At the time that we visited the Insurgent trenches, not all of our own killed and wounded had been removed, yet every wounded Insurgent whom we found had a United States army canteen of water at his side, obviously left by some kindly American soldier.  Not a few of the injured had been furnished hardtack as well.  All were ultimately taken to Manila and there given the best of care by army surgeons.

Sometime later a most extraordinary account of this fight, written by a soldier, was published in the Springfield Republican.  It was charged that our men had murdered prisoners in cold blood, and had committed all manner of barbarities, the writer saying among other things:—­

“We first bombarded a town called Malabon and then entered it and killed every man, woman and child in the place.”

The facts were briefly as follows:  There was an Insurgent regiment in and near a mangrove swamp to the right of this town.  When it became obstreperous it was shelled for a short time until it quieted down again.  None of the shells entered the town.  Indeed, most of them struck in the water.  Our troops did not enter Malabon that day, but passed to the northward, leaving behind a small guard to keep the Insurgents from coming out of Malabon in their rear.  Had they then entered the town, they would not have found any women, children or non-combatant men to kill for the reason that all such persons had been sent away some time before.  The town was burned, in part, but by the Insurgents themselves.  They fired the church and a great orphan asylum, and did much other wanton damage.

Being able to speak from personal observation as to the occurrences of that day, I sent a long cablegram direct to the Chicago Times-Herald stating the facts.  After my return to the United States, President McKinley was kind enough to say to me that if there had been no other result from the visit of the first Philippine Commission to the islands than the sending of that cablegram, he should have considered the expense involved more than justified.  He added that the country was being flooded at the time with false and slanderous rumours, and people at home did not know what to believe.  The statements of army officers were discounted in advance, and other testimony from some unprejudiced source was badly needed.

On April 2, 1899, Colonel Denby arrived, and our serious work began.  The fighting continued and there was little that we could do save earnestly to strive to promote friendly relations with the conservative element among the Filipinos, and to gather the information we had been instructed to obtain.

On April 4, 1899, we issued a proclamation setting forth in clear and simple language the purposes of the American government. [444] It was translated into Tagalog and other dialects and widely circulated.  The Insurgent leaders were alert to keep the common people and the soldiers from learning of the kindly purposes of the United States.  They were forbidden to read the document and we were reliably informed that the imposition of the death penalty was threatened if this order was violated.  In Manila crowds of Filipinos gathered about copies of the proclamation which were posted in public places.  Many of them were soon effaced by Insurgent agents or sympathizers.