The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-04-04
War Not to be Carried on Against Agui
naldo During the Rainy Season.
NATIVE. GUERRILLA SOLDIERS
10 be Organized to Fight AguinaIdos Forces if He Institutes that Kind
OF Warfare-Our Troops Taxing Needed Rest and Feastnpo on
Cocoanuts and Bananas-How Our Troops Fought Their
Way to Malolos-Their Splendid Behavior-Inter-
esing Private Letter From Manila IS to the
State of Affairs There.

resi-, while the hospital train is carry
ing the back to Manila.
CABLEGRAM FROM OTIS.
Washington, March 31.-The follow
Ing dispatch was received at the war
department early b i morning:
ma. Manila, March 81.
'AdJutant General, Washington:
Troops resting at Malolos, consider
able portion of city destroyed by fire.
Our casualties: one killed, fifteen
wounded. Hall has returned with his
troops to former position north Of Ma
Mia. "OTIS"
TO EMPLOY NATIVES FOR GUER-
RILLA WARFARE.
1t is said at the war department that
General Otis will not make a campaign
curing the rainy season, nor is it be-
l1eVed that he will at present chase the
Philippines into the mountain fast
nesses of Luzon. The officials consider
1t evident that the fight that was in
Aguinaldo has. been whipped out of
him, and it is believed he cannot hold
the Philippine army together much
longer.
If General Otis advises, the war de-
partment will approve a cessation of
active hostilities or further forward
movement, when little can be accomp-
lished save chasing the Philippines
without etin results. A short rest
will determine whether the Philippines
intend to keep up a guerrilla warfare
and, if so, a plan is already maturing
to meet any such condition. Natives
Will be employed to fight the guerril-
las, and az the government can give
them better pay n afford them great
er protection than Aguinaldo, there is
no doubt about the ability to employ
natives in this way. If there must be
guerrilla fighting during the rainy
season which will c0nn ho ,~4 tho
Philippines, the United States will not
sacrifice it's troops in such warfare if
natives can be obtained.
AN INTERESTING LETTER.
Wheeling, w. Va, March 31.-Lieu-
tenant William Braunersreuther, exec
utive officer of the Charleston, whose
exploit in making the bloodless cap
ture of the Ladrone islands last sum-
mer, as told by himself in Associated
Press dispatches, writes an interesting
letter from Manila to Hon. Augustus
Pollack, of this city. He is now cap
tain of the port of Manila and has I'M
der him some 500 native Philippines
Wnom he finds it easy to control.
Speaking of the natives, he says:
THE natives themselves, left to their
intentions, will never prove trou-
blesome. They would be only too will
ing to earn a meagre living n get a
few dollars. They are not hard to han
die at all. l employ several hundred in
my department and find no trouble
whatever, though I lay often to work
them at night in docking and unloading
vessels. During all the fighting, among
the hundreds in my employ, they re-
NAMED loyal and faithful. 1 lost only
five or six in all and these, I believe,
were frightened off for fear of subse-
quent molestation should the rebels Gas
they commended they could do) wipe
all the Americans off the face of the
earth.
Heretofore, when fighting with
Spaniards, the rebelS have been badly
organized and much worse armed. Not
withstanding this condition, they had,
in a general way, a success out of ev-
cry engagement with their natural en-
emies. Since that time they have been
much better drilled, better armed and
better organized and they naturally
concluded they could easily succeed in
eXterminating the Americans. They
tried it two weeks age yesterday at 9
p. m. Oh, my, what a surprise. Thou
sands of them are dead (cremated and
buried) and the hospitals are filed
with the wounded, many of whom will
never GOV They have lost in N
about here over 10000 men. Our loss
has been less than 100 men; to be exact,
SiXty-eight officers and men killed and
275 wounded. Our wounded people have
a much better chance of recovery than
theirs, for this reason-the Mauser ball
makes a. cleaner and smaller wound
than do our R~emingtons and Spring
fields. To give you an example of this,
in n of the hottest parts of our fir
ing line, a soldier fought for three days,
having been wounded On the first night
by a Mauser bullet through the thigh
above the knee. He says that during
the fight he thought he rushed UP
against q brush and was stuck by a
thorn.