War of Frontier and Empire

by David J Silbey

  The soldiers in the Philippines were split between the two candidates. The officer corps, for the most part, leaned toward McKinley, believing that Bryan and the Democrats would pull out of the Philippines. But the ordinary soldiers seem to have been much more evenly inclined. In a mock election in the Thirty-third U.S. Volunteer Infantry, Company A went for McKinley 23 votes to 13, but Company B went for Bryan 24 votes to 14. The overall count for the entire regiment was 79 for McKinley to 55 for Bryan. The margin was heavily weighed toward McKinley, but, perhaps surprisingly, it was nowhere near unanimous.56

  In essence, the election of 1900 stood as an affirmation of McKinley’s policies, both foreign and domestic. Voters may or may not have consciously meant it that way, but the practical effect was the same. McKinley was confirmed in office, the Republicans were confirmed in their majorities, and thus the policies of the American government were unlikely to change substantially. The United States was in the Philippines to stay.

  Reactions to the elections came from both sides of the conflict. For the Filipinos, the election was a disaster. Aguinaldo had pinned his hopes on it, and had made it seem as if Bryan’s victory was a foregone conclusion. The news of McKinley’s triumph seems to have shattered morale among the insurgents. The concentrated efforts of September and October were now apparently exposed as worthless. From Hong Kong, the head of the junta there wrote on November 10 with the disagreeable news:

  McKinley, our mortal enemy, who aims at our subjugation, whose announced plan is to convert us into servants of his servants. … McKinley, we repeat, he who calls us bandits, uneducated and savage, has been re-elected.

  The junta “felt this check in the utmost depths of its heart.”57

  The result in November and December 1900 was a wave of surrenders by insurgent forces. At the end of November, over a thousand bolomen came to Santa Maria in northern Luzon to surrender to the American commander, General Young. He did not have the supplies to feed them and asked them to return in a few days. When they did, on December 2, there were over two thousand. “The President’s re-election and vigorous prosecution of the war” were the reasons, Young reported to MacArthur.58 The previous largest surrender that Young had taken was of two hundred insurrectos.59

  Aguinaldo himself was reduced to wondering if perhaps McKinley might have a change of heart. “Who knows,” he wrote on November 12, “but that the Señor [McKinley] may not reestablish our destroyed government. … That the great North American Republic with its military honor satisfied and actuated by sentiments of humanity will recognize our lawful rights.”60 These were wistful words from a leader who, two weeks earlier, had written that “it is better to die with honor than to live dishonored and execrated.”61

  On the American side, after the election, American soldiers, officers, and administrators in the Philippines knew that a withdrawal was not imminent. In addition, the cannier among them—and MacArthur should be included—realized that the political pressure had been relaxed, at least for the next year or so. Until the president started thinking about the next midterm elections, the political consequences of actions in the Philippines could be, if not completely ignored, at least downgraded. Thus American forces had to worry much less about the immediate domestic repercussions of their actions in the Philippines.

  As a result, MacArthur resumed and ramped up his preparations for a sustained campaign against the insurgents and their civilian supporters. This came with the full support of Elihu Root and the War Department, and surely with that of his own officers and men, who felt that they had been restrained from treating the insurgents and their native supporters with the necessary harshness.

  In late December 1900 MacArthur issued two critical communications. The first, on December 20, was to the people of the Philippines. In it MacArthur laid out the stringent policy. The harsher provisions of General Order 100 would be strictly enforced. The second came six days later, when MacArthur cabled Root asking for permission to deport suspected rebel leaders to Guam. Root cabled his assent, and MacArthur deported Apollinaro Mabini, among others, to the mid-Pacific island.

  The difficulty with General Orders 100 and with MacArthur’s use of them in the Philippines was that they left much up to the judgment of the individual on the spot, whether officer or enlisted man. In the archipelago, where many units were far distant from Manila, and where lines of communication stretched for weeks, GO 100 put a great deal of responsibility on the sergeants, lieutenants, and captains who ran the small garrisons on a day-to-day basis. GO 100 forbade “wanton” destruction, but what constituted “wanton” destruction? GO 100 allowed for reasonable physical punishment of uncooperative civilians, but what was reasonable?

  Some historians have pointed to the fact that the American soldiers themselves could be harshly punished if they misbehaved, and that U.S. officers were frequently just as concerned about the mistreatment of Filipino natives by their own soldiers as they were about any other form of bad behavior. American officers, as John Reed has pointed out, wanted to create the impression of “stern, uncompromising justice” that applied to soldiers, insurgents, and civilians alike.62

  It is nonetheless clear that there were American officers and men who practiced fairly dubious methods in their waging of the guerrilla war. Some of these episodes arose out of lack of knowledge or simple incompetence. John D. LaWall remembered one of his lieutenants was “such a drunkard that he boasted of his willingness to sell his soul for a drink of whiskey.” One night, when the captain of LaWall’s company was in Manila, this particular lieutenant was in command. When one of the sentries thought he heard a gunshot, “the drunken Lieutenant had the men fall out, lined them up and ordered them to fire 3000 or 4000 rounds into the sleeping village across the river.” A number of civilians were killed, but what was reported was that the “gallant company had routed the enemy.”63

