BEFORE AND AFTER THIM THE BA bachal atz theodore cleghorn a meaner 4 ants battery A utah volunteers ark S rites a his family as follows camp dewey manila philippine islands island july ibbs isbos dear mother father and at we have at last got into encarn andi and I 1 am not vety very sorry either foi k got very tired of the boat thi beautiful place it seems seeing to m me asi like a picture OUT our tent is pitched vass a large tree which keep keeps s uati through the day ellis and I 1 ea nearly every day and get fruits A 4 kinds from the natives bananas banana grow wild you i gw have often heard of the bread tru there is lots of it here but I 1 dont 3 it for the first time I 1 was fired 1 morning our section and sects section ott i was to the front last night we posted in the entrenchments 3 been ahr thrown own up by t the h e I 1 infantry afa gitry IV in last few days for gun pits this vw near as any of the battery boys had ti to the spanish lines the dif difference feren tween our lines and the tb little over yards just in easy raa for the spanish sharpshooters to tofa us off one by one but for some real or other they did not continue cheb they were afraid or not I 1 dont kak this was before daybreak but wh when n got ow our guns into position and e ev thing ready for action we headd hea Cd report of two large guns just then thelt 1 6 in inch ah shells whizzed past over heads in the neighborhood of about w feet but that was close v make us ms duck I 1 guess they only jt tended to give us a morning salute saluta alte fi only thing I 1 dont like about this phae is that we have to gett get up at 15 inett morning and it nevet never gets light tul till talt t alt the bhe earliest but it is the best attane t 1 drill the me hottest day we have h hadu was last monday 86 in the a bhail may riot not think that hot but it was sultry I 1 dont know exactly ft b are going to make inake an a attach think this week some time or as soon 8 the monterey gets here everybody Is hl hard rd ait work on the atta which are eight feet high twelve feet thick chick and about five lohes long the bank consi stis of sand supported by bamboo posts this is what is called the hardest kind ito blow up because if a shell happens to strike manly tt only blows the sand up in the air which falls back into its place again oe at most moot of it i t the spanish fort consists of masonry brick and captain young says he blow it it to pieces in a short time 1 spanish seem to be superstitious 4 aters they hold prayer meetings gbur or five times a day and have two or y three strands of catholic beads ang around their necks all the erme the natives are the fighters we can hear their guns day AM night although they dont do any linage la anage they keep the spanish cornered up dewey gave them a fifteen irich inch smooth bore gun made in 1859 aws te is the boy that makes the noise platey put in a good go od stiff charge of pow ur tet tamper with sods soda and ram her lull of f chains grape ape shot and small cannon balls from 2 to 6 inch tot oft ff with a long fuse run oft off to a and watch the effect of otheir alfort which Is generally trained on the ithe elty and also watch the spaniards dow dour volley after volley into the bam clump in hopes of killing bome ot of um ehe dare devils as we call them ithem their weapon is a knife they bont t understand how to use a gun A pad of four flour or five hundred will lay in ahwal wal walt t for a company of spanish soa aters surround them and cut their throats often not cosing a man their motto is Marl boom spaniard Spania Td they ithen draw a aarper er across their throats and laugh this leteth is now getting somewhat Ifeng thy and after all I 1 dont know you will get it because I 1 lyba vent got a stamp and cant buy one sat a any price give my regards to we are now anxiously for the call to arms to come oat we may have an opportunity to aish ourselves as crackerjack cracker jack X abst ast 1st I 1 did not expect t yester mh waxen I 1 wrote the above letter that er going to have a scrap so soon we did last night and it was a f warm one at 1130 11 SO the to arms sounded in the still night aach that at is it was still where we ese but instantly we bould hear the ituau of the cannons and the contina foar r oar volleys of the vance anoe guard I 1 dont mean to ex rate rat anything but four of our cannons annons and the numbering about abou one thou men held at bay between three oa taw our thousand spaniards until the ti came up it was dark and ft very hard the spaniards left ir entrenchments ments and advanced to 2 1 IF idt yards and let drive a volley at aich took us by surprise our did not know a thing of it until because they could not see in e gibbs grave gave the com alre re at will and we poured into 0 o them so swift that they ed to 0 fall like grass before the they attempted to charge the firing was so heavy that they forced to retreat which was lucky us as i we were nearly out of amm only three shots left our loss bout abdat 15 killed and I 1 think 20 ed d only one battery man among with d a flesh wound in the upper ot his left arm 1 I have only a few es a before the mall closes so good r this time tt your loving son and brother EODORE lattery A utah