The Elbert County tribune., 1900-02-01
FROM THE
PHILIPPINES
Letter From Frank
Bean. an old El-
bert County
Boy.
DAarpAN, p. L., |
Nov. 25, 1899. I

l left Fort Logan and re-
ceived that about a week ago. 1t
was dated l think about Sept.
14th. There may be one at
company headquarters now though.
| should have written long before
this, but must tell you why / have.
not. We landed at Manila the
18th of Oct. after being on the
water 33 days and going through
storm that nearly swamped us.
| wrote letter on the boat after
the storm but never got it mailed.
We marched from the boat about
4 miles south of Manila to the
south line as they call it, and
were only there four or hve days
when they took eight men from
each company of the regiment,
making one hundred and six men
all together, for detachment SER
vice, myself being among them,
and started us north after General
Lawton to act as scouts and
guards for provision trains and
to garrison small towns for few
days at a time. We have worked
along by small marches until we
are now within about 12 miles Of
Dagupan on the south end Of the
island. We have been here about
three days and don't know how
much longer we will he here. We
had made mistake in the date
some way and did not know until
late last night that yesterday was
Thanksgiving day. have been
thinking this morning how near
we came to having lead for Thanks
giving dinner, just missed it one
day. About 35 of us went out
north west of here day before
yesterday to capture priest who
they said was raising a little hill.
Well we found where he had been
with his party but they had taken
to the hills-as near as we could
learn there were about 100 of
them and they gave US warm re-
ception for about an hour. We
captured the town and got one Of
them who was shot in both feet.
We could not catch up with them so
we started back for more men to
take another town 9 miles further
on toward which they We're going
and we didn't know how many
might be there, when they opened
on us again at long range from a
big hill. We got out without a
scratch, but learned the next day
from the natives that we had kill
ed six of them. We went
back and our captain sent for a
troop of cavalry who came tie
next morning and we all went
back. But the birds had flown.
We got another prisoner in the
other town and found lots of rice
and let them go at that. We bad
one little skirmish about a week
ago but only few shots were
fired. We were in our town by
the river with one troop of cavalry
when band attacked our outpost
(who were cavalry mem from
across the river, killed two of them
and soon as it was light we cross
the river and went over to find
them. We found the rear-guard
at n town about 3 miles on where
we had a little running fire for
about q half an hour; don't know
that we hurt any of them sure; they
did us no harm. We took the
town and found lot Of sick and
wounded in the church and buried
one who was dead of fever or
something else. Then we started
in to see what we could find. Some
one found about 300 pounds of
dynamite or giant powder in an
old shack, three men went down
to destroy il; they set FIRE to the
shack and we're fooling around
when il went off like an earth
quake. One man had his right
arm torn of, one leg nearly so and
a great cash in the side of his face.
He lived till we carried him about
mile begging all the time for
some one to kill him. Another
one had his skull cracked but he
Il, racovar think. The third