The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1901-05-25
One of the Little Party ON the
Perilous Expedition.
A COMPLETE ACCOUNT.
Story Of Mems Hardships on the
Dreary March.
Aide de Camp Lost Twenty
Pounds While He Was Gone.


from their son. Burton J. Mitchell. who
was with General Funston on the
Aguinaldo expedition. 1t is the most
exhaustive and therefore che most in
teresting account which has been
printed. Some idea OF the hardships
undergone may be had from the fact
that he lost nearly twenty pounds on
the trip His description in full fol-
lows:
About the middle of January General
Emilio Aguinaldo, ell dictator of the
Filipino republic, sent q messenger out
of his place of hiding with letters 70
all of his commanding generals IN dlI-
ferent parts Of Luzon- This CORE
spondence was presented to Lieut.
Taylor, of the TWenty-fOurth infantry,
at Panta bangan, province of NueVa
Ecija, about a month later, the n es-
senger giving as his reason that ne mao
been one of Aguinaldo's bodysuafu tor
two years, had received no money 1or
his services. and had been chased from
place to place time and time again
and he was tired Of the whole a1Ialr
and wanted to live under American
rule and see peace established IN tne
These facts were Immediately re-
ported to General Funston, and the
man with his correspondence forwarded
to san Isidro He seemed a. very bright
and sincere fellow, and the general De
gan consulting him as to the pest
methods to pursue to effect Agu1naldo
capture. A number of the dliferent
plans were gone over until nnaliy TINS
one was decided on:
One of the letters ordered General
Lacuna. of Nueva EclJa- to send MIN
refnfOrcementS. General Funston de-
cided to send him these refnforcem ents,
taking a few of us to go along as prls-
Oners and capture him. The detalls
We're gone over very carefully and II
finally resulted in General Funston Sc
lecting myself of his staff and Captain
Hazard, who had command of a COM
pany of Macabebes, and Captain New
ton. of the Thirty-fourth infantry, ~ ,.
v. who had knowledge of the bay OF
Casiguran, where we were to land. We
were of course glad to have been Sc
1ected from among so many, and from
this time on worked night and gay Tor
the success of the expedition Captain
Hazard Immediately selected 50 men
out of his CON pany who could talk Ia
gallo and would make the most likely
insurgent soldiers. The general select
ed as fnsurgent officers Hilario Talpla-
eide, a former insurgent major, ana
gave him the rank of lieutenant colonel;
Lazario Sagovia, a full-blooded span
lard, who had been a first sergeant IN
the Spanish army, who had passed the
examination for commission DuI
never received it on account of the con-
fusion resulting from the late unpieas-
antness we had with Spain. became
dissatisfied when his regiment was
ordered back to Spain, left it, Joined the
insurgents, and was made a first lieu
tenant. About a year ago he was taken
sick and came into San Isidro and sur
rendered He was made a captain and
was second in command of our party
GregOriO Cadhita, TagalO. and former
lieutenant of insurgents, was n ade a
lieutenant, as was also Dionaci0 Batea,
a former insurgent sergeant and tax
collector. These. with Cecillo Sagisa-
rundO, the Ilocane who had presented
the correspondence, completed our
party. Our Maca bebes We're armed and
equipped with insurgent rifles and uni
forms. and the disguise was complete,
the result showing that it was impos-
sible to tell them FROM insurgent sol
diers.
We proceeded to Manila and boarded
the small battleship ''Vicksburg,' a gal
liant little ship, commanded by a brave
and gentlemanly set of officers and men,
On March 6 we set sail around the
southern end of Luzon and on the
morning Of the 14th in a rainstorm land
ed from the ships boats in the Bay of
Casiguran. 20 miles below the town of
the same name. AS soon as we were all
landed we crawled under some brush to
partially protect ourselves from the
rain and waited for morning to appear.
The Nicksburg with all lights out inn
mediately put to sea and we saw no
more of her until the afternoon of the
25th. At daybreak we started for CAST
guran, a distance of 20 miles, and reach
ed there that evening, having had to
wade in the bay about five miles of the
distance When we went into the town
the natives hailed our party with de-
light and congratulated them on their
capture of the prisoners We were i'm
mediately put in a. room and a guard
placed over US and also guards outside
of the house. We were kept there two
days and three nights The natives
would come around and peep in at US
through the windows and doors but Of Il
fered no violence Sagovia would come
in to see us at nights, tell us how things
were progressing. and get his orders for
the next day. He succeeded in gather |
ing together some rice, some cracked |
corn, and having two caribous killed to
take on the trip and Is cargadores to |
carry this truck.
This was the last town or place from /
which we could get any supplies and /
what we received here was to last US /
until we reached Pa1anan (Aguinaldo's |
camp, a distance of so miles. We also I
wrote several letters to Aguinaldo tell /
ing MIN we were coming and would be /
there in six OF seven days. These letters
were all forgeries. We had previously 4
captured some Of Iacuna.'s papers and I
1t was a small task to transfer his sig I
nature by means of carbon paper and
then Ink it over. These letters were SEM
on ahead of US by natives and reached
there two days before we did On the
morning Of the 18th of March we started
Tor Falanan, crossing and recrossing the
Casiguran river IA times and reaching
the sea about noon Our marching from
here was along the sea coast Of the Pa
clfc Ocean. We followed along this
coast in the soft sand and for miles
over boulders from the. size of a per
sons head to as large as a nipa house
At high tide the waves were all over
these rocks and at low tide they were
slippery Where the mountains came
right down to the waters edge we
would have to cut up over them pulling
each other up and helping ourselves BY
small trees and roots The getting down
on the other side was much more dan
gerous and we used long poles to keep