The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1899-07-28
SOMETHING NEN
Dell Walters Writes a Letter
From Manila That Tells
a Good Many New
Things.
San Fernando, p. L., May IS, 100

Dear fOlKe:-l reCelVeu your leJteTs
of April 9th and also t.e one that Pa
and Jennie wrote together. 1t Is pret-
ty hard to find writing paper here for
they have not got the train up with
us and we cannot buy any here for
there is nobody here to sell it to us, so
what we get we pick up around town
in the Chinese stores.
This Is pretty town, next to Mani
la In size. The insurgents burned
some of the finest buildings. There
was one church that cost over mil
lion dollars, and the depot and car
shops were burned also. We have
better water here than we had at Ma
Mia. 1t comes from the mountains
and Is as clear as crystal.
Our Engineer Corps is having a
great deal Of trouble with the rail-
road. The niggers have burned out
some OF the biggest bridges, and it
takes lots Of work to fix them up for
train to pass over. One of the bridges
burned was larger than the bridge
over the Neosho. 1t was at this
bridge that the niggers put up such
hard fight. The town OF Calumpit is
on one side of this river and Apslit is
on the Other. Our company was the
first one to cross this bridge and we
had to walk across on one of the
stringers. /; was almost like walking
q slack wire. Here is where we cap
tured the niggers' cannon. There was
u lieutenant otthe artillery with us
and he claimed IL.
We havo not seen Kansas news
paper that was published since the
fight at Calumpit, but l will bet they
are full of lies The papers we got on
the last mail were the darndest things
we ever saw. / don't see what they
want to publish such stuff for. That
piece that Chairman wrote on the cap
ture OF Malolos was great thing to
read. The boys had lots OF fun over
that. He told about us charging up
against the breastworks and the mig
ers used poles and bows and arrows
on us. My God if those niggers would
ever let us get that close, the war
would soon end.
We haven't got close enough to
them to uss our Spring fields to good
advantage since we made them run
at Calumpit, until we had pretty
close scrap with them at san Tomas.
We had one man wounded at that
place. We got within four hundred
yards of them before we fired shot,
and then how we did make them run
for their lives. We crossed another
bridge here and company was the
first one to across again. Here we
went off to the left of the railroad to a
little town by the name of San Tomas
and companies &. and @. went on up
the track within mile of San Fer
nando where they had lively scrap.
IL was here that Lieutenant McraggTt
was killed and Funston was shot
through the hand and the Sergeant
Major was shot also. ] would like to
know what the REGISTER had to say
about the fight. bet they Will say
plenty. The volunteer regiments
here are getting down on us already
and il the papers just keep it up we
will be made more fun of than the
First California. We have done No
more than some of the other regi'
ments here. The Third Artillery de-
serves as much credit as we do, as al
go do the Montana and Nebraska reg
iments. They have had some HARD
6Ohting and so have the South DakO
ia boys. We were expecting to 60 t.
the front and be in the hottest of thu
lighting il the niggers started any
thing. and now Colonel Funston 1
wearing stars. guess when Metcal
and Little get theirs we will he re
lieved from the firing cline. Metcal
is having lot of trouble with hi
wounded foot Blood poison has se
m and they think that he will posi-
h,v loose h., foot, and il he does
,.,,,s Little will be the next ol0ne
ana hen | guess we will DO relieved
heard HE morning that the trai
VIII he up III couple of days and
that is true guess we will soon be o
the move. some of the boys thin
we are going hack to Manila In ie'
days, but DON'T think co.
we we're on the outpost guard las
sunday and two Englishmen and on
American and one Spaniard cam
through the lines. They said tn
main body OF the insurgents ha
moved back about 10 miles, and ths
they were digging entrenchmen'