The Story of General Pershing Part 6

Among those who especially defied the American authority was the Sultan of Bacalan and 600 of his followers who occupied a stronghold on the western side of Lake Lanao from which they made almost daily forays.

Walls of earth and bamboo some 20 feet in thickness had been added to the natural defenses of the position they selected. A moat 40 feet wide and 30 feet deep surrounded the position. The defenders thought it was proof against any possible attack. Friendly overtures failed to make an impression upon their leaders, and their cotta was finally surrounded and their surrender demanded. Still confident of their prowess, they declined to accede to the American Commander's demands and the latter was compelled to a.s.sault this strong fortification. Accordingly trees were felled and used to make a crossing over the moat and when all was in readiness the place was taken in a fierce hand-to-hand encounter between the Americans and the Moros. The American success was complete and a severe lesson was taught to Moros in that region. General Pers.h.i.+ng completed the conquest of Mindanao Moros by marching his command entirely around Lake Lanao through the dense jungles and swamps bordering the lake.

As a matter of interest several reports made by General Pers.h.i.+ng on his work in the Philippines follow, and some in which reference is made to him by certain of his superior officers at that time.

In the later reports sent by Pers.h.i.+ng there is manifest the same painstaking carefulness and thorough understanding of his task. He makes recommendations concerning the distribution of the troops in the Philippines, goes into detail about the necessity and the location of cold storage plants, and has positive convictions as to what changes ought to be made in the Subsistence Department. Certain posts also ought to be made permanent. He clearly presents the reasons leading to his conclusions.

Annual Report of the Lieutenant General commanding the Army--1901

The command left Cagayan, December 16th, under Major Case, accompanied by Major J. J. Pers.h.i.+ng, adjutant general, department of Mindanao and Jolo.

In a narrow gorge 800 feet deep formed by the river the insurgents were found in three strongly constructed forts which our troops attacked without loss. The enemy must have suffered severely, but his loss was not ascertained. Two cannon fell into our hands. The 18th and 19th of December were consumed in surrounding the stronghold of Maxajambos by gaining a position commanding Langaran to the south of Maxajambos.

Langaran, which was the headquarters of the insurgents, was entered on the 20th and considerable quant.i.ty of provisions, ammunitions of war, cuartels, etc., were found and destroyed.

The insurrectos had made good their escape under cover of darkness.

On the 28th, the insurgents were discovered a mile and a half south of Langaran occupying a strong position which our troops succeeded in reaching and the enemy was forced to retreat in disorder.

The command then moved on to Talacao but was not met by any resistance. Such buildings as had been used by the insurgents for storehouses, etc., were destroyed as well as supplies. One prisoner was taken. The surrounding country was thoroughly scouted without encountering any enemy force. The troops returned to Cagayan the 31st of December.

From the report of Captain James J. Mays, 40th Infantry, concerning the attack on Cagayan, December 16th to 25th, 1900:

He reports, "late in the afternoon of December 17th insurgents concealed in the brush fired on horses that were being watered in the canon. Major Pers.h.i.+ng, who was with the command, took fifteen men on one bluff and I took about the same number on another and poured volleys into the canon, firing at smoke from insurgent pieces, silencing their fire. I think we killed some of them, but do not know. The following morning Major Pers.h.i.+ng crossed the river and joined Captain Millar.

Captain Millar threw sh.e.l.ls into Maxajambos and signaled that the place seemed deserted. During the day I kept patrols on the plateau. Senor Cruz came out on the morning of this day and I sent him to Captain Millar. I questioned him about the plan of cutting through the timber. He said he never heard of anyone getting through there and that it would be very difficult on account of the canon, and also that it would end on top of a cliff 400 or 500 feet high. I concluded not to attempt it."

To the Headquarters Department of Mindanao and Jolo.

Cagayan de Misamis, P. I.

February 2, 1901.

The Commanding Officer, Provincial District of Mindanao and Jolo.

