| Show BAVLE BATTUE or MANILA rii following folio wing verb very interesting letter bt b t the battle of manila in which v Si eUtah U tah boys participated comes from former employed of the operative cooperative co rf wagon and machine company in this aay 9 f camp dewey near manila V c august 4 1898 I 1 Imse wr fellow Pellow employed Emp loyes and friends H I 1 afien I 1 left lef t the city of the saints a SOW rj iz unsophisticated little ink deal r ret I 1 had bad formed an idea that all we wd lad to do was to get to manila and re e would be at manila well we are VA at manila and yet we are not at r HB feUa I 1 thought au all we had ito d do 0 to walk into the town and bum ite ter a few months and then come back altae teX toe heroes As usual I 1 was out on iamb and got gat called the 1 l lal city of manila Is 3 miles from r heye but the ithe sand around the gates perches Ker ches your feet so we dont like to gw g goin oi in the spanish are very holepit tand and freely invite us up bul bui the they hey have for us is largely com sed of hot ingredients and as many iott us came from a country somewhat cooler than this we are afraid the ithe aforesaid gore sald food may somewhat impair fater r alir indigestion when I 1 lem left my ma and pa some som e a great many some ones tol told d z tee ine the spanish were cowards t t and would surrender just as soon y S I 1 asked them to you tou can put it down as bein being g that they can fight are not jr j cowards and would not surrender if I 1 5 ask ached d them too tau we had bad a little thrle three r f contest the other night you may hear of it before you get this Y 6 the wall wail around manila is 25 or 30 W feet high and 20 or 25 feet thick the ta trenches axe are about yards f from fam the wall and can evidently be esaly entered from the city by tun under the wall the trenches are r high as ours the wall trenches aad insurgents Burgents in trenches extend ali all nd the city U low trenches are about yards back ame ie spanish trenches and extend the coast t the road a dif distance tance of yards the insurgents are supposed have e control of the trenches extend ifton the road on the right clean und nd the city there were no ansur t around us at all the night of the t it r trenches are acre about 6 feet high 5 thick at t the top and about 12 feet k at the bottom one hundred i back of our entrenchments ments are a sn n of trenches which were turned sa to us by the insurgents as a basis t ae rations here in the old trench where the first american artillery canted on the field this was on and the first two guns were first and second section guns gans of wf A the first gun of american aitery fired in thia war was the gun gang to my section C E varian the gunner this however was abe xe night of the the morning of the slot slat about a na naylor had the two brought up into the new PT it the colorado boys built the in ent on the night of july 90 of battery Bs guns was brought I 1 on jeo the new anent on july the spaniards must have seen B tern brought up as it was done in aday time but I 1 do not think they fa about out our other three guns an wire re about three feet wide and at to four places in the vae ot of the matting made of bam W aate natives was laid over the these mats were then covered ait t 6 inches or of loose earth thus the be appear un abdo no doubt deceived the iwas I 1 on the night ot 01 july hat our force was as follows pour four companies ea of the tenth pennsylvania and fifteen men from each of batteries batt erlea including officers our lieutenant was gibbs and Bs grow it bapp happened ened to be my turn to go up or not exactly rny my turn but the regular order of men w wt went t up from the battery As I 1 was ranking sergeant serg pant 1 I went and gunners varian and kneass were to fro handle the guns each bach gunner had five men under him and one extra man for the two detachments the men in carians Va rians detachment were no 1 privates duffin G no 2 jacobsen no 3 peters no 4 leaver no 6 5 nielsen in kneass no 1 privates robinson no 2 ryan no 3 doty no 4 jensen no 6 5 morgan extra private robinson I 1 do not know who the men were in battery B but they are all heroes two companies of the tenth pennsylvania were back a mile from the entrenchments as a reserve and two companies of the same regiment were out making our proposed entrenchment extensions about twenty of the pennsylvania men were out as outposts directly in front of where their men were working this makes the force in the entrenchments four companies of sixty men each fifteen battery B fifteen battery A were thirty men total there may have been more than sixty men to their com companies Dantes but I 1 dont think so understand the pennsylvania syl vanta regiment was in the trenches above no other command it was their turn they were armed with the 45 caliber springfield rifle the same as the N G U has i A little hexagonal building was occupied by some spanish sharpshooters and also contained a rapid fire gun we wanted to blow this up during the day time on the but the orders forbid our artillery firing unless compelled to do so to resist an attack A square building directly on our in trench ments was a monastery originally occupied by the spanish before we came the spanish had been driven out by the insurgents who took