The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1899-07-04

interesting letter from his cousin in
the Philippines.
In the Field Near PAsay, 2. n
April %, 1899.
DEAR SLEEPY Your letter receiv-
ed two days ago. / was very glad
indeed to hear from you, but l must
say could not have answered the
letter If you had not written this sen-
tence, However l know nothing
about the affair" How people in the
States, after reading accounts of bat
ties, engagements, etc., we have with
these "niggers" and seeing what kind
of warfare they would carry on had
thew the chance, can call them down
trodden, poor ignorant people will
always be a mystery to me. 1 am
not finding fault with you for
we'll know how little time a stu
dious school boy has to peruse the
newspapers. But before 1 go further
let me give you some facts as / know
them, not as have heard them.
4 When the Filipinos attacked us on
be 4th of February they had an army
of from twenty-five to thirty-six thous-
and men, armed with as good guns as
we three thousand regulars had and
far better than our eleven thousand
volunteers had. They were in jun
gle that would make StSnley's Dark
est Africa look like desert. We not
only kept them from coming out of
the jungle into the city, but drove
them back at every point. Since that
day every engagement we have had
with them, they have greatly outnum-
bered us, but we have always driven
them before us and taken everything
we have gone after. Take Malabon
for ali example. They were behind
what old warriors claim were the
best breastworks they ever saw or
read about and had two men to our
one. We had to cross an opening of
over half mile to reach them. We
crossed the opening, bayonetted them
out of the trenches and killed them as
they ran, Our losses were great, but
had they been in our place, and we
in theirs not one of them would
have reached the trenches. If they
were the msrksmen we are, an army
OF $4,000 Americans could not have
whipped them. Thousands of them
have fought until they died, what
now can any soldier do? We well
know what poor shots they are and
often charge them where we would
not think of charging any civilized
enemy. Perhaps with You it is a
nation of 100000 fighting a
nation of 100000, but here it is
10000 (our army is increasing every
dsy) fighting 10000.
With climate, location and every.
Thing except artillery in favor of the
niggers know we will never get the
credit we are entitled to for whipping
these niggers, simply because they are
not an recognized nation. But the sol.
diers that fought the Spaniards here
and in Cuba know that we have ter
times harder fighting with the Fill
pinos than we had with them.
You ask me if have been in any
of the fighting. l know by this
question that you did not read the
daily papers. was certainly with
my regiment on the 9th of February
and that day my regiment lost 25 pei
; cent. of the killed and wounded. W.
were certainly in the warmest spot or
this island that day. Since that day
we have been in several scraps, bu
our casualties have been light. Tit
7th of this month we were part OF {
: flying squadron that went up on tn,
lake and captured several cities
Santa CRUZ, the second largest city o
the island was one of them.
This was the finest outing any
troops on the Island have had. W.
drank water from pure mountain
springs, killed two hundred niggers
+ ate cariboo, cattle, hogs, chickens
new tomatoes, corn, onions, radishes
potatoes saw enough cocoanuts t
y damn the ocean from here to New
York; enough tomatoes and othe
fruit to feed Stanley Lee year. w
I. simply had great time. We kille'
the negroes at Sata Cruz. The,