SIR: I am instructed by the department commander to advise you that General Capistrano, commanding the insurgent forces in Northern Mindanao, has signified his wish to meet the department commander in conference and to direct that you take whatever measures are possible to insure his safe conduct accompanied by his staff and that of any tribes with a pa.s.s signed by the commanding general and countersigned by the adjutant general.

Patrols and expeditionary forces need not be suspended but should be warned to be at special pains not to molest unresisting parties of natives and to take special care not to interfere with individuals or squadrons, to indicate that their mission is peaceful.

Very respectfully, J. J. PERs.h.i.+NG, a.s.sistant Adjutant General.

To the Headquarters Department of Mindanao and Jolo.

Cagayan de Misamis, P. I.

February 28, 1901.

To the Commanding Officer, 1st District of Mindanao and Jolo.

SIR: I am instructed by the Department commander to invite your attention to the fact that there are at this place ten prisoners of war either now or recently officers in the insurgent forces. With one or two exceptions these officers have voluntarily surrendered one at a time and have been induced to do so with a distinct understanding that they would not be closely confined or otherwise molested so long as they refrained from all conduct which might be construed as hostile to the United States.

It is understood that most of these have severed their connections with the insurgent forces and have thrown up their appointments as officers.

You will please a.s.semble these men, give them strict, but fair limits of arrest, extending in no case beyond the limits of the town of Cagayan de Misamis and inform them that any violation of their obligations as prisoners of war, however slight, will be followed by immediate arrest and deportation from the Philippine Islands to Guam; also that they are to report daily in a body at a stated hour to the Provost Marshal.

The Department Commander further directs that you a.s.semble all the more prominent citizens of this and adjoining towns who are known or suspected of being in sympathy with the insurgents and inform them that they must refrain absolutely from giving aid or comfort to them and without communicating with the insurgent forces in any manner under penalty of immediate arrest and deportation.

In carrying out the terms of this order you are directed to exercise considerable vigilance and the most drastic vigor.

Very respectfully, J. J. PERs.h.i.+NG, a.s.sistant Adjutant General.

CHAPTER VIII

SUBJECTING THE MOROS

THE first period of General Pers.h.i.+ng's service in the Philippine Islands lasted until 1903. He then was recalled to the United States and became a member of the General Staff Corps. This position he held until 1906.

Within that time, however, he was appointed the military attache at Tokio, j.a.pan, and was with General Kuroki in the latter's campaign in the war between j.a.pan and Russia. It is said that his report forwarded to our Government is one of the most lucid and forceful military doc.u.ments ever received by the Department.

If any discouragements had come to the young officer in his lonely campaigns in the jungles of the Philippines and he had felt that somehow he had been banished to a region where his services of necessity would never be recognized, that thought was banished by the action of President Roosevelt in 1906.

His services in the First and Fifteenth Cavalry as well as his activities in Was.h.i.+ngton and his report as the military attache of his Government, had brought him very strongly before the attention of the President, who now was eager to reward him for his faithful services.

There were certain obstacles, however, in the way, and the President did his utmost to secure the proper legislation to enable him to reward the soldier whom he was eager to honor. There were delays, however, and the delays continued. Red tape exerted its binding force upon the makers of the laws and no apparent progress was made.

Thereupon President Roosevelt in his direct way determined to wait no longer for changes in the laws. Promptly he nominated Pers.h.i.+ng to be Brigadier General; the nomination was confirmed and the long deferred recognition was now manifest.

He had labored in somewhat obscure fields. He had a.s.sisted in subduing insurrections, had supervised many local improvements in the territory within which he was working. He had a.s.sisted in winning victories and had warded off attacks by hostile Moros. There had, however, been nothing spectacular in his work. His reliability, good sense, bravery and administrative ability, however, were now better known and he was in every way prepared for the more important problems which now confronted him.

The President by his action had raised or "jumped" the new general eight hundred and sixty-two orders. Worthy as the honor was and worthily bestowed, for a time there were protests from disappointed seekers after office. Some cried "politics," but as a rule these objections came in loudest tones from those who by devious ways had sought certain "pulls"

for their own elevation. Personal ambitions and personal jealousies, perhaps, also entered to a degree and aided not a little in delaying the legislation which President Roosevelt desired.