possession sei ision until they in turn were driven out by the spanish artillery at the time we took possession it was vacated and completely riddled with shot and shell two of our guns A were on the right of it and Bs two guns on the left lef t the gun cambered cumbered cumb pumbe ered red 1 was run by gunner kneass and no 2 by gunner varian up to noon on the slat we had atonal shots from spanish sharp sharpshooters sho oters but after that time all was quiet too quiet in fact for their complete silence was ominous the spaniards were at maso all day and eft at night had vespers at about 1030 1080 am one ione oi of the outposts discerned what he thought was a man and fired two shots in quick succession at him he was answered by a single report from the spanish in a few more minutes our outposts fired a volley and shortly after a volley rang out from the direction in which our outposts had fired our outposts were gradually working back to the entrenchments but just before they reached them the spanish fired from the sea coast on OUT our left and as far to the right as we could see this was at 1120 pm and they kept up this firing until nearly am or nearly three hours and ten minutes As soon as they opened fire all we could bould see was a sheet of flame about eighteen inches wide and over a mile long the pennsylvania four companies under major cuthberson returned the fire and all you could hear was the crack crack of rifles commands of officers and the sags the balls sang as they car came ne aHat ng oyer eyer our b heads the th e two companies back in the reserve ind and the t two iwa companies of outposts came to bur asal assistant 1 immediately making dovw force 8 cm paines hoei force eight comp nales infantry artillery 30 of were in all we artillery had beezy been cautioned ionea not to fire unless absolutely compelled compell dd to do so and we must have stood theft for nearly half an hour listening to ap all the music without takping any part parl but finally the spanish came so close i we could hear their mau sers magazines working the ma mauser user is a gun about the same style as the bragg jorgensen and wb we knew kne they must be nearly on us it was then we received the command to load and immediately after fire 1 the yn belonging to my section blazed away first threw up our masking thirty five or forty feet into the air this was the signal for the other three guns and soon SOM all four were pegging away with nel punched at zero now a word of explanation might not be amiss here A shrapnel shell such as we use is about eleven inches long and nearly the same diameter as the gun necessarily I 1 say nearly as it is not quite A band of copper about one half of an inch wide extends attends around the shell about one and a half or two inches from the base this is of soft copper and prevents the shell 1 from otherwise tearing or injuring the rifling of the cannon the shell lt self is of iron hollow tapering to a point thickness of shell sides about one fouch four ji to one halt half inch each shell contains balls the size of a good rifle ball and four ounces of explosive to explode the same the exploding of the shell is done by means of a fuse in the top of the shell running around in a spinal tends from top to bottom about two and a half inches long the fhe shell going in a spiral around it the spiral fuse fus is protected by a brass cap which fisit around the shell completely it in this cap are ninety holes annc aured in ours which are divided into inlo fifteen seconds each second is subdivided into 91 sixtus sixths X these holes are punched by means of a small guO guneri nerl punch but as both our punches we were forced to punch ours with safety pins when the hole is pt it connects the fuse with the bw ounces of explosive the fuse hiis kited by the discharge and when the time at which the fuse is punched ex pires the shell shelf explodes we began by punching ours at one second and from 0 to 4 56 5 6 we alternately used the dellb limit as the spanish adv advanced aneed and retreated I 1 1 I 1 our fire fare must have put many of on the bum many of the infantry boys bays sald said when we fired many mady gift went up from among the dons don ft W we aimed high low and swept their tanka right and left some idea ot of the danger ge our men were in and particularly the gunners may be f formed whan take into consideration the ithe fact that we were placed in the worst position any light artillery ver ever L hotd h we ware from 75 to yards fram their thedr infantry according as theyna they w danced or retreated and their rapid fire guns were contin continually ual ay pouring it into us A perfect rain of bullets continually poured into us from 1120 w til we had some old G A R n ram among the tenth penn and they A b said the spanish fire was the most moat 06 vere they ever experienced arl an 0 space lour four feet wide laid open and through this space bullets bulletset bull etseo I 1 bally pinged hinged pin ged after each sho she guns would recoil fifteen feet teet aad gunner no 1 2 and 8 3 or 8 had to t 0 the gun gua by hand to thet a fro into jace th gun AM ea the chell I 1 ted anda an da watt the cartr ar r fl r the breach dosed and ana the primer in drw erwied er tied before the gun could be fired aft this time we were fired upon it wila wa