The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1899-08-04
HENRY SPETHMAN WRITES.
A Breezy Letter From the Philip
pine Islands.


lowing extracts from a letter from
Henry Spethman, who is still on
duty in the Philippines, having en-
listed in Company NJ in this city in
May, 1898. He writes as follows
from San Fernando:
"My health has been good, but I
catch a spell the same as the rest of
the boys and get somewhat knocked
out. The last time we had a scrap
we were very arm and during
the firing we came to a river and
later to aswump in which the water
was stagnant and full of all kinds of
bacteria. Then for the next three
hours we lay out in the boiling sun.
every man of us soaking wet. 1t
was pretty unhealthy business as
can be seen by the great number
sick in quarters. And what is
worse, the grub we get'is not adapt
ed to this hot climate. We have
bareback, canned "horse,' coffee,
baked beans and occasionally a a
Of tomatoes. Our canned "horse'
is often spoiled and today l a
hardly bear to even look on when
a can is opened. l did not feel good,
so ! went to The doctor and told him
! could not eat the stuff they we're
giving to US, and he SAID that cit
ism t fit for a hog" / know a big
kick has been made on it, but that
don't make any difference, as the
general department cares nothing
for such complaints. We had some
bacon issued to US which you must
have smelled in the United States.
1t was later condemned, but no
more was issued in its place. The
colonel had bought out of the regi-
mental fund some oat meal and
canned peaches and issued to the
companies. Say, you had ought to
see us eat it. The only trouble was,
there was only enough for two
meals.
"The railroad here has not yet
been repaired where the insurgents
tore it up, They burned about all
the railroad ties and either threw
the rails in the river, used them to
build trenches or else loaded them
on the cars and took them
away entirely. Between the Bagbag
river and Calumpit, about two
miles, there were no ties nor rails
at all. The rebels tried TO blow up
the pier under the big steel bridge
across the Rio Grande but failed
because we got onto them too fast.
They had stripped the bridge of all
the steel stringers and some other
OF the most necessary parts besides
all of the ties and rails. They also
had a lot of big wooden boats which
they drew ashore and burned as
we came up. They were bound we
should not cross the river, where
they had all kinds of trenches.
They had two field pieces, one an
old brass muzzle-loading cannon and
the other a modern piece captured
by them from the Spanish. The
rebels are about two miles from
here in new trenches.
81 don't see Why our army does
not keep advancing and prevent
them from building new trenches
all the time. OF course, the volun-
teer forces could not advance much
faster then they have, but the regu-
lars here are not doing anything.
If the regulars were used we could
hurry the niggers along and put an
end to the war. There is some
great mismanagement shown among
high officials and it almost makes
me believe that the object is to
prolong the q The towns we
capture as a rule are more or less
burned. Here at San Fernando we
found a big church and some we'll
built dwellings, but the only living
things we found were a few pigs as
poor as a crow, and a lot of cats and
dogs. A few Chinese has stored
themselves away somewhere, but
came out when u forces occupied
the town. Now that we have been
here v e a week the natives come
in and sell US eggs, bananas, man
goes and cigarettes. These same
people have perhaps been fighting
us before we came here and now we
buy goods of them at big prices.
The only way to make q fairly good
bargain is to take what we want and
then pay what we think it's worth.
We are not able to find any relics
here, as the natives carry off every
thing with then Ions before we come
in. Lots OF stuff is buried, but We
can't dig up the whole ground to
find it, Some Of the boys have
found goods and money which had
been buried under houses and then.
the houses burned.