  But some of these practices were official or semiofficial policy. Perhaps the most famous of these was the “water cure.” Pvt. Evan Wyatt of the Eighth Infantry U.S. Volunteers recalled how it worked. “Water cure … consisted of laying a prisoner on his back and pouring water down his throat until he looked like a pregnant woman.” If the initial application did not work, the prisoner would be forced to vomit the water up, sometimes by having a soldier step or jump on his stomach, and the process would be repeated. Wyatt did not enjoy it: “the spectacle was so horrible [that] I walked away.”64

  The water cure has become something of a stand-in for all sorts of physical punishments used to make people talk; its peculiar brutality captured the imagination of observers and historians alike. There is little evidence to suggest that the water cure was more prevalent than simple beatings or mock hangings or other forms of violence. What is clear is that a range of ways was used to get people to talk, and many of them would be (and were) considered forms of torture. Torture was never official American policy, but in many places it became de facto American practice.

  MacArthur also took another important step in December 1900. Under a fair amount of prodding from Taft and the members of the Philippine Commission, MacArthur agreed to expand greatly the native constabulary and field forces. Those groups, started under Otis but neglected since, would be used to supplement American troops, to guide U.S. forces in remote areas, to gather intelligence, and to serve as police in various areas, including Manila. The expansion had a number of positive effects for the Americans. It created a force whose members instinctively understood the culture and behavior of those they were fighting because they were usually from the same ethnic group. Native police and soldiers also had access to contacts and intelligence from the community that Americans, hamstrung by their lack of language skills and their racism, could not match. In addition, recruiting men of military age for these bodies and paying them a reasonable wage drained the pool of possible recruits for the insurgents. Finally, having native forces carry some of the burden of policing, scouting, and fighting eased the burden on American forces. For an
American commander continually short of men, as MacArthur was, this was a strong incentive. Though it started slowly, the massive increase in these native police and military groups was one of MacArthur’s most important contributions to the war effort. MacArthur also encouraged the formation of a Philippine political party, the Federal Party, which supported the American presence in the islands. The leaders of the new party were a range of middle- and upper-class Filipinos, and they stood as a potential political rival to Aguinaldo’s Philippine Republic, offering a political refuge for those wavering between the Republic and the United States.

  The outline of MacArthur’s plan should be clear. He had put together a military response, deploying garrisons in key areas combined with large mobile forces that would sweep through and seek out guerrilla forces. He had put together a civilian response, targeting those who supported the guerrillas and allowing the destruction of property as a method of punishment. He had put together the beginnings of a long-term response. If the native forces were successful and could be built up, then American forces could be drawn down, critical for any long-term occupation of the islands.

  The only thing left to do was to put his plan into operation. Throughout the Philippines, starting in December, columns of American soldiers began to push their way into the mountains and jungles of the Philippines, chasing insurgent bands and struggling through the terrain. The soldiers had had some warning of what was to come: “Companies A and B, Thirty-Third Infantry, were called out to receive new shoes,” Lewis Cozzens remembered. “This is always an ominous sign. It usually means that a long march is in the offing.”65

  Mindanao

  In the southern island of Mindanao, Brig. Gen. William A. Kobbé and his originally sparse force, now built up through the addition of the Twenty-eighth Infantry, began operations to intensify the pressure on the local guerrillas. “Operations have been continuous night and day since December 8 in all sections, each column, as it comes in to recuperate, finding another ready to take its place.”66

  Kobbé himself led a force of men from the Fortieth Infantry Regiment to chase down a group of guerrillas under the command of Gen. Nicolas Capistrano. Kobbé’s aide was Capt. John J. Pershing, who would rise to greater things during World War I and after. Kobbé’s force pushed into the jungle in late December in search of Capistrano. As always in the Philippines, the Americans fought the terrain as much as the enemy. “The country was indescribably difficult,” Pershing remembered, “mountainous inland, heavily wooded here and there, and cut by rivers and precipitous ravines.”67 The grass rose “to the height of twenty feet … its blades are razor like. … Frequently the trails are mere tunnels … wherein passage is all the way from a stooping posture on all fours to an upright walk, often in mud and water to the waist,” remembered another officer.68 For the infantry, it was bad enough. For the cavalry men and their horses and, more, the artillery unit with its wagons and cannon, it was sheer hell.

  But the Americans persisted, and pushed deeper and deeper down the Cagayan River. Capistrano’s men harassed them from long range with rifle fire, but refused at first to give battle. Kobbé forced the issue and finally brought Capistrano to ground at a fortified position on December 17. The fort was at the head of a deep gorge, difficult to approach directly. But Kobbé managed to get both men and machine guns on top of one of the gorge walls and they rained fire into the insurgent position. After a two-day battle, Capistrano abandoned the fort and retreated. Kobbé followed. The two fought another battle outside the interior town of Langarang on the twenty-eighth; again the insurgents retreated. Capistrano was too smart to engage in a full-scale battle in which his force might be destroyed, but the continued pursuit by the Americans was having the effect of whittling his forces down anyway, through casualties and desertion.

