Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1899-11-27
DESPERATE SOLDIERS.
Forty-Two Bakers, Hatfelds, an
Whites Enlist for Philippines.

Peace reigns in the mountains Of
Clay county, Kentucky, for the fight
ing men of the famous Baker family
knowing themselves overpowered
beaten and outnumbered, resolving not
to stand and be killed nor to sue for
peace with the Towards, have enlisted
in the United States army. The fight
ing strength of the Baker family is
gone; the boys have joined Company
NJ, of the new Thirty-frst United
States volunteer infantry, and are now
at San Francisco waiting to go aboard
the transports bound to Manila.
Forty of the most famous of the
Kentucky fighters-Bakers, Hatfields
and Whites-are in Company M. The
Whites, of Company M, although re-
lated to the Whites of the Howard
family, are friends of the Bakers and
related to them through marriage, and
are exiled with them through fear-if
the word can be used in connection
with these men-of determination. The
boys are marching to war, but they
vow to return when the two years of
service in the Philippines is over, and
one of them, corporal, says when
they do they will rally and there will
be left no Howard in all Kentucky.
The thirty-frst regiment, under
Colonel Petit, was recruited at Fort
Thomas, in the highlands, back of
Newport, KY. When the call for troops
to suppress the rebellion in the Philip
pines came and recruiting of the new
Thirty-frst began, a blue-eyed, hand
some mountaineer, armed with re-
volver, came and announced his inten-
ton of enlisting. He was examined
and accepted. He was Bob Baker,
one of the nerviest men and one of the
best shots in the mountains, and every
body in the Kentucky hills can shoot.
Within a week he was joined by a
dozen of his brothers and kinsmen,
and when the regiment moved, on
August IS, there were AZ of the clan
enrolled in Company NJ, and peace was
assured in Clay county for the next
two years at least. Of these ~ every
their pistols and will not be reconciled
with KragJ Orgensen.
A few days ago, when the company
was on the rife range, Bob Baker,
shooting over 100 yards, scored SO out
of possible 100, and, when his lieu
tenant congratulated him on MS
craftsmanship, he said: THAT amt
nothin If I only had my AS Win
chester I reckon l could shoot some"
The Baker and White boys of Com
pany M, as they clambered-for the
first time in their lives-into the
sleepers that were to carry them to
San Francisco, and gazed for the last
time in two years, perhaps forever,
at the Kentucky hills, went hopefully.
One of them, talking to his lieutenant
just as the train moved, said:
"We'l come back, and when we do
them fellows had better watch out"
Outnumbered and driven from home,
the spirit of the feudists still held
strong in the mountain lads. They de-
clare the Bakers are not whipped and
that they will revenge themselves yet.
They said they cannot hope to contend
with the Howards unless they secure
allies, and they hint that the Philpots
one of the strongest clans in the
mountain cOuntry-are friendly to the
Bakers, and that if the Philpots ever
come out openly against the Towards
the fued will end in the determination
of the Howard and the Grif1n-Morris
families. The Philpot and Griffin
Morris clans have been at war for five
years.-Cbicago Tribune.