CHAPTER XI
THE CROSSING OF THE RIO GRANDE RIVER
"For gracious' sake, what did we want to retreat for?" demanded Ben,as soon as the command halted and Major Morris had come withinspeaking distance. The young captain had been at the very front of thefiring line, and had seen that complete victory was only the work of aquarter of an hour or less.
"Orders from general headquarters," replied the major, in a low tone."I fancy the staff is pretty angry, too," he added.
"We could have whipped them with ease."
"So we could, captain, but--" And Major Morris finished with a shrugof his shoulders which meant a good deal.
"I don't believe General Otis would have given such an order had hebeen here to see what was going on," continued Ben, earnestly.
"Well, we're ordered back to Angat, and that is all there is to it.The army must have supplies, you know."
"Hang the supplies!" muttered Gilmore, but under his breath. "We canget all the supplies we want as we go along." And Ben was ratherinclined to agree with him.
There was no help, however, for the turn in the situation; and withcrestfallen faces the soldiers moved still further back and went intotemporary camp. Only a few had suffered, and the wounded ones werepromptly cared for by the hospital corps.
"And how do you feel?" asked Gilbert, as he came up to see Ben. "Doesthe wound hurt still?"
"It itches, that's all," answered Ben. "But this retreat--"
"Makes one feel sore all over, doesn't it?" finished the youngSoutherner. "I must say I don't understand it at all. If we are goingto round up any of these rebels, we can't do it by falling back andwaiting for supplies."
Impatient as they were, however, the troops had to wait for two daysbefore another movement was made. During this time supplies werehurried forward in large quantities, that there might be no moredelays in the future.
In the meantime the troops under General MacArthur were by no meansidle. They consisted of two brigades, that of General Hale on theright wing, and that of General Wheaton on the left wing. Of thesetroops the first advance was by some men of the Fourth Cavalry, whowent forward to reconnoitre the enemy's position near Quingua. Thestart was made during the early morning, and before long theinsurgents opened a heavy fire which the Americans returned withdifficulty, as the rebels were well concealed by the tall grass andtheir intrenchments. To aid the cavalry a number of other troops werehurried forward, also several field-pieces; and in the end theFilipinos were forced from their position, with a heavy loss. In thisbattle the Americans lost six killed and forty wounded. Among thekilled was Colonel Stotsenburg, commanding the First NebraskaVolunteers, who, after most gallantly leading his men, was shot downin the final rush upon the enemy's earthworks.
From Quingua the whole of General Hale's brigade moved down theQuingua River to Pulilan. Here no resistance was encountered, andafter a brief rest the brigade pushed on toward Logundi. That townwas not yet reached when the advance guard reported a breastworkacross the main road, running to the river on the west and into thejungle on the east.
"Never mind, we'll go ahead anyhow!" shouted the soldiers of theNebraska regiment; and go ahead they did, with the South Dakota andIowa troops beside them, and several guns of the Sixth Artilleryprotecting their advance. The fight at the earthworks was a fierceone, some of the Filipinos refusing to surrender even when they knewthey were beaten; and as a consequence many of them were slain whoselives might otherwise have been spared to them.
A short distance to the northwest of Logundi, the Quingua and theBagbag rivers join in flowing into the Calumpit. The railroad crossesthe Bagbag but a short distance away, and at this point General Hale'scommand reunited with that of General Wheaton, which had come up alongthe tracks from Malolos without difficulty. General Wheaton had withhim the troops from Montana and Kansas, some Utah artillery, and oneor two other commands, along with two armored cars, fitted out withGatling and Hotchkiss guns and six-pounders.
It was soon discovered that the rebels had built strong breastworks ina semicircle along the north bank of the Bagbag and the western bankof the Calumpit Rivers, and had injured the railroad track for adistance of several hundred yards, and also the bridge spanning theriver. As the approach to both rivers was largely an open one, how todislodge the Filipinos became a serious problem.
"Forward with the armored cars!" was the cry, and they were rushedahead as far as the torn-up condition of the railroad tracks admitted.A cannonading lasting for half an hour followed, in which one of thebatteries on the highway also took part. The aim of the gunners wasgood, and soon the insurgents were seen to be pouring from thetrenches, which were getting too hot to hold them. Yet a fair numberheld their ground, and when the troops on foot advanced they opened ablistering fire which laid not a few Americans low. But the victorywas ours, and soon the followers of Old Glory were wading or swimmingthe river, while the engineering corps set to work to repair thedamage done to railroad and bridge, so that the armored and baggagecars might pass through.
