The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-03-14

There was not much difficulty in in
ducing this man to aid us; we used M
threats but talked kindly and merely
told him that he would be very wei
rewarded if we succeeded. Then sem
the plan to my immediate commanding
officer, Gen. Wheaton, in Manila, who
approved it and forwarded it to Gen
Macarthur. and they at once tele-
graphed me to come to Manila. I talk
ed the plan over again with Gen. Mac
Arthur, and after suggesting, or rather
directing some slight changes. he or
defed US to go ahead and make ar
rangements with the admiral command
ing the squadron at Cavite to give us
one of the smaller gunboats.
Our plan, as you know, was to take
company of our own soldiers-Maca-
bebes who have been in our service and
always against the insurgents-and
pass them off as insurgent troops, by
merely putting them in the clothing of
the country.
AS TO WEARING INSUFFICIENT UNI
FORMS
/ will say here that there seems to be
a very general misrepresentation of the
fact that we had gone to Aguinaldo
clothed in inSurgent uniforms The fact
is that we had been accustomed to go
ing about in all sorts of uniforms, and
sometimes with no uniforms at all. We
were merely dressed as if we had gone
out tonight in evening clothes, to shoot
people. and then come back and hidden
our .Mausers, and put on regular work
ing clothes again. But We took along
some insurgent uniforms, probably
about 20, although not more than half
dozen were worn at all: and it is a
fact that having those insurgent uni
forms with us had no bearing on the
success of the expedition.
The insurgent uniform, by the way,
was merely the uniform of the Spanish
army. They had these uniforms because
they had captured them when they
drove the SpaniardS out of the towns of
central Luzon, and consequently when
the Insurgents began fighting us they
forms, and 1 do not know but that we
had about as much right to put that
uniform on the Macabebe soldiers as
had the insurgents to wear it. That is
question worth thinking about.
A DECOY LETTER.
We saw that it would be necessary to
lull by decoy letters any suspicious that
Aguinaldo might have at the approach
of an armed force One of his letters
had been addressed to an insurgent
chief of the name of Lacuna This had
fallen into our hands, along with the
others, consequently, before the expedi-
ton finally embarked, we dictated
couple of letters, which were written by
Segovia, under which regret to say so
Il suppose forged is the proper word
we wrote the signature of Lacuna.
hope there are no bankers in the audi
ence. Laughter)
mention of the fact, of course, that La
cuna had received his communications
of a certain date, and that he, Lacuna,
had received orders from Baldomero
A guinaldo to forward Immediately to
the north one of his best guerrilla com
panies, and that he was sending them
with Hilario Placido and three or four
others whom he mentioned.
Hilario Placido and three other Off
GERS who accompanied us had been in
surgents; two of them had been captur-
ed about three months before and the
others had voluntarily surrendered. No
particular inducement was offered to
them to join us, except that we told
them we would reward them pretty we'll
and we would have a pretty good time.
Haughter.) They We're not informed as
to the actual purpose of the expedition
until we had sailed from Manila, as it
was not considered advisa BILE to take
too many into our confidence.
DEI.UDED AN INSURGENT TOWN.
However, we sailed from Manila on
the Vicksburg, and by the way it was
lucky thing for US to get such ship as
the Vicksburg, and SO fine an officer as
Captain Barry in command of her. and
such lot of sailors as manned her, be-
cause if we had had to depend on any
merchant ship in the world, or any
picked uD crew of men, l don't know
what in hell WEI mean we would new
er have put that expedition through
successfully. Great embarrassment on
Funston's part as he caught the Rev
DR.. Minet ]. Savage's eye.)
The Vicksburg sailed from Manila on
the 9th of March with a force consist
ing of five American officers, including
myself, 10 Macabebe scouts, four ex-in-
surgent officers and Segovia, who had
given up the correspondence from Agui-
naldo. Four days later we reached Ca
siguran Bay on the east coast of I.uzon,
and ran up the bay for about ten miles,
and there we landed, a hundred and ten
N lies south of where Aguinaldo was.
The country between the place of dis
and his camp was almost
mountains mountains which
had never been crossed by a white man
except once, by a Jesuit priest. bout Is
years before. The country was inhabi-
ted mostly by savages, but there was
about 20 miles north of our landing
place a village known as Caslguran, a
small town of not over 300 people. They
had a Presidente,o or mayor as we would
cali him, and small force of insurgent
soldiers.
IN JAIL AS PART OF THE COMEDY.
We knew it would be necessary for us
he coast from there north was absolutely
being composed of precipi-
armed force in this town would cause the
to take to the woods unless we
wrote anoher efer This etter ws
signed by Hilario Placido and merely said
MS we Way north u to '' Join Xguinaido: that he
lad captured five American prisoners and
hat he would remain in his town for
about two days and told him to provide
quarters and rations for his men at once.
We sent Cecilia Sigismondo. two soldiers
md two Macabebe scouts to town with
his letter. and we went in later. When
We reached there the people were out to
greet us. They looked with considerable
We being the first they had ever seen. The
oEe. and it was with great difficulty that
We were able to keep these men from
angling and giving the whole business |
way.
Before disembarking from the ship we |
i've Americans were dressed entirely as |
'rivate soldiers. in the uniform of the |
United States army. but with no insignia |
4 rank Each man wore a campaign hat, |
blue shirt and a pair of khaki trousers, /
nd carried no extras. believe, but a few |
hat didn't weigh very much anyhow /
nd when we rea ched Casiguran we were |
urned over to the Casiguran authorities |
nd put in the town jail. In case l ever |
un for office back in Kansas don't want /