So the way he “commanded” the assault on Manila is proof only of the obligations we then owed the Filipinos. They had left very little to be done.

In his account of General Merritt’s original personal disembarkation at Cavite, Mr. Frank Millet acquaints his readers with a Philippine custom we afterwards grew quite familiar with and found quite useful, of keeping your shoes dry in landing from a rowboat on a beach by riding astride the shoulders of some husky native boatman. The boatmen make it a point of special pride not to let their passengers get their feet wet. Mr. Millet tells us that a general in uniform looks neither dignified nor picturesque under such circumstances, and that therefore he will not elaborate on the picture, but that it is suggestive “more of the hilarious than of the heroic.” Presumably when General Merritt went ashore on August 13th, from the despatch boat from which he had been watching the assault on Manila, to receive the surrender of the Spanish general, he followed the same custom of the country he had used on the occasion of his original disembarkation. So that in the taking of Manila, we were probably literally, as well as ethically, like General Mahone of Virginia as he is pictured in a familiar post-bellum negro story, according to which the general met a negro on a steep part of the road to heaven, told him that St. Peter would only admit mounted parties, mounted the negro with the latter’s consent, rode on his back the rest of the toilsome journey to the heavenly gate, dismounted, knocked, and was cordially welcomed by the saint at the sacred portal thus: “Why how d’ ye do, General Mahone; jess tie yoh hoss and come in.”

(Contrast this with how Douglas MacArthur came ashore. M.)



(MacAthur knew the value of propaganda. Feet wet was a "sign of reverse respect" for the Filipino people. Note that "bamboozle" was learned from his papa, Arthur MacArthur? M.)

1 S. D. 1900, p. 13.
² p. 40.
³ Report First Philippine vol. i., p. 172.
⁴ War Dept. 1899, vol. i., pt. 4. Otis report, p. 13.
⁵ S. D. 1902, p. 2941.
⁶ Correspondence Relating to the War with vol. ii., p. 788.
⁷ May 19th–July 9th; see General Anderson’s report to the Adjutant-General of the army of July 9, 1898, S. D. p. 6.
⁸ See Major J. F. Bell’s report to Merritt of August 29, 1898, S. D. p. 379.
⁹ Clerks.
¹⁰ See S. D. pp. 101–2.
¹¹ Senate Document 56th Cong., 2d Sess., 1901, p. 34.
¹² S. D. p. 99.
¹³ Admiral Dewey to Senate Committee, 1902, S. D. 1902, p. 2940.
¹⁴ 7,635,426. See Philippine Census of vol. ii., p. 15.

(If we are to believe USG estimates of Filipino civilian deaths which occurred during General Otis', the war criminal's "rifle hunts", anywhere from 4,000 to 20,000 Filipinos died as a consequence of his Luzon Pacification. I tend to accept Filipino accounts of 1 in 3 Filipino male citizens of military age died on Luzon which their scholarship suggests were murdered in this campaign. That puts the deaths at closer to 200,000 on Luzon alone. Elsewhere it could have been far worse. The records are "sketchy".   
¹⁵ 3,798,507. See Philippine Census of vol. ii., p. 125.
¹⁶ See Senate Document 1898, p. 379.
¹⁷Albay, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, and Sorsogon.
¹⁸ Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, Isabela, Cagayan.
¹⁹ S. D. p. 380.
²⁰ Diary of Major Simeon Villa, p. 1898, Senate Document pt. 3, 56th Congress, 1st Session, 1902.
²¹ See Merritt’s Report for 1898, War Dept. 1898, vol. i., pt. 2, p. 40.
²² Expedition to the Philippines p. 61.
²³ “With 10,000 men, we would have had to guard 13,300 Spanish prisoners, and to fight 14,000 Filipinos,” says General Anderson, North American Review for February, 1900.
²⁴ Senate Document p. 86.
²⁵ Mr. McKinley’s instructions to the Peace Commissioners, Senate Document 56th Cong., 2d Sess., 1901, p. 6. (Grab what you can. M.)
²⁶ See General Greene’s Report, W. D. 1898, vol. i., pt. 2, p. 72, where Mr. Millet’s conduct in the assault on the city receives special mention.
²⁷ War Dept. 1898, vol. i., pt. 2, p. 73.
²⁸ See War Dept. 1898, vol. i., pt. 2, p. 58.
²⁹ Congressional Record December 5, 1898, p. 5.
³⁰ War Dept. 1898, vol. i., pt. 2, p. 57.
³¹ vol. i., pt. 4, p. 190.

The weather is pretty. We had a nice shower during the night which settled the dust nicely. This being my birthday I had an invitation from my German friend to supper with him which I indeed enjoyed. He also gave me one box of his best cigars. We also had three splendid meals at our quarters and hope that it will continue. [Ray] Rush, [Jacob] Landis, [Charles] Herrington, [Robert] Fox, [Frank] Brain, [John] Baird and [Frank] Christopher are on the sick list.

The Germans Again

The Americans are relieved by the departure of both the German and the French admirals. For the past three months, the Germans appeared to be searching clumsily for a pretext to interfere between Spain and the United States, but merely succeeded in provoking overt hostilities between the sailors of the Union and the Germans.

