If Major Starr ever made such a statement he was sadly misinformed.  General Lawton was the best friend I ever had in the United States Army.  I saw him almost daily when he was in Manila, and he showed me the whole telegraphic correspondence which passed between him and General Otis on the subject of the withdrawal from San Isidro and Nueva Ecija, which was certainly one of the most ill advised moves that any military commander was ever compelled to make.  General Lawton’s unremitting attacks had absolutely demoralized the Insurgent force, and my information is that when he finally turned back, Aguinaldo and several members of his cabinet were waiting, ten miles away, to surrender to him when he next advanced, believing that they could never escape from him.  I have not the telegraphic correspondence before me, but I remember its salient features.  Otis ordered Lawton to withdraw, and Lawton, convinced of the inadvisability of the measure, objected.  Otis replied that, with the rainy season coming on, he could neither provision him nor furnish him ammunition.  Lawton answered that he had provisions enough to last three weeks and ammunition enough to finish the war, whereupon Otis peremptorily ordered him to withdraw.  The Philippine Commission had no more to do with this matter than they had to do with the similar order against advancing which Otis sent Lawton on the day the latter won the Zapote River fight, when the Insurgents were running all over the Province of Cavite.  Lawton wanted to push forward and clean the whole place up.  The reply to his request to be allowed to do so ran, if memory serves me well, as follows:—­

“Do nothing.  You have accomplished all that was expected of you.”

Later on, Lawton and his devoted officers and men had to duplicate the fierce campaign which had resulted in the taking of San Isidro.  This made possible the movement that Lawton had had in mind in the first instance, which was made with the result that organized armed resistance to the authority of the United States promptly ceased in northern Luzon.

While on this subject I wish to record the fact that shortly after his return from the San Isidro campaign General Lawton asked me to accompany him on a visit to General Otis and act as a witness.  I did so.  In my presence Lawton said to Otis that if the latter would give him two regiments, would allow him to arm, equip and provision them to suit himself, and would turn him loose, he would stake his reputation as a soldier, and his position in the United States Army, on the claim that within sixty days he would end the insurrection and would deliver to General Otis one Emilio Aguinaldo, dead or alive.  The general laughed at his offer.  General Lawton asked me some day to make these facts public.  As life is an uncertain thing, I deem it proper to do so now.  Personally I am convinced that if his offer had been accepted he would have kept his promise.