Doubtless this condition deeply hurt General Pers.h.i.+ng, but there was no complaining on his part. It was his to show that he was not unworthy of his new honor. Years before he had been taught by his father that to be worthy of promotion was more than the promotion itself. And now he was soon to return to the Philippines to show in the jungle and on the field, in council and administration, that the action of the President had not been the result of idle or thoughtless impulse.

Not long before this time, on January 26, 1905, General Pers.h.i.+ng was married. There is a current story, for the truthfulness of which the writer cannot vouch, that when the nomination of Major Pers.h.i.+ng for promotion was placed before the Senate, there was made at the same time a just and true statement of the distinguished services he had rendered his country in his career in the Philippines. In the visitors' gallery with friends, intently listening to the proceedings, was Miss Frances Warren, daughter of United States Senator Warren of Wyoming. As she listened to the words spoken concerning the American officer in the Philippines it is said she remarked, "What a wonderful record. I should like to see the man who made it." Not long afterward she did see him though the meeting was entirely unexpected. Doubtless the man impressed her more than had his praises to which she had listened in the halls of Congress, for on January 26, 1905, she became Mrs. John Joseph Pers.h.i.+ng.

The general, who for years had been compelled to live a somewhat lonely life, whose activities had kept him far from friends and his own people, was now to have the help and comfort of the strong and beautiful daughter of Senator Warren. Never effusive nor one to refer to his personal or private affairs, his friends nevertheless have told of the deep love of the General for his wife and family--a tragic setting for the terrible tragedy which later in a moment disrupted his home and deprived him forever of his wife and three little daughters.

Directly after the wedding and before the general and his bride could carry out the plans of a trip they were expecting to make to j.a.pan, he was abruptly ordered to join the forces of General Kuroki, as has been said, as the representative of the Army of the United States in the war between j.a.pan and Russia. Like the good soldier that he was there was no complaining, no expression of his personal disappointment; he at once obeyed.

For a time General Pers.h.i.+ng's work in the Philippines, to which he soon returned, was not unlike that in which he formerly had been engaged.

The raids of the Moros on the coast towns were checked by Pers.h.i.+ng's brilliant victory at Bayan. But the tribe though defeated in this battle were by no means conquered. They were obdurate and their long experience with the Spaniards made them confident of their ability to hold off the new invading force.

Six hundred hot-headed Moros were ready to defend their fortress--the first of forty similar ones,--in the crater of an extinct volcano. The most hot-headed of all was the leader, the Sultan of Bacolod. Walls of earth and bamboo, forty feet in thickness, had been added to the natural defenses. A moat forty feet wide and thirty feet deep surrounded the position. The defenders believed it was proof against every possible attack.

With five hundred of his own men and an equal number of selected Filipino scouts Pers.h.i.+ng advanced. The march was difficult and slow, for in many places the troops were compelled to cut a pathway through dense jungles and all the way they were exposed to sudden and fierce attacks by the fanatical Moros. But Pers.h.i.+ng relentlessly pushed forward and at last arrived at the foot of the mountain on which the Moros had confidently gathered in their supposedly impregnable stronghold,--"proof against all attacks."

Not a day was lost. Quietly the leader remarked that he would "take the place if it took ten years to capture it"--a remark that reminds one of a similar declaration by another American soldier that he would "fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."

First, his jungle fighters cut a trail entirely around the base of the mountain, at the same time doing their utmost to protect themselves against attacks from the Moros who were as skillful in this work as they were in nearly every phase of fighting in the jungle. The men were compelled also to protect themselves from attacks from above, for it was a favorite method of the Moros by unexpected attacks, in rushes of wild fury, to scatter their enemies when they tried to ascend.

The soldiers speedily formed a complete cordon around the mountain and the siege promptly began. Pers.h.i.+ng knew what the Moros did not know that he knew,--when they had withdrawn to their stronghold they had done so in such haste that they neglected or were unable to bring with them supplies sufficient for a long siege, and not many days would pa.s.s before the necessity of obtaining food would compel them to try to break the iron ring about them and to send out parties for help.