In discussions, the Americans freely demonstrate their disgust and anger. Admiral Dewey himself, unequivocally praising the neutral position of French ships present in Manila, stated: “This is so unlike the Germans. Believe me, I was obliged to ask Admiral von Diederichs if he had any intention to go to war! His movements in the bay were disturbing me.” Meanwhile, the English are bragging about their prediction of the inevitable breakup in relations between the Germans and the Americans. Captain Chichester of the Immortality is very popular with the American fleet, and he is considered to be Admiral Dewey’s confidant. The French may have expressed neutrality and the Germans may have been hostile, but the English certainly took sides. One feels that they are prepared to defend the Americans morally in all circumstances. What ingratitude towards Spain! And one might even add, what a lack of tact. During the Spanish rule, they were the most sought after, the most influential, and the richest commercial leaders of Manila. It will not be long before they realize what they shall have lost by aligning themselves with the United States government in Manila.

Basilio Agustin Y Dávila, Governor General Of The Philippines

TRANSLATION OF A PROCLAMATION BY THE GOVERNOR GENERAL OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

(Published by the Manila daily papers, April 23,1898.)

SPANIARDS:

Between Spain and the United States of North America hostilities have broken out.

The moment has arrived to prove to the world that we possess the spirit to conquer those who, pretending to be loyal friends, take advantage of our misfortune and abuse our hospitality, using means which civilized nations count unworthy and disreputable.

The North American people, constituted of all the social excresences, have exhausted our patience and provoked war with their perfidious machinations, with their acts of treachery, and with their outrages against the laws of nations and international treaties.

The struggle will be short and decisive. The God of victories will give us one as complete as the righteousness and justice of our cause demands. Spain, which counts upon the sympathies of all the nations, will emerge triumphant from this new test, humiliating and blasting the adventurers from those States that, without cohesion and without a history, offer to humanity only infamous traditions and the spectacle of a Congress in which appear united insolence and defamation, cowardice and cynicism.

A squadron manned by foreigners1 possessing neither instruction nor discipline, is preparing to come to this archipelago with the ruffianly intention of robbing us of all that means life, honor and liberty. Pretending to be inspired by a courage of which they are incapable, the North American seamen undertake as an enterprise capable of realization the substitution of Protestantism for the Catholic religion you profess, to treat you as tribes refractory to civilization, to take possession of your riches as if they were unacquainted with the rights of property, and to kidnap those persons whom they consider useful to man their ships or to be exploited in agricultural or industrial labor.

Vain designs: Ridiculous boastings:

Your indomitable bravery will suffice to frustrate the attempt to carry them into realization. You will not consent that they shall profane the faith that you profess, that impious footsteps shall defile the temple of the true God, nor that unbelief shall destroy the holy images which you adore. The aggressors shall not profane the tombs of your fathers, they shall not gratify their lustful passions at the cost of your wives’ and daughters’ honor, nor appropriate the property which your industry has accumulated to assure your livelihood. No, they shall not perpetrate any of these crimes inspired by their wickedness and covetousness, because your valor and patriotism will suffice to punish and abase the people that, claiming to be civilized and cultivated, have exterminated the natives of North America instead of bringing to them the life of civilization and progress.

Philippinos, prepare for the struggle, and, united under the glorious flag of Spain, which is ever covered with laurels, let us fight with conviction that victory will crown our efforts, and to the summons of our enemies let us oppose with the decision of the Christian and the patriot the cry of “Viva Espana.”

Manila, April 23, 1898. Your General

Basilio Augustin Y Davila.2

(Printed on board U.S.Flagship Olympia, Cavite, May 7, 1898.)

Source Note: Contemporary Translation, DNA, AFNRC, M625, roll 363.

Footnote 1: According to historian Frederick Harrod, most United States Navy captains tended to enlist qualified seaman from large coastal ports regardless of their nationality. As a result, a noticeable portion of all crews on United States naval ships were of foreign birth. However, this did not mean that these sailors were not, or did not eventually become, American citizens. Frederick Harrod, Manning the New Navy: The Development of a Modern Naval Enlisted Force, 1899-1940 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978), 13, 16.

Footnote 2: A copy of this proclamation was delivered by the United States Consul at Manila, Oscar F. Williams, and read aloud to the crew of the Olympia after it departed Mirs Bay on 28 April 1898. Ronald Spector, Admiral of the New Empire, 56.

I must tell you where I am writing this from and what my occupation is at present. Last Friday, as I was working in the kitchen in our quarters over at Cavite, I received a written order to proceed to Manila as soon as possible, reporting upon arrival to Brigadier-General Hughes, at Headquarters, Eighth Army Corps. I found General Hughes who asked me if I wanted to be detailed as his messenger. I asked him his candid advice on the comparative advantages of going to headquarters or of sticking by my troop. He answered that he should not have asked me unless he thought I would be doing the best thing. I then spoke of the chance of my seeing active service with my troop; to which he replied that he would know of any movement before it was executed and could have me back in the troop on two hours’ notice. I told him that I should be very glad to come.

This is a lovely day and not too warm. We are doing guard duty at the prison. Nineteen of the political prisoners are relieved, much to their joy. But, this is only the beginning of that kind of work. [Frank] Hustead, [Frank] Christopher, [Frank] Sullivan, [Charles] Lewis, [Fred] Jennewine, Charles Collins, Max Hannan and [Gilbert] Cuite are on the sick list.

We were called out at 10.10 p.m. after Insurgents attacked a flourmill. We returned to quarters about 11 p.m. when “M” Company was despatched to the seat of trouble.