The cry was now, "On to Calumpit!" which town lies on the CalumpitRiver, and is divided into two parts by another stream, called the RioGrande. It was found that the insurgents had practically deserted thelower half of the town, but had intrenchments on the upper bank of theRio Grande which were even more formidable than those taken on theBagbag. Here the rebels had also a Maxim and other guns, and it seemedas if for once the advance of the Americans was thoroughly blocked.Numerous good positions along the south bank of the river were held byour troops, but it looked as if they could not get over the streamwithout a tremendous loss of life.
It is said that the opportunity makes the man, and in this instancethe saying proved a true one. With the soldiers under General Wheatonwere the Twentieth Kansas Volunteers, who had already made a recordfor themselves at Malolos and elsewhere, as related in a previousvolume of this series. They were commanded by Colonel FrederickFunston, a man comparatively young in years and small in stature, butone who was daring to the last degree, and who had seen much offighting and hardships during his adventurous existence. In Cuba,Funston had fought most valiantly under Garcia for Cuban liberty longbefore any interference by the United States.
To Colonel, afterward Brigadier General, Funston belongs the honor ofthe passage of the Rio Grande, for it was he who planned what wasdone, and he and a score of his fighting Kansans who carried it out.The daring of the scheme is one which will live long in Americanhistory.
As before mentioned, the bridge was partly broken, but enoughremained for the passage of soldiers who could climb from one ironcross-section to another. At first it was hoped that a body might goover the bridge in the dark, raise a great commotion, and causethe Filipinos a panic. This scheme was tried, but it failed; for theenemy was on strict guard, and would have shot down the men asrapidly as they appeared on the bridge.
Colonel Funston then proposed to go down the river bank for aconsiderable distance, build rafts, and, by means of a stout rope,ferry some of the best of his men across the stream in the dark. Thelanding of the men was to be covered by the heaviest possible firefrom the American side, and, as soon as they were safe ashore, theKansas soldiers were to secure some position where they might enfiladethe enemy's trenches, that is, fire through them from one end, sothat the Filipinos might no longer find them safe. In the meantimemore troops were to come over with all possible speed.
On the way down the stream the Kansas soldiers demolished severalhuts, selecting the best of the timber with which to build theirrafts. The moon was under a cloud, and it looked as if they might getacross the river without serious trouble.
But as the crowd were constructing their rafts and getting their ferryrope ready for use, the moon came out brightly; and very soon theinsurgents became suspicious and fired on the Americans, who wereforced to retreat to the nearest shelter. The firing kept up thegreater part of two hours, and at last the plan to cross over thatnight was abandoned.
But the Kansas colonel an
d his gallant men had determined to be thefirst into the enemy's camp, and once again they went to the spotpreviously selected, but this time in the broad daylight, when theymight clearly see the shore opposite. No insurgents were in sight;and, after having made three rafts all right and tight, the rope wasbrought forth, and two men, named White and Trembly, were asked tocarry it across the stream. The soldiers plunged into the waterwithout delay, being watched by hundreds of their comrades leftbehind. The men were without their uniforms or weapons of any kind.
Slowly the pair swam the turbulent waters of the stream, and hardlyhad they gotten fifty feet from shore when the rebels opened fire uponthem, at first a few scattering shots and then a perfect volley. Thatthe swimmers escaped is little short of a miracle. But they remaineduntouched, and, gaining the opposite bank, they ran forward and tiedthe rope's end to a tree-stump. In the meantime two other soldiersstarted over the Rio Grande in a dugout, but this upset and let themen into the water, and they had to swim as had the others. But theylanded with their guns intact, and at once opened fire at the nearestnatives that showed themselves.
All this had happened with great rapidity, and now the first raft wascoming across the river, loaded with Kansas soldiers officered byColonel Funston himself. The raft became the target for the hottestkind of fire, and as the ferrying had to be done by the soldierspulling along the rope stretched from shore to shore, the passage wasas slow as it was dangerous. But the soldiers on the craft went overin safety, and soon more followed, until over fifty were on the beachfronting the enemy's intrenchments. Then, with a wild yelling, to givethe rebels the impression that a large body had come over, they pushedforward to enfilade the enemy's trenches as first proposed.
But now another difficulty arose. There was a small stream flowinginto the Rio Grande near this spot, and this had to be crossed beforethe fire of the