simply hell add to this the intense heat and smoke and the sight of men anen toppling over ever dead and wounded the erles cries yells and above au all the groans of the wounded and you can torm form some idea of how we felt fell we knew they were strong in number the dons and that we were a mere handful ul but we all fought like devils and stood them off between 1230 a m and I 1 a m we were almost out ot of ammunition the infantry had from 2 to 5 cartridges apiece we had garlans Var lana lans gun three sharpner kneass guns two shrapnel dont think Bait battery tery B had more than one ne for each gun in fact we had reached that awful abate out lout of ammunition the tenth pennsylvania officers cautioned their men not to fire any more but wait f tor ar another charge and then soak oak them the men all began fixing bayonets bayone its our boys drew their re solvers vol vers at least most of them did filled their pockets with the extra shells hells we had 30 apiece stuck their knives in their pants and waited wal waited ted for what I 1 dont knowland know and did not mat know kneass was wa s ready to unscrew the breechblock breech block of his gun we had an axe to knock the leaver off ours none of us were in the least rattled our only thought was when nare are our reinforcements coming we knew they had heard the terrible bombardment at camp dewey and wondered if ft they were coming we wondered if deweys deleys fleet was not coming up to our aid we did not know how to conduct a retreat we had not soldiered dl ered long enough to know that and just at this point we heard a trumpet in our rear sound forward th then n what a cheer went up from our fusty u sty smoke filled lungs they heard us at camp dewey and knew we were saved the first relief was battery H of the third heavy united states artillery which had been at t the presidio in frisco they were also outposts that night and were probably tro oro bably one and a half miles in our fear when the fight began they were all armed as with the kraig jorgensen all heavy artillery are first sent into the field as to fantry and as soon as they reached our entrenchments they knew their business they jumped to the top and aa 48 soon as they saw the spanish sheet of flame they pumped away they commenced firing without orders nd A few minutes after battery K X of ahe ah same came artillery the third came up and did likewise the men were all mixed up and the officers had a time to got get their respective commands to geta etker ur battery K X men here one would shout and battery H men acre ere another but the men only yelled here and kept pumping their magazines the officers even had to drag them from the summit of the en finally all the men of the respective batteries were together end and just at this time a fire was poured in on our rear two volleys were fired ailred were we attacked in rear or had the insurgents come up to help ds 6 or to help the spaniards we wondered however it turned out to be only the first california who had gotten into our old entrenchment and Td mistook istook us for the spanish they did lio BO harm having fired high and came up to us immediately they are entirely blameless as it was pitch ditch dark and nd they knew nothing of the new en preachment ment to sum it up a mere handful of americans held spaniards at bay tor or two hours and ten minu tex bat tery H came up about am what did I 1 say about emulating the gordons Gor dous bill crawford awford Or pennsylvania admits that the utah artillery saved them the and all of course this this Is absurd but utah and pennsylvania did save the day or the night the tenth pennsylvania boys are hot stuff they fought like veterans by am the firing had ceased except now and then some sharpshooter sharp shooter would try to plaster us the fight was ours and we still there we lost about ten killed and twenty wounded the spaniards must have lost or and many more wounded as they had no cover having left ther their inar and ver a numerous you may imagine how hard it was for to reach us A galling fire is no name for it it was murderous several were wounded and some killed the rapid fire guns were turned on the road simply for that purpose to whack our reinforcements the men who bravely came to our aid are deserving of the utmost praise ammunition for the tenth pennsylvania and our batteries arrived shortly after the first reinforcements naylor and sergt wells were in charge of our both gunners varian and kneass were stripped to the waist throughout the engagement and both were almost ready to drop from exhaustion shortly before the heavy firing had ceased varian dropped worn out and I 1 took his place it was hot work the heat was intense and the smoke stifling ng the first of our men I 1 saw drop were just on the right of Kneas ss gun three fell in a bunch one killed and two wounded immediately after I 1 went around to t to 0 the left lef t of carians Var Va lans rians gun and saw four or five come tumbling down I 1 when the men from batteries H and rk casne came up and were somewhat straightened up captain hobbs one of their officers grabbed a gun from one of his men jumped clear on top of the embankment and emptied first the gun and then his revolver jumped down and yelled the way to do it boys aim low ione one of the men in battery K X |
