Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1899-04-05
THE fight At CAl00CAN.
Gen. Macarthur Said He'll Itself Could Not
Stop the Montana Regiment When
Il Got Started.

The following entertaining letter
concerning the distinguished bravery
OF the First Montana In the first
fights Of the recent campaign In the
Philippines is from the pen of Capt.
G.. H. Preston, Of Co. l, aud part of a
letter addressed to his wife at Hell
ena, Mrs. Preston kindly sending us
copy for publication. Mrs, Preston
says that the last sheet of the letter
was written on a piece Of unruled
white paper, on one side OF which
was writing in Spanish. The letter
is dated in the trenches at Caloocan:
CALooCAN, Feb. IA, 1899.
EDITOR ARGUS: / suppose that by
this time you and every one else In
the state knows that we are having
trouble here in the islands, and that
on the night of the 4th the insurgents
attacked our lines, and that we
drove them back. On Sunday, the
9Th, we advanced on them and after
a hard fight drove them back from
their position.
Well, | am all o. X. and was not
hurt in our many advances, and 81
now that we are waiting for the
next move / will try and write you
all about the fight. | would have
written before, but have not been
able to get any paper and have had
very little time to myself since the
trouble commenced.
On the night of the 4th, about 8
O'Clock, the insurgents fired on the
Nebraska outpost and i'm a few mo-
ments the firing was all along our
front.
L had gone to bed, and most of the
officers OF our regiment were in bed,
when al orderly from division head
quarters came with an order for the
men to fall in under arms ready to
move at once. | went to the colonel
to see If l could join my company ON
the outpost (they were out there
with a detachment of Co. M, 36 men
from each company, with four non
CONS, Capt. HaIlahan and Lieut..
Dorm at 10 O'Clock. Major Miller
told me | could go to the company,
so taking Lieut.. Foster, Sergts. Stod-
dard, Shaules and Cheadle, / started
for the outpost. All this time the
firing was very heavy and all the
regiment, except Cos. A, ID and II,
had gone out to the Bulibib prison,
where they were to wait until fur
Their orders.
When L got there Gen. Macarthur
was there and was just sending two
companies out to reinforce the out
post, so L went along with them.
When | got there | found our boys
deployed in a line on the left of the
road and Co. NJ on the right, with
tNp suns VI NV piAtD dTtllitTN.
l found the men all O. X. and they
seemed very glad to see me. ] found
that they had been ordered TO fall
back from the outpost and had been
compelled tn leave their blankets,
canteens and ~baversacks there, and
they had been mismanaged in some
other way and were feeling rather
blue, but | got things Strengthened
out in a short time and we lay down
behind a bank of earth and waited
for the morning.
We were fired on all of the night
and two or three times we gave them
volleys in return, and at daylight we
went forward about 100 yards to the
edge of a large field and kept up quite
a brisk fire all the forenoon. Some.
times we would not fire for half an
hour, and then again we would be
firing all the time.
AT 1890 we got orders to advance