ADDRESS TO THE
NEW YORK COMMANDERY, MILITARY ORDER OF LOYAL
LEGION, ON CRUELTIES IN THE PHILIPPINES
I desire to enter my protest and call the attention of the companions to
the position of a portion of the public press, and some people, towards
our Army in the Philippines, and what they assert are cruelties
perpetrated there.
There is a certain portion of the press, and also of the people, who are
and always have been absolutely opposed to the operations of our army in
the Philippines. They were very anxious to push us into a war which we
were all opposed to, but after getting us there they refused to accept the
results, and have persistently opposed everything done that was not in
exact accordance with their views. In order to work upon the sympathies of
the people, some of the papers are publishing pictures showing our
soldiers in the very act of committing great outrages; the pictures were
manufactured in their own offices, as were also most of the outrages
complained of. You have not, however, seen in these papers any pictures
portraying the cruelties perpetrated upon our soldiers, which have been
worse than any acts ever committed by the savages in our wars with them;
they are, in fact, too revolting to relate. I have had much to do with
Indian warfare, but have never seen any cruelties to be compared with
those inflicted upon our soldiers by the Filipinos, and these occurrences
were not rare, but general,--happening all the time. Very little has been
said on this subject, for it was not the policy of the Government to have
the stories of these atrocities printed, or brought before the people; but
now that our army is being so bitterly attacked, it is time that, the
soldiers' side of the question should be presented, and we are learning of
the soldiers who have been assassinated, their feet burned, buried alive,
killed by slow-burning fires, their bowels cut open and wound around
trees. The Filipinos indulged in every torture and indignity that was
possible, and, as a general thing, our soldiers did not retaliate. How
they managed to refrain from taking vengeance is beyond my comprehension,
but their action is greatly to their credit and honor.
The questions I wish to bring before you, however, are, What are the
rights of an officer in such matters? What are his duties and privileges
in war in an enemy's country that is under martial law? Take, for
instance, General Smith's position when he was sent to Samar, with
instructions to wipe out the insurrection there. He is said to have issued
instructions to kill everybody found in arms that was over ten years of
age, and to burn the country, if it was necessary to wipe out the
insurrection, and the result is that in ninety days or less he did wipe
out the insurrection, and without any great loss on our side or on the
part of the enemy. Now they are denouncing him for a threat,--not an act.
The temptation to retaliate must have been very great, for the treatment
the Ninth Infantry received from those savages was nothing short of
murder, followed by the most horrible mutilation, by a people who
pretended to be their friends and at peace. In the ninety days he was
operating there General Smith brought the island to peace, everybody in it
had surrendered, and it is quiet. If he had made war under the methods
advocated, allowing no one to be hurt, in all probability the subjugation
of the island would have required a year's time, and there would have been
ten times the suffering and loss of life than actually occurred. He simply
followed the plan of war that was pursued by Grant, Sherman, and other
commanders in the Civil War; that is, made it just as effective and short
as possible. You know Sherman's position was that after a certain length
of time when an enemy had been whipped, it was their duty to cease making
war, and if they did not do so, he considered that any means were
justifiable in order to bring it to an end. He stated this very clearly in
his St. Louis speech. He stated the case as follows:
I claim that when we took Vicksburg, by all the rules of civilized
warfare the Confederates should have surrendered, and allowed us to
restore peace in the land. I claim also that when we took Atlanta they
were bound by every rule of civilized warfare to surrender their
cause, which was then hopeless, and it was clear as daylight that they
were bound to surrender and return to civil life; but they continued
the war, and then we had a right under the rules of civilized warfare
to commence a system that would make them feel the power of the
Government, and make them succumb. I had to go through Georgia to let
them see what war meant. I had a right to destroy, which I did, and I
made them feel the consequences of war so fully they will never again
invite an invading Army.
You all know of the troubles that occurred in the border states during the
Civil War, and of the cruelties to the families of Union men who entered
our Army. It was father against son, brother against brother, and, as
General Sherman said, "It was cruelty, and there was no refining it." We
know what severe orders were given for treatment of enemies within our
lines, when their acts were in violation of the laws of war. In one case
torpedoes were placed under a road over which our troops were marching,
and several soldiers were killed. Sherman happened to come along just at
that time, and said to the Colonel of the First Alabama Cavalry, which was
his escort, "Burn the country within fifteen miles surrounding this spot."
You all know what that meant; it was a license under which other things
besides burning was done. An eye-witness describes Sherman's march to the
sea and through the Carolinas as a "cloud of smoke by day and a pillar of
fire by night." Who ever made the suggestion that Sherman's uniform should
be stripped off for this, or that he should be shot, as some of our
representatives in Congress and our press now demand should be done in the
Philippines for making war in earnest?
Take another case, where Captain Anderson captured a train of convalescent
unarmed Union soldiers in North Missouri, and placed them in line and shot
every one of them. Shortly afterwards Colonel Johnson, of the Missouri
State Militia, who was following Anderson, came up. Anderson attacked,
this militia command of 160 men and killed 143, only seventeen getting
away. Only one man was taken alive, and he saved himself by giving a
Masonic sign. The war records are full of cases of individual acts, and I
select one of which I had personal knowledge. It is found in volume 38, of
the War Records. The orders in Missouri at that time were that any person
who harbored a guerilla, and did not report the fact to the nearest
commanding Union officer, should receive the same treatment as the
guerilla. A man by the name of McReynolds violated these orders, and
harbored Quantrell, the guerilla, and the officer who detected it, after
stating all the facts and evidence, reported to me as follows:
On consultation with the squadron commanders, Captain Hamblin and
Lieutenant Grain, it was decided to execute McReynolds, which was
carried out under my orders.