The National tribune., 1902-02-27

dash upon the town of Santa Maria, five
miles from the railroad station of Bo-
caue, about 80 miles north of Manila, with
the purpose of Furnishing the garrison
there for night raid it had made upon
our lines along the railroad, destroying the
town as a base of operations for the IN
surgents and, if possible, capturing ASun-
aldo. who was understood to be there at
the time of the raid, and to have planned
its details.
The dash was made. the town de
stroyed. and Aguinaldo was almost cap
tured, but not quite, and this was how 1t
happened.
Following the terrible drubbing Aguin-
aldo's army received in the running hight
of several days from Malabon to Maloios
and the capture of the latter place, then
the Capital of his Government. Gen. Mac
Arthur's army stopped in its triumphant
career and sat down to wait for the Fill
ipinOs to recover their breath, and incl
dentally to construct some new ntrench-
ments for us to capture. This was cen
Otis's policy. He would push on a little
distance, get the FilipinoS on the run, cap
ture their works. and then stop. and while
he was doing nothing the Filipinos would
construct new lines of defense, rally their
scattered forces, put heart into their dis
couraged and terrified troops and be ready
TO make the forward move costly one,
though had it been made at the proper
time it would have cost little in loss of
life Some 10 miles beyond Malolos the
railroad crosses the Rio Grand de Pam
panga, the most important point on the
entire line as a base, since 1t can be
reached by rail and water from Manila.
1t would have been easy to have
pushed the army on those additional 1O
miles and have taken this important po-
sition when the insurgents We're demor-
allied and on the run; but push Is the
word that was not in the vocabulary of
Gen. Otis during his Philippine campaigns
and so he ordered MacArthur'S victorious
and eager army to halt and wait until he
was ready to tell it to go on again. The
result was a large loss of life n month
later when the crossing of the Rio Grande
was forced including that of Col, Stotsen-
berg. of the Nebraska regiment; but all
this is not Il part of this story. This has
to do with what happened while Otis thus
held the army in check.
The railroad crosses quite number Of
streams between Malolos, then the ad-
vance position. and Manila, the base of
operations. and at each of these crossings
from one TO three companies of troops were
stationed as guards, to protect the bridges
from destruction by raiding parties of ma
tives, as well as to furnish men for COM
plete patrol of the track. This patrol was
dDdHUDHtu- Slutt IL
evident that two men walking in such an
exposed position, at regular times, and dis
tant from support, might easily be cut off
by waylaying parties, as actually hap
pened. Such reckless exposure of men
was ineXcuSabe and was stopped as soon
as its nature was realized.
These guard camps were constantly
thrOnged with refugees passing through.
the orders being not to moleSt or detain
Cuph and nnusnunpDtlv Of
the insurgents visited them at VIII, since
there was no possible way of distinguish
ing between a peaceable citizen and a sol
der, as both wore exactly the same cloth
ing Indeed, we had reason to believe
that men living in huts adjacent to the
camps were in fact soldiers and Joined in
the night attacks that were made upon us.
Men prowled about the camps nights, and
the sentinels did considerable shooting.
possibly at dogs and pigs and rustling
leaves in most cases, but at men in some
instances without question. Even in the
day time it was not safe to be alone any
distance from the camps. One of our
Lieutenants sitting on the bank of the
river not 100 yards from camp was at
tackled by a Filipino with revolver, the
assailant stealing up quietly behind him
and discharging the weapon at the back
of his head. Fortunately the bullet missed
his head, but struck his foot, which was
propped up against a tree, and went
through one of the toes. Jumping to his
feet the wounded man made a gun play
that caused the skulking assassin to take
to the brush in haste and escape.
Some seven miles northeast of the camp
occupied by three of the companies of the
Oregon regiment was the town of Santa
Maria. and this was used as base of
operations by the Filipinos in their raids
upon the railroad guards at night. Bo-
caue, the next station north, was five
miles west of Santa Maria. and from
there accommodating party was sent out
from the two Minnesota companies sta
TONED at that point, developing the fact
that Santa Maria was held strongly by
the enemy and had 4 stone fort formerly
occupied by the Spaniards.
One day ] was sent out with about so
men to reconnoiter in the direction of
Santa Maria, with instructions not to get
into a fight if / could help it. | located
and drove in two Filipino outpOsts and
observed the position OF a third, and Sc
cured the information from a native that
there were about 500 .'Insurrectos sOlda-
dos in the town, and then returned to
camp.
Only a few nights later we had proof
Of the strength Of the garrison in a COM
bined attack upon the Minnesota cOmpa-
nies at BOcaue and the Oregon companies
at Mariao, between midnight and dawn,
which made it lively for us for a time.
That amigos" from the adjoining huts
Joined in this attack we had no doubt
whatever. II was then decided by the
powers that we were to break up this
pestiferOus nest and make Santa Maria
no longer scrviceable as a base of insur-
gent operations. 1t was also understood
from natives that AguinaldO was at Santa
Maria and had in person planned the at
tack. and ii was hoped that sudden
swOop upon the town might result in his
capture, and so it might if we had
swOoped instead Of feeling our way eau
tiously before entering the town. Had
we thrown our left flank around to the
north of the town the insurgent chieftain
might have been ours.
The force selected was composed Of two
battalons of the Oregons, two of the Min
nesotas, one three-inch gun and one HOtch-
kiss revolving cannon. There was no
traction force for the artillery Indeed
up to this time in our operations all ar
tillery had been hauled by hand, mani
festly slow process in a country where
rice ridge foot TO two feet high has
to be crossed about every 100 feet. The
three-inch gun on this OCCASION however
was kept in the road and made fair pro
gress in following the line, bat il never
got within shooting distance in time to be
Of service. The Hotchkiss did better, but
we would have accomplished more had
neither gun been with us, for all they did
was TO delay us and then to scare Agun-
aldo out of town before we could get close
enough to capture him.
The afternoon before a train came along
with four companies from Mainta and