The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1898-10-01

ment Immediately took possession and
raised the American flag.
While this was going on the AStor
Battery, guarded by the Twenty-Third
regulars and the Utah Artillery, made
a charge on the center entrance and
had quite a skirmish with the Span
iards, who came forward and seized
two of their field pieces and started to
retreat with them into the city. 1t was
then that the boys had a chance to
distinguish themselves and they did so
too, for as soon as the regulars ana
battery began to fire their guns and re-
volvers at them they dropped every
thing and ran. losing a couple hundred
men, while we lost only five killed and
a few wounded, about forty. When we
left camp we expected to lose a few
thousand men. as we thought we would
have to make charge over the wall.
AS it was our loss was nothing to what
it would have been had the Spaniards
in the fort not surrendered.
The Nebraska Regiment, with our
battalion, the first, in the lead made
it's entrance along the beach and had
to walk in water up to our waists until
we reached the city, when Company l.
was made advance guard, going up at
a rapid gait and with humps on our
backs like a camel to keep out of sight
of the stray Spaniards concealed in
houses and trying to pop us off, until
we were in front of the Spanish fort.
We were the second regiment in Ma
Mia city and the first in front of the
Spanish stronghold, . place we would
not have been able to take for a few
months had Dewey not been there to
shell them out if necessary. The walls
of fort No. 2 are in some places be-
tween fifty and sixty feet thick and on
the land side manned by all kinds of
guns, while along the beach they have
a couple of ten-inch guns and a wall
almost impossible to scale. All around
this fort is mOat filed with all kinds
of traps and barbed wire fences, then
an intrenchment with nice port holes
covered up with grass. All of this is
outside the wall which is about fifteen
or twenty feet high. Oh, wouldn't we
have had time trying to scale it with
we came over.
The men-of-war did not have much
shooting to do, because from the time
the first shot which tore hole in the
first fort the SpaniardS began to leave
and look for safer quarters in the
houses where they could get even with
their infantry firing on our army. The
Calao did most of the work. She
steamed right under the very nose of
the Spanish battery, trying to draw
their fire. The Olympia fired a few
eight and siX-inch shells and the Mon
terey did the rest, which was to steam
up and down the harbor ready to blow
-- out of them in case of treachery.
We were on the march from about 8
in the morning until about 6, when we
halted right in the heart of the city,
in front of Gen. Merritts quarters,
which were in a swell hotel. There we
were given time to chew a few pieces
Of hard tack, a piece of canned roast
beef and water to wash it down with.
After our swell French dinner we were
marched to the regiment headquarters
on the river front and were allowed to
go to sleep in the street on cObble
stones, with the messy side up. 1t was
all right up to about 9 o'clock, when 1t
began to rain (harder than it does in
Honolulu usually. We did not know
it was raining until we were floating
round while and humping into each
other, but after we anchored we went
off TO sleep and woke up in the morn
ing all stiff andstired and had to be
IhaW9d out before we were fit for bus
mess. On the evening of the 14th we
moved TO quarters in a large stone
store about a block away. We re-
manned there two days, removing on
the 10th to the police station, where
we expect to remain until further
notice. All there is TO do now is 10
stand guard and visit the city across
the canal.
CHAS. PLEASANTS.
MR.. EDITOR:-Some of your read
ers will remember Mr. Charles Pleas
ants who made a speech at the inaug-
uration of our Reception Committee OF
/ 100 10 entertain the Boys in Blue and
of which Committee he was a member
He succeeded in enlisting in the Tenth
/ Pennsylvania and left here on the Yea
/ landia. His company was in the fight
before Manila and he writes a descrip-
/ ton Of the battle. which will be of in
/ TGrpSC to VOTIP 6aTS follows