The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1899-04-07
Fred SOule Writes an Interesting
Epistle to His Brother
George e.
TT
He Being in the Thickest of Them.
Good Work Done by Uncle
Sans Boys.

No writer can picture the battles as
they are and have been better. than the
brave soldier boys who have been i'll
the middle and thickest Of them. One
of these soldiers who writes a letter
that all delight in reading, is Fred
Soule of this city, who is II of Uncle
Sans brave boys in Manila. The fol
lowing letter was recently received by
his brother, George Soule, and thinking
some of our people might be interested
we are permitted to publish it:
"Manila, Philippine Islands, Feb.
IA, 1899.-My Dear Brother George
[ wrote a few lines to Kittie and father
a few days ago to let them know I was
all right, so now as I have a few leisure
hours I shall try and give you the de-
tails of the fight up to date. The ball
commenced to roll on Saturday night,
the 4th, at about Sac; it was started
by a company Of the South Dakota regi-
ment and was soon taken up all along
the line. Our position was at a place
called Pace, near the southeast Of the
city, under General King (the great
writer), and as fine a soldier as ever
fought a battle. The Washington regi-
ment was at the firing line at this
time, so we laid all night in the Paco
churchyard waiting for daylight, while
Mauser bullets whizzed over our heads
with a ping, ping, and made all kinds
of music. This night two Of the boys
in my company got hit, one in the arm
and the other in the groin, and the poor
fellow died before he got to the hos
pital. This Paco church is very large,
as all of them are, and the walls are
from eight to ten feet thick; in fact,
they are nothing more or less than jails,
forts and arsenals, and are a curse to
the country. and were all built by and
under the Spanish rule. We were just
going over a wall about six feet high,
with our back to the church, when an
awful fire was poured into US by the
natives who were in the church, but
only one man was hit. It is a great
wonder we were not all killed while we
slept, for it could have been done as
easy as falling off a log. We at once
set the church on fire and opened up
u battery on it, and in a very short
time what had been a fine church was
a smoking mass of ruins. After we
had fred the church, the insurgents
came out with the white flag, but we
did not recognize it. Every one was
shot Or burned. One of the priests
came out with a baby in his arms. but
he got a big chunk of lead for his t1ou-
BILE. Every bamboo shack from here
or to the block house Cover a mile) was
full Of s~harpshooters and all were set
afire and the natives were either killed
or taken prisoners. We got to the
bridge at the block house and three
companies were deployed to the right
Of the road and companies B, G and G
made a charge across the bridge and to
the left under a most terrific fire from
the insurgents. We had to ford three
different streams neck deep and had a
cross fire coming from five sides. Our
aim was to get two Krupp guns the in
surgents had, and we got them. If
they had been any good on the shot not
one of us would have ever got out
alive, but the devil himself could not
have stopped us. General King had us
recalled a number of times, but our
major nor the men did not heed it; all
were after our game. The charge was
about three-quarters of a mile and it
took all of a mans power to make it.
We had five wounded and three killed
in this. After we had carried our last
trench u major was shot twice, his
left arm vas broken all to pieces at the
muscle and he was shot through the
center of the breast. | staid with him
on the field, with our adjutant and
lieutenant, and we did all we could for
him. but he died at 2 p. m. Before his
death he was breveted b%rigadier general
for his bravery, SO you can imagine
what kind of a charge we made. I
had a number Of very close calls while
l was with him, for the sharpshooters
tried to pick me off, but did not seem
to catch me. Generals Anderson and
King, our division and brigade com
manders, say it was one of the most
gallant and daredevil charges they
ever saw OF heard tell of, for we only
had about 40 men in the three COM
panies. We killed about $50 here and
took eighty -four prisoners, besides the
W 3.2 Krupp guns and plenty of am
munition. We staid here this night
and the next day advanced on Santa
Anna, which We took, and San Pedro,
still farther up the Pasig river. On
th~e=following day two more towns were
taken between the California, Washing
ton and Idaho regiments. General
Anderson asked General King how his
Idaho warriors were getting along and
he told him all right, but that they |
were Q than warriors, they were
savages.
ION Thursday we were taken from
the First division, Major General
A n1o~cr~n o~l D~:col:o~ Na-.. Vs.