Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-02-24
MIDST 0F ALARMS ! --- e :. Many Trying Periods of Anxiety :; in Times of War. The Dread of Surprise by an Enemy
 Has Brought About Many Hu- morOus SituatiOns-AJ Joke ts* <& on Gen. Wheeler.


 In all wars of any magnitude the dread of surprise has often led to the adop- tion of precautionary measures to insure safety that sometimes appear to the reader of history wholly unnecessary. It is difficult, however, to comprehend without experience, to what high ten sion of mind the leaders of bodies of troops operating in the presence of an armed enemy are subjected by a sense of their great responsibility. Under such conditions there is often for time neither sleep nor rest for the command CTS of the operating force, and the nerv- ous strain thus produced has led often to needless apprehensions and some times to hasty action scarcely war ranted by the existing situation. Prob ably one of the best illustrations of this fact is found in the remarkable Battle of Rodondo" fought somewhere near St. Thomas in the latter part of 1852. The admiral of Dutch fleet sailing in search of English vessels during the naval war with England then in progress, discov- cred the advance vessel of the enemy's fleet bearing down upon him one foggy morning just before dawn, as he anx- iously paced the deck of his ship, and at once directed his gunners to open fire. He was not moment too soon, for his fire was immediately returned, and for awhile most terrific bombardment was maintained. The smoke from the guns quickly enveloped the Dutch fleet so that nothing could be seen of the enemy, but it was evident that he had not sailed away, from the fact that whenever a gun was discharged at him he returned one for it.
 Finally the fog lifted, and the wind blew the smoke aside, revealing to the astonished gaze of the Dutch admiral a great rock standing out of the sea a short distance away. Not sail of the enemy was in sight. For five hours the doughty Hollanders had been firing at the granite wall before them imagining that the echoes which answered their fire were the return shots of the enemy.
 Possibly every soldier who served in with Spain, is able to recall occasions of general alarm, sometimes well founded. but more commonly the result simply or the nervous strain produced by anx- ious watching.
 Such an occasion occurred in western Virginia in 1862, when an outpost of Gen. Rosecrans' army was attacked in the night by troop of confederate cav airy. The enemy's advance was fired upon by the sentinels and held at bay while the outpost was hastily formed in line to receive the assault. When day. light came broken-down mule that had been abandoned by the army was found dead near the camp. The poor creature, in it's eager search for food, had evidently stumbled upon the sentinels and had been mistaken in the darkness by the vigilant and apprehensive soldiers on watch as an advance skirmisher of the enemy.
 Numerous occasions of alarm occurred fin our armies during the war in the Phil ippines with the insurgents, very often with cause, for the Filipinos were alert and aggressive, but sometimes as the direct result of long-continued appre- hension. On one occasion the pounding of the dry rice plant by a party of na- uves in the effort to separate the grain from the chaff, caused general alarm in Gen. Wheeier's brigade & mile or so away. The noise of the pounding re- sembled the discharge of musketry by volleys and quickly awakened the inn precision in the generals camp that a battle was going on between the insur- gents and force of American infantry. A regiment was quickly formed, and with Gen. Wheeler and his staff at its head. hastened rapidly to join the bat tie E~~ &
 On reaching the spot six native women and one man armed with heavy wooden mauIs, were discovered industriously beating out rice grains in several great, conica1 shaped mortars, the blows re- sounding from the hollow vessels sound cd at little distance away for all the world like the rumble of musketry in an engagement. ..g...
 As may be imagined, there was much merriment over the incident, and the recollection of '"The Battle of the Rice Founders" is still green in the memory of Wheeler's invincible followers in the war with the Filipino insurgents.
 R. H. BRINKERHoFF,