The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-01-18
ON THE FIRING LINE.
INTERESTING LETTER FROM JOHN
 WHALEN, U. s, 4. TN LUZON.


 A Brave Soldier From Holland, Mass, l Tells of Hts Adventures In and Arount
 Caiambu, Philippine Islands; Giving
 Good Insight the soldiers Lif l While at the Front.
 | Clerk George Hale of the Winete6 postofflce, says the Winsted Citizen, has
 received a very interesting letter from | his friend, John Whalen, of Co. F. 21s' l U. $. Infantry The letter was mailed 1 at Manila December 1st, '99. MT. Whal-
 en is q Holland, Mass, boy and has several friends in Wnsted. He has been in the regular army for several yeare and was among the first to go to the l Philippines. Last summer he was shot | through his right elbow and was con- | fined in the hospital several weeks but went back to fight the insurgents while
 he could only handle his gun with the left hand
 The letter follows:-
 Dear Friend George:
 Calamba is a nice town for native village. It is situated about forty-five miles southeast of Manila on large
 lake known as Laguna de. Bay. This
 lake is thirty miles long and fifteen miles wide and resembles the Norris
 Pond in shape to remarkable extent.
 The scenery in land from Calamba is
 a picture to look upon especially at sun
 set, for here is one place where the
 varying tints of natures beauty are all
 in evidence
 The insurgent lines run in semi
 circle round our front. Their outposts
 are about HOO yeards from our lines and they are always careful to keep this interval in tact They do at times tele- graph to us that that they are coming in to take the town, but they are rather chary about coming in just the same. Since I have been here they have been making all sorts of maneuvers and fool ish promises in regard to Calamba but it is only an hour or so usually before they are put in disorder and utter rout.
 We have an excellent leader in Colonel Jacob Cline. He is as cool asa cncuna- Der and as brave as they make, them. Last Friday night the moon was so bright you could almost reada newspa- per. Company Ms outpost noticed a large body of men stealing upon them. At Company Ms challenge they opened. up fast fire. I was on guard at out. post No. 3, which commands the lake landing and vicinity. Shortly after. the fighting started all along the line. re- ceived orders to hold No. 3 until driven in by superior force. The firing lasted from 9:15 to 10:45 and was full of incl dent but without injury to the 21st Go F. had sixtyfve men on the firing
 line and they fired sixty-five rounds of ammunition to a man. Go. M. averaged three hundred rounds of ammunition to a man. One squad of twelve men fired 3 800 rounds, so you may easily guess the "gugus'' found us at home. They were nice enough to let me alone, although few stray shots did come my way. Once indeed I did think I saw a large body of them approaching and the guards were ready to give them pretty warm reception but we held our fire until we were sure of our ground and then found they were herd of caribow or water buffalo which roam around at will, and had become fright aned at the firing in such close prox- unity to them.
 Next morning Go. M went up on a scout of the ground where the insur- gents had turned their fire on us first and from our point of view the insur- gents must have suffered serious loss as the ground was covered in places with pools of blood. We found one wounded l and one dead insurgent and when they | cave their dead and wounded behind | hem they are travelling in a hurry, as hey have at least five men to every gun and they hustle their dead and | wounded to the rear the first thing they | To- We brought in the wounded insur- | gent and he died a short while after ward saying. "Amercano mucha malo," Americans very bad.) He spoke Agui- laldos name twice before dying. He | lad a hatfu1 of Mauser shells, which | le had discharged and he hung on to l hese as if he treasured them. Yes, he lied game and he was one of the very CIV Filipinos that command the respect md attention of every mortal that ,nows them.
 The second day after the fight we re- eived endorsements in the shape of hree companies of the 37th Infantry nd two Gatling guns. The next morn ng after they reached here six com 'anies of the 21st, three companies of he 37th the two field guns, the Hotch- iss gun and one Gatling gun started ut to give these gugus a pointer or two q taking a town once in while. They we're back in town by noon with the re- ult of four Americans wounded and ne killed and having cleared the coun- ry in front of our lines of every in- urgent they could see. It seems they fit town here by three o'clock and ap- roached the enemy's lines. They got lose onto their trenches before the Fill es found there were any such people s Americans around They put few olleys into us and then as usual dis layed their vanishing faculties and managed to lose our men in the course f the next ten minutes and that wound p our enga cement for that day.