River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1899-10-12
TRANSPORT SHERIDAN"
Sunday, AuI 9, 1899.


Dear Father and Mother
We are still On board the Sheridan"
but leave her tomorrow and board the
transport Zealandia which will take us
to Iloilo.
tell you it has been pretty tiresome
lying at anchor here for IA days and
we shall all be glad when this con-
founded trip is over and we reach our
fighting grounds. We are anchored
now in Manila Bay, ? miles from
Cayite, and miles from Manila The
18th Mimi. boys will return home on
this boat, they came off the firing line
last week and are in quarters at
Manila. l got an eight hour pass and
went over to Manila to ksee them; l
tried TO find Egbcrt but his company
was not in from the front. / visited
Co. "G", the Red Wing Co.. and tried
TO find Elmer Basset. He belongs to
| the Red Wing Mandolin Club and
plays with Win. He was not in his
quarters but was around the city
somewhere. / tried to find him but
could not. l started back for the
transport that night but our boat got
caught in a storm and we got good
ducking as the waves broke clean over
the deck of the ferry we were on and
the Bay got so rough it was impossible
for US to get anywhere near the
| Sheridan" so we went to Cayite and
| staid a couple of days with the 1st
Montana boys and that settled my
getting any more passes. | expected
to get put in The "Brig" and fined too
but all got was good lecture and
the sights / saw more than balanced
| that score.
Cayite is fine place, much nicer
than Manila. The old battleships that
Dewey sunk lie near the shore at
Cavite except one which lies about
| quarter of a mile from where we are.
All you can see of them is the
| charred masts, smokestacks and tops
of the turrets: the rest of them are
| under water
/ visited the Catholic hospitals at
| Manila where the wounded Filipinos
are cared for and l tell you some of
them are literally shot to pieces. They
try to talk American all the time and
several of them told me they had all
the fighting they wanted; but where
one is killed or wounded there are a
dozen to take his place. At the time
of the naval battle after the firing
had ceased one of Dewey's gunners |
asked permission to take one shot at |
Spanish flag that fioated over an old |
church at Cavite. Permission being |
granted lie took the shot and brought |
down the flag all right. ! saw the old |
church Quilt in 1640) and also where |
the she'll struck the steeple just below |
the flag staff. | have a piece OF the |
thing Of the floor | picked up as |
relic.
The battleship Baltimore" and the
Monitors "Mondanock" and Monte
rev. are anchored near us while the
Oregon is over nearer Manila where |
we we're first anchored. There are |
all kinds of gunboats around US SO we
are we'll protected.
The mosquitoes are terrible here on
land and all the boys have mosquito
netting over their hunks.
The Montana boys have fine bar
racks and are at present guarding
prisoners but expect to go home soon.
Co. @. 18th Unfit.
Jaro, p. l., Aug. 10, 1899.
Well we arrived at Iloilo Aug. 10th,
safe and sound. We left the ship in
the afternoon and loaded onto an
open barge in pouring rain and it
kept right on raining while we march
ed to Jaro miles from Iloilo and
where we are now stationed. You
who have never seen a tropical rain
storm cannot realize what they are,
| for it simply pours down for two or
| three hours at stretch. The climate
| here is simply perfect ION the Island
| of PanD and but one soldier has died
of disease since the 18th landed here.
Jaro pronounced Harrow is the last
town captured and is on the firing
line. Our outposts are but quarter
of mile from our barracks and the
Insurgent or Kakayak trenches are
but of a mile from our outposts, so
| you can see how near we are to them.
| We can see them moving about and
on a quiet morning we can hear their
buglers blowing Reveille. They have
the same bugle calls we have and are
| trained about the same way, too.
Our target range is just at the out
post and Saturday the Kakayaks did
not do thing but make our Captain
take us back to the barracks on a run,
then we sent out two companies and
drove them a couple of miles away
and all has been quiet since. We
picked up bullets they fired at US and
they were chunks Of lead as large as
your thumb.
One Of our outposts was wounded
Sunday night but not seriously. The
natives are good fighters but shoot
altogether too high and they cant
stand artillery little bit.
Jaro was an old Spanish summer
resort and the buildings here are fine.
The natives drove the Spaniards out
and our men in turn drove them out.
-Four days ago there was hardly a
native here but they are coming back
now and in a week there will be
plenty of them.
We are Quartered in an old Spanish
seminary and have fine quarters:
every company has fine piano and
we have plate glass mirrors IT. high.
We live high here--much better
than in the states. Sunday we had
chicken pie. green peas, pudding,
bread and coffee for dinner and have
milk and sugar for our coffee, tea or
chocolate, every meal. For meat here
we have the water buffalo and native
OK and occasionally We find nice fat
hog.
Bananas grow all around US here
| and cocoanuts are as common here as
| bIadas of grass are at home When