The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1900-02-23
Letter From the Philippines.

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and is an interesting narrative of soldier
life in the far off islands:
CALooCAN, P. l., Jan. l, 1900
think the best way to start the new
year will be to write a letter, SO here
goes. [ reached this town about ten
days ago and we had not been here two
days when they ordered us over to take
the town of San Mateo. 1t is situated in
the mountains and is position the reb-
els had never been driven from. We
marched over last Tuesday and waded
into the natives the next day at 10
o'clock. 1t took just two hours to drive
the niggers out of sight. Their intrench-
ments were something fine. Ifthese
rebels don't know anything else, they
can certainly build trenches. [ don't
think there was over a thousand of them
in the fight, so we killed only about forty
of them, and they killed only two or
three of US, and hit seven or eight more.
The plan of the battle was for companies
B and G to charge the hill, and A and L
to act as fankers, but through some mis-
take in orders, A, B and l. were drawn
off. and my company G was left alone.
The major discovered the mistake in
time to save US from being shot to pieces.
We marched to the foot Of the ridge, and
had we gone to the top, would have run
into about four hundred niggers, but
the ma or made us turn back; had he
not shown up, we would have gone into
them just as we were. Well that was the
last we saw of the niggers, but we stayed
over there three days, then marched
back through pouring rain, got soaked
from head to foot with water and mud,
and got in here day before yesterday at
10 o'clock at night and are going to start
out again today for the south firing line.
This soldier life is something great [
tell you. Of course when we are out af
ter niggers everything we get hold of we
are welcome to; we got chickens, hogs,
sugar and tobacco We have to do our
own cooking and when [ get back will be
qualified to hold down job of cooking
for the Carlton, at least [ think SO.
There are no roads at all,in this country.
We have to march in single file and fol-
low foot paths. There are but few
bridges, in fact have seen Just two since
landed on this Island When we come
to creek or river, we jump in and wade
through, sometimes in water up to our
necks, come out dripping wet and in an
hours time are as dry as ever, SO you can
imagine how hot it is over here. They
tell me after a person has been here
about five years he gets as black as
darby, so you needn't be surprised to see
me come back real Coon. | have seen
some Spaniards who have been here for
a number of years, who are certainly
dark complexioned. Every one but the
soldiers wear white suits, that is, all civ
ilized people. The niggers wear loud
colored shirts and trousers; the negro
soldiers wear white shirts and blue pants,
which is their uniform. Some of them
have hats and shoes, but they are very
few.
The insurgent officers have fine uni
forms, something like the U. S. officers.
am going to try and kill one SO can
get his shoulder straps as a souvenir.
The leaders of the rebellion are finely
educated men, and with the exception of
Aguinaldo are all Europeans and exper-
fenced soldiers; one of them is an Amer
lean who served over here in the LIST Cal
ifornia. [ would certainly like to get a
shot at him. The rest are German Off
GERS that are in it just for adventure.
Of course [ don't know the exact num-
Der of the rebels, but it is supposed that
there are about $4,000 with arms and as
many more unarmed. ready to take their
places when they get killed; for instance,
the other day we killed fortytwo but
only got six rifles, so you see there were
niggers waiting until their comrades
dropped, SO they could get gun. They
have very few cannon, we captured two
the other day, but they were old style
guns which they had taken from Spain.
PAsAY, January 9th.
We are now at Pasay, on the south
firing line waiting for orders. We arrived
here day before yesterday and are camp
ing on the shore of Manila Bay. We are
about ten miles from the main firing line
and ready to move at an hours notice.
1t looks as though big battle would
take place soon. The rebels are making
a strong stand and say they wont sur
render. Well if they do it will be all
right; if they don't, we will have to kill
a few hundred more. I went up the
beach and saw the wreck of a Spanish
transport, one of the boats that Dewey
drove on shore during his great battle.
Well [ will wind up for this time, but
more anon. CLYDE ID. WHITE,
Co. @, 10Th Regt., u. S. V.