Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1900 — CAMPAIGN IN LUZON. [ARTICLE]

CAMPAIGN IN LUZON.

d SEVERE BLOW INFLICTED ON THE FILIPINOS. Fight in Which Seventy-four Insurgent* Are Killed - Americans Lose Four—Lient. Gi 11 more Safe in Man ila— Tells Thrilling Story of His Captivity. The campaign against the Filipino insurgents who have been massing in theprovince of Cavite during the last few weeks has been opened by Gen. Bates in decisive fashion, and a severe blow has been inflicted on the rebels —not without a serious loss to the American troops, however. Preliminary reconnoissances have been made by Col. Birkhimer with a battalion of the Twenty-eighth volunteers and one gun at Novaleta, by MsK Taggart with two battalions of the sak-e regiment, at Perez, das Marinas, and by a detachment of the Fourth infantry south of Imus. The American force under Col. Birkhimer was strongly opposed by the rebels, who were attacked in a strongly fortified position. Sixty-five of the insurgents were killed in their trenches and forty were wounded. The Americans lost three killed, including a lieutenant. Twenty were wounded. Thirty-five rifles were captured. Gen. Schwau’s command, which is now at Binaug. also had an engagement with the Filipinos, in which nine of the enemy were killed and twen-ty-six captured. The American losses in this fight were one killed and eleven wounded. Gen. Schwan has been working to the southeast, near Santa Rosa, along the Laguna de Bay. Gilmore Safe at Manila. Lieut. Gillmore of the cruiser Yorktown, who was captured by the insurgents near Baler many months ago, arrived at Manila Saturday night by boat from Vigan. He was attired in a Spanish uniform when he landed. Naval officers are rejoiced at the escape of Lieut. Gillmore. During most of the time he was in the hands of the rebels he was treated very harshly', and he is thin and weak. He very modestly tells a thrilling story of his adventures. lie says that he and his companions were halfstarved when they were rescued on Dec. 18 on the Abulut river. In the tight near Baler, where Lieut. Gillmore was captured, four of the landing party which he commanded were killed. These-were Dillon. Marcy, McDonald and Nygtrd. Three of the men.. Winders, Vanville and Woodbury, were wounded. The survivors of the party, who came to Manila with Lieut. Gillmore, are Walton. Voudoet, Ellsworth. Edwards, Petersen. Anderson and Brasolese.

After the men were captured they were all taken to San Isidro, where Lieut. Gillmore. who had been wounded in the knee, recovered from the effects of his injury. They were hurried from one place to another, frequently so weak as to be Jjardly able to move, yet always fearful fit meeting the fate of one who fell by the wayside and was promptly bayoneted: subsisting on horseflesh part of the lime and nearly starved all the time: confined in convents aud filthy prisons between forced marches back and forth, necessitated by the uncertainty as to where the Americans would strike next; unsuitably and insufficiently clothed and cruelly treated; ordered shot and then left unarmed to the mercy of savages by a captain who had not the heart to carry out the death sentence, and finally rescued by a detachment of American soldiers as they were building rafts in the almost vain hope of floating down a river to the oceaq—all this makes a story as thrilling as any ever told by prisonersof war. Yet there is one feature that, lightens the gloom of it all. Mercy and kindness were occasionally encountered. Aguinaldo personally treated the men a» well as circumstances would permit, and the Filipinos in some of the villages through which they passed actually jeopardized their lives to make the lot of the Americans a little easier. Indeed, Lieut. Gillmore is of the opinion that one of - them—Senor Vera of Vigan—was executed for befriending them.