Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-04-10
A RED HOT
GAME OF BALL
-----
But the Montana Boys Seem
to Enjoy IT..
5T-b 5T
CHASING CANNON BALLS
Is One of the AmusefnentS Of the
Montana Soldiers In the
Philippines.
CHASING CANNON BALLS

or a letterfrOm his brother Harry OF Com
pany G, who Is now orderly to Major
Cook in the Philippines. According to the
letter the American soldiers have a
greater dread Of the enemy's Mausers
than they have of the Filipino cannon
balls and shells. A portion of the letter
reads as follows:
''Caloocan, p. l., March 4, 1899.
Time passes like lightning here in the
Philippines, but home going seems to be
as far away as ever. It's rather discour-
aging. l guess the papers have given the
particulars of our fighting, but not all
of them. We nave been laying in the
trenches for the last ten days and doing
actually nothing. On the 23d of February
the niggers began firing on our lines and
I dare say they shot 500. 900 round at us.
They kept it up for four days steadily,
with considerable effect. Twenty of our
regiment We're wounded and one killed.
The way the lead whistled and dropped
about us was a fright, and whenever we
heard a volley fire we would drop on the
ground as If struck dead. This got to be
automatic. l have had a few close SLAVES
but am still alive and healthy. l got
shot through both heels one day, but the
bullet only raised a blood blister and
spoiled my shoes. Had not my shoes
been new and tough 1 think the bullet
would have hamstrung me. Poor Too
Moore of Company G one day went to
wash his handkerchief. Just as he
turned away, a Mauser hit him and went
clear through his body, via the stomach.
He died two days later.
"It is a wonder that more are not dead,
for it seems impossible that we should
walk half a mile to the depot and not
get hit. A boy Of the hospital corps had
just returned with Company l. from
town, where their lieutenant was killed
and several wounded in a hot fight, and
was crossing the field to the trenches. He
was down in a little gully where it seemed
the safest, but he was hit in the eye and
the ball went through his head. He is
yet alive and has not lost consciousness.
Dewey also sent two shells into our lines.
One fell and exploded about so yards in
! the rear of our lines and 800 yards to the
rieht of my tent. 1t did no harm. The
other landed very close to our outposts.
l carried a piece of the shell to Colonel
Kessler, and he took it to General Nc
Arthur. Dewey was signaled TO stop fir
ing in that direction. I'r~.
'I am a regular old vet now I have
stood up in the thickest of the fray, built
trenches while screaming bullets were
flying all about, carried messages over
the most dangerous fields and exposed
places, and yelled when the fleeing enemy
turned tail and made a bike Yes, 7
have smelled powder. Our first fight
lasted for Is hours steady and the last
one, the advance on Caloocan. lasted 2R
hours, but it was an advance, while the
former was only repelling an attack by
the enemy. Everything is quiet now on
our end of the 22-mile line, but we have
heard heavy fighting near the middle all
day. We spend our time washing gold
from the river and hunting bread fruit,
or lounging in the trenches. The sun is
very hot, about 100 degrees all day from
II , ~, tn A 8, ", I1rf tnInv hnc haa,,
rather cloudy, The nights arc very cold,
so cold that I had to warm my nose last
night. Our blood is getting thin.
"The MormOns' think these island
were the original Garden of Eden Far
away from the coast the scenery is SUBJ
lime and under American control would
make the prettiest in the world. The
enemy has just fired an old smooth-bore
cannon at us. but the ball did not come
any closer than 200 yards of our ines and
did not explode. They fire it every three
days, for it takes them that long to mount
it again after 1t is shot off. The Mon
tana boys call it a disappearing gun. as
it flies off it's t%runniOns and disappears
behind the trench every time they shoot.
1t is never set off twice from the same
place. They just fired another cannon
ball at us and it landed about ten feet in
front of Company Fs trench. They are
getting sassy, but if they keep it up we
will send a few shells into them in such
a manner that they will quit.
81 have just been up to headquarters
to see what had happened and take a look
at the first shell fired at us today. 1t is
a three-inch dobie projectile Of the 1861
pattern. 1t was loaded with black pow
der, but did not explode as the plunger in
the cap got damned. 1t went bounding
along just a rod behind the colonels tent.
Johnny Heilig saw it first and started in
pursuit and finally captured it. 1t would
be rather dispiriting, to the Filipinos if
they knew how we chased their cannon
balls about.
March 5.-Last night was warm, but
! today is cool. The river %gunboat and the
outposts of the Tenth Pennsylvania had