Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1899-06-22
CLYDE BAKER AT SAN FERNANDO.
An Interesting Letter from the Ann
erican Fighting Line.
san FERNANpo. P. T.. MAY s

SAN FERNANDO, +. L., May 3.
Dear Friends at Home:
| As we are not marching or fighting
today thought l would write some.
thing of the happenings between April
23 and today,
On the 23d of April number OF
cayalrymen went out scouting and
were surrounded by insurgents. They
had to have hel p so the Iowa and Ne
braska regiments were ordered out at
once. They went out about half pre-
pared to fight only expecting to be
tangled up for an hour or so, and took
nothing but gun, belt and canteen. As
the boys went out they went about one
mile and the fighting commenced
They We're under u steady fire for four
hours i'll the hot sun and on an open
field. They sent for ammunition at
once and its arrival put the boys in
fine spirits and they did excellent work
rushing and taking trenches. The
boys were very tired and hungry but
stood up like men. / was not in any
of this fighting as / was detailed on
guard at the commissary ut Malolos.
All the wounded and dead were
brought to Malolos to be sent to Mani
la. l watched every ambulance that
came in and saw all the wounded. Ii
looked very bad to see the boys come
in that way. / saw the colonel and a
lieutenant of the Nebraska regiment
come in. Three boys of Co. l.. of the
5lst came in and of course had to
talk with them. Two of them were
shot in the legs and the other one in
the shoulder. The boys seemed to
suffer from the wounds good deal
and it was so hot. Every train that
went to Manila took the dead, the
wounded and boys that had been over
come by the heat.
The boys kept on the move until the
2Sth when they made camp along a
river and had three days rest. On the
Goth was relieved from guard duty
and joined my company at once.
laid in camp two days when we took a
march of about six miles south and the
next day we marched back and on to
Calumpit. Here we camped for the
night and were aroused at four o'clock
in the morning, had an early break
fast and commenced marching ut five.
After marching about three miles we
were fired upon by the insurgents and
were soon in full action. We advanced
and laid down behind rice dykes and
fired on the enemy. We kept adyanc-
ing under heavy fire until we We're in
better range and fired several volleys
into them We marched across about
mile of swamp and then had to cross
small river. The insurgents thought
they had us there and made their
bravest move as they came out of the
timber, formed skirmish line and
commenced firing on us. Well we
could not stand for that and into the
river we went, Co. l. leading the line
into the water The water was mp to
oar chins. We crossed and lay behind
shelter of the other bank and fired into
the enemy About every two min
utes we made an advance of some
thing like fifty feet and we soon had
the "niggers" on the run. We kept
after them all the time. We passed
several dead "niggers" ON the field and
some of the boys picked mp their guns
and ammunition. We camped that
night in small town called San Thorn
as, had good nights rest and about
nine o'clock the next morning moved
on. This move consisted of two hatal-
lions of the 51st Iowa only. Marched
along in column of tours for two
miles until we came to strip of tim
Der, when Gen. Hale had us form a