THE GILMORE INCIDENT
Marie reached her destination late in the evening of April 9th,
and she at once notified the officers commanding the Filipinos who
were besieging Baler, what to expect. Knowing that with so small a
force, if the Americans undertook to relieve the Spanish garrison,
it would necessarily have to be done by way of the Baler river--as
the town of Baler where the Spanish garrison was located is some two
miles up the river from where it empties into the Pacific ocean, and
the American troops were too greatly outnumbered by the Filipinos to
make a land expedition safe,--she suggested to them the advisability
of fortifying the river at specific intervals along either bank and
of taking the precaution to cover the fortifications with freshly-cut
brush so that the Americans could not locate them for the purpose of
bombarding them in case they saw fit to load some of the smaller cannon
on cascoes and make their way up the river for an attack in that way.
The Filipinos took her suggestions, and the entrenchments and places
for the sentries were quickly, yet very wisely, arranged. It was
during the dry season and the river was very low at the time. This
made it possible to dig ditches on the sand bars which extended far
out into the stream; and by throwing into the river the loose sand
taken therefrom, to conceal these entrenchments by strewing over them
some fresh-cut limbs and old under brush which had the appearance of
having drifted to their lodgment.
The Yorktown arrived off the mouth of the Baler river, April 11, as
scheduled. Ensign Stanley went ashore, under a flag of truce, where,
to his surprise, he was cordially received by the Filipino officers;
but their exceptionally good behavior and the twinkle of their eyes
told only too plainly to the ensign that something was wrong. He
therefore returned to the Yorktown without having accomplished anything
in particular.
The next morning, at four o'clock, Lieutenant Gilmore and sixteen
brave associates left the Yorktown in a row boat, and entered the
mouth of the river. Ensign Stanley and Quartermaster Lysac were put
ashore to reconnoiter. In a few minutes daylight broke forth and
those left in the boat were discovered by the Filipino sentry who
was walking his beat along the shore. He gave the alarm. Lieutenant
Gilmore and his party could easily have pulled out to sea and gotten
away, but humanity forbade it. What would become of the two scouts
who went ashore? Their comrades in the boat could not desert them,
so they rowed up the river into the very jaws of impending danger.
Presently out of a concealed trench hundreds of armed Filipinos
opened a deadly fire on Gilmore and his comrades, at only fifty yards
distance. The water at this point was shallow. The boat got stuck in
the mud. There was nothing to do but to fight. In a moment Morrisy
fell dead, having been shot through the head; Dillon followed;
then McDonald, then Nygard;--Marie was doing deadly work with her
Mauser rifle.
The Americans returned the fire as best they could; but what was
the use. They could see nothing to fire at, so perfectly had the
Filipinos screened their trenches; besides, the Filipinos were using
smokeless powder.
Four of Gilmore's men were already dead, two were mortally wounded
and begging their comrades to shoot them before they fell into the
hands of the Filipinos, and two more were slightly wounded. Most
of the oars had been badly shattered by the enemy's rifle balls. In
this moment of desperation, Ellsworth, Woodbury and Edwards jumped
overboard and tried to push the boat out to mid-stream. It was no use;
the tide was coming in and the current was so strong that they could
not compete against it.
Lieutenant Gilmore was firing his revolver. He decided to change and
use one of the dead men's rifles. As he picked it up he noticed the
lock had been struck by a Remington ball and the clip had been jammed
in. He handed it to an apprentice lad, named Venville, to be fixed.
The boy had scarcely begun to examine the gun, when a bullet struck
him in the fleshy part of the neck. He had never been under fire
before. Looking up calmly, he said, "Mr. Gilmore, I'm hit."
In a moment another bullet struck him in the chest and came out of
his arm pit. With his attention riveted on his task, he remarked,
"I'm hit again, Mr. Gilmore."
Only a moment later another ball grazed the side of his head and cut
a painful wound in his scalp. "Mr. Gilmore, they've hit me again,"
he muttered, while he kept on working at the gun, with blood running
down all over him.
In a few minutes a fourth ball passed through the lad's ankle, one of
the most painful parts of the body in which to get shot. This time,
with a slight tremble in his voice, he said, "Mr. Gilmore, I'm hit
once more; but I've fixed your gun, Sir."
Just at this moment the Filipinos saw that the Americans' fire had
practically ceased. Throwing back from off their trench the limbs and
underbrush that had concealed them, the Filipinos, armed with guns,
spears, bolos and clubs, made a bold dash for the boat and captured
the entire crew.