The National tribune., 1902-01-30
THE BATTLE OF HOMBRE RUN.
Gen. Wheatons Flying Column and the Strenuous Campaign
Against Pic del Pillar.
By CAPT. HARRY L. WELLS, I'd Ore. Vols.

| pivUs, we began swinging around to the
| left as we advanced, hoping to catch Pillar
between our lines and the Laguna shore,
the 22d endeav0riDg TO go so far south
as to reach the Laguna in his rear.
Possibly this good plan was spoiled by
the WashingtOns, for they jumped Pillars
men early in the morning on the lew
ground between the high land on whicn
we were struggling along and the lake,
and fought them 50 hard and chased them
SO strenuously that they drove them south
too fast for us TO inclose them in our
net.
| have been in half q dozen of those
pivotal inclusiug movements, and every
last one of them was spoiled by this same
fault of putting the pivot in motion too
soon and driving the game out of the net
before the net could be spread. That was
the trouble at the battle of Malabon; that
was what spoiled Lawton's raid tO San
Isidro; that was what let the insurgents
escape on the MOronS campaign, and that
was what spoiled the elaborately planned
attack at Paranaque.
The Washingtons killed quite q nTm-
her of them and had few casualties
themselves, and as they progressed they
burned the hutS the insurgents used to
fight from. the smoke of their progress
being plainly seen by us on the uplands.
This region was a wild and unculti-
waited one in the main, consisting of very
uneven and rocky hills, with deep ravines
running through them, denSely grown up
with brush, and here and there a swamp
in the deprcSsiOnS, with an occasional rice
field in the comparatively fiat places and
climbing the sides of the gentler slopes.
1t was impossible for the deplOyed line
to cross the ravineS and the swampS with
ont doing so by little trails occasionally
discovered. and in order to do this the
line was broken up into columns of files,
sometimes by companies and sometimes
the entire battalion IN n column. In the
latter case when the column had been
forced to the right it was necessary to
deplOy again by n left front movement
into line, with the result that the com
pany on the left travelled double distance.
1t had to rOllOw the column clear down
TO the extreme right of the battalion and
then deploy to the extreme left again
over the rough ground in a hurry. This
company was mine, and we began to get
tired after q few hours of this kind of
work. The result was the men began to
give out, some of them simply exhausted
and others suffering from heatstrOkes.
The latter were cared for by the former
as best they could until they themselves
were rested, when they managed to get
the disabled ones down to the lake shore,
where the Surgeons could get at them.
The rest of US kept on the line and
linked" it as fast as we could In an ef
fort to catch up with the fleet and fleeing
natives and get little satisfaction out Of
them.
Several times as we passed over the
brow of the hill and started down its
sides, we were fred upon from the crest
of the hill in front, but our elusive quarry
would not remain long enough for us TO
do them any damage. Thus we pushed
on for about five hours of steady work.
being fired into in this way several times,
but never getting a sight of the enemy
until about IL o'clock, when we brought
them TO bay in a strong position on the
summit OF a ridge which commanded the
long and open approach to it across a
valley completely. Here their line front
ed our regiment and they poured in the
Mausers and Remingtons with the best
skill they had.
The company 1 brought on to the line
in the advance against this ridge was only
about half the strength of the one with
which had started in the morning, and
was composed chiefly of the medium and
small-sized men. The big men had given
out. OF the first squad of eight men, all
six feet or over in hight, there were but