Middletown transcript., 1898-08-27

variably Defeated, Many Being gfKilled.
J. L. Stickney, the New York Her
AIDS special correspondent at Manila
writing under the date of June O.. de
scribes the insurgent campaign in thu
Philippines as follows:
About three weeks ago General .Agui
naldo landed in Cavite, and as the fu
ture of the Philippine islands and tc
some extent the interests of the United
States in Manila may depend upon the
operations of the rebel forces I give
herewith detailed account Of the in.
surgent campaign.
General Emilio Aguinaldo arrived al
Manila on Thursday, May 18, having
been allowed by Admiral Dewey to take
passage from Hongkong in the dispatch
boat McCulloeh. At that time there
were probably not more than 100 per-
sons in the town of Cavite, all the ma
tives having gone away when the Span
iards were driven out on May 2. The
general occupied one of the houses. .on
the Gale del Arsenal and sent word to
his followers on the island that he had
returned to lead them against the Span
| iards
In few days groups of Filipinos, as
the natives are called, began to appear
in the streets of Cavite. Only very
small number of the arrivals brought
arms with them, and most of them
seemed badly nourished, haggard and
timorous They looked like people who
had been hunted.
By the latter part of May many Of
the native arrivals were seen to be arm
ed with Mauser magazine rifles such as
the Spanish troops are armed with. The
manner in which these arms were OBJ
tanned tells a story of reckless courage
shown by the native fighters. At the
time Of the SO called pacifoation Of
these islands last winter one of the
conditions imposed on the insurgents
was the surrender of all their arms to
the Spaniards, and as this condition had
been rigidly enforced the natives had
few or no arms with which to begin
again their rebellion.
It was impossible to get arms into
the islands through the watchful block
ade established by the Spanish gun
boats, and the only way in which rifles,
particularly modern pieces, could be OBJ
tanned was to take them from the Span
iards. Armed only with machetes, the
Filipinos were forced to wait for their
opportunities. A squad of a dozen Span
iards would be struggling along through
forest road when men would suddenly
swarm about them, as though springing
from the ground. In these hand to hand
struggles the long and powerful knives
of the insurgents would quickly cut
down half of the Spanish force before
the latter recovered from their surprise,
and thus the rebels would get certain
number Of rifles on every such occasion.
What mattered it that every rife SO
obtained cost the lives of three or four
Filipinos? When 100 were killed, there
remained twice that number ready to
repeat the self sacrifice. And SO, little
by little, the supply of weapons contin-
ued to grow. By May 26 he had 479
men armed with the best Mauser rifles
and small stock of ammunition, and
the steamer Faion had arrived from
some unknown place bringing 2,000
Remington rifles and 200, 900 rounds Of
cartridges. That night 600 rebels cross
ed from Cavite to the opposite shore Of
Bakor bay, landing in the front Of about
1000 Spanish troops, consisting of the
Seventy fourth regiment Of the line and
the Infanteria de Marina, who had been
driven out Of Cavite by our squadron.
As the rebels had no retreat open to
them in case Of defeat, since the Span
iards commanded the narrow neck Of
land leading from Cariedad toward No
valeta, it must be admitted that the in
surgents showed great amount Of
pluck, especially when it is remembered
that for them capture meant death
without trial or delay. But the Span \
iards evidently did not discover the in
surgents at once or else they felt conf
dent Of routing them whenever they
were ready to attack.
1t was not till the morning of May 28 \
that the Spaniards made an effort to
drive the insurgents into the sea, and
then they made the grave mistake Of
sending a wholly inadequate force. The
result was that the rebels surrounded
the Spaniards and poured into them
such CALLING fire that they were forced
to surrender. In this affair the rebels
look 174 prisoners, and were able,
therefore, to supply that number Of
their own men with modern firearms
Having apparently learned nothing by |
this experience, the Spaniards sent an
other small detachment against their |
foes on May 80. This time the rebels |
took 224 prisoners and added to their |
stock of weapons by that number.
General Tomas Mascado, who was |
the active operations in the |
province of Cavite, was now in COM
mand of about 900 men armed with the |
Mauser rife and of about 1, 900 more
armed with the Remington. Knowing |
that the Spaniards would probably try |
to re-enforce their troops from the gar
rison in the city Of Manila, he sent
about 400 to 500 men to the bridge |
called the Divisoria bridge, near Las |
Pinas, where it would be necessary for
my force coming from Manila to ad-
vance for long distance over narrow
road fanked by impossible swanps. It
was position resembling that of the
Romans when Horatio said, tIn yon
straight pass thousand may we'll be
stopped by three" At this point he
placed one of his most trusted subor-
dinates, with orders never to fire until
the Spaniards should reach a perfectly
open position on the narrow road, where
they would be unable to use artillery
for fear of hitting their own men.
During an attack on the powder mag
azine situated on the beach between
Cayite Viejo (Old Cavite) and Bakor
and back toward linus the rebels took
more than $50 prisoners and four small
field guns. By this time the Spaniards
In the Cavite province were panic
They seemed to have lost not
only all courage, but also all military
capacity. Instead Of massing their
forces at one spot they remained scat
tered about the province in detachments
Of 200 to 800 men. Every skirmish gave
the rebels more confidence in them.
selves and also added TO their sunnlv- of