  In addition to his military efforts, Kobbé devoted special care to cultivating relations with the locals. Taking advantage of Mindanao’s local feuds and the ham-handedness of some of the Tagalog guerrilla administrators, Kobbé built up his network of informants. Former insurgent officers proved especially useful, giving information on tactics and locations. This is not to say that force was not sometimes used to convince locals to give information, as when Col. William Birkhimer of the Twenty-eighth Regiment, patrolling at Kobbé’s orders in northeast Mindanao, sought information on insurgent movements. “Just then we seized a native, who was at the time acting in the double capacity of herder and outpost for the insurrectos and compelled him to show us the way.”69 Birkhimer did not elaborate on how he “compelled” the native. In some cases, the information came from an American. “On December 21, Private Alexander McAlfrey, a deserter from Company I, Fortieth Infantry, came in and surrendered to Captain Green. He gave much information.” McAlfrey guided a unit of the Fortieth to an insurgent stronghold that was found to contain “1,800 pounds coffee, 7,000 pounds rice, 7,000 pounds corn,” a number of cartridges, and seven brass cannon.70 The cannon were brought back to the American base; everything else was burned. What happened to McAlfrey is not recorded.

  Kobbé also used punitive measures against the civilian population. He seems to have gathered most of the men of military age in the district and confined them in American-controlled camps. American troops also frequently burned towns that were suspected of harboring insurrectos. And units approaching towns do not seem to have been too particular about their initial targets. Upon marching into the town of Silo, Colonel Birkhimer’s men encountered Filipinos:

  When within about 1200 yards, men were seen moving in the town. They discovered us simultaneously. They soon recognized us as enemies, ran into the houses hastily to get what they most prized and then scattered like quail up the mountains. … Hastily forming K Company in line on a ridge which fortunately offered itself, at 1,000 yards several volleys were fired at the disappearing Filipinos, 5 of whom were found dead in the outskirts of town.

  Note that Birkhimer did not have any conclusive evidence that the men were actually insurrectos. From 1,200 yards, it would be hard to distinguish them from civilians panicking at the sight of oncoming troops. Birkhimer, somewhat defensively, immediately after this account, points out that “there was every evidence that Silo was a rebel cuartel [village].”71 He did not specify what the evidence was.

  Kobbé’s campaign met with substantial success. By the beginning of February, Capistrano was negotiating his surrender, which finally took place at the end of March. His defeat essentially destroyed organized insurrecto resistance in northern Mindanao. After March 1901, insurrectos remained in the hills, but the network of organized forts, towns, and supply depots ceased to exist. What remained was a policing problem, not a military conflict.

  Six

  “SATISFACTORY AND ENCOURAGING”

  The Mindanao campaign was not an exception. Almost immediately it became clear that MacArthur’s campaign was going well. The monthly number of Filipino insurgents surrendering to the Americans rose to over eight hundred in January 1901. Nearly 23,000 small arms were handed in to American forces. MacArthur telegraphed home in the middle of the campaign on January 4, 1901, that “troops throughout the entire archipelago more active than at any time since November ’99. Results satisfactory and encouraging.”1

  “Satisfactory and encouraging” continued. And it was not just capturing or killing the guerrillas that made the most difference. Capturing weapons and ammunition was just as critical. The republic was desperately short of both, and rarely able to resupply its forces. It is thus not surprising that General Young in Ilocos was gleeful on January 29 when his men captured an insurgent arsenal that contained thirty pounds of gunpowder, three thousand shells, and 15,000 primers.

  The Americans did not have everything their own way, in Ilocos as elsewhere. The insurgents continued to use their tactics of ambush, and now that there were quite a number of American columns out and moving, the ambushers had what might be described as a target-rich environment. Most vulnerable were the resupply trains, moving t
hrough the islands to bring goods to both garrisons and mobile forces. On February 2 a pack train of the Fifth Infantry was attacked near Tayum in northern Luzon, with six dead and three wounded. What was different now, however, was what happened next. Pvt. Lewis Cozzens and his unit were detailed to chase the ambushers down. What would previously have been a fool’s errand of wandering aimlessly through the jungle now became something quite different. As they moved, local informants kept Cozzens and his unit apprised of the location of the ambushers, and the next day they captured “about two dozen of the enemy … who were put aboard rafts and sent downriver to Vigan for interrogation.” The impressive immediacy of the capture made it clear that the situation had changed substantially and likely for good. U.S. forces were no longer operating in a vacuum. Now, tracking and locating the enemy were possible and possible quickly.

  There is an interesting coda to this story. Cozzens’s compatriots were unsatisfied with simply capturing the enemy. Their friends had been slaughtered and they apparently needed more. When they returned to their barracks in Bangued, Cozzens himself was too tired to do more than collapse into his bunk: “my body was so sore, I could hardly move.” But other soldiers of the Fifth Infantry were not: “Twenty men … went into town, intending to exact revenge on the local Filipinos.” Thankfully, they were stopped before too much damage was done and “thrown in the guardhouse for being drunk and disorderly.”2 The near massacre illustrates the way in which American soldiers tended to lump all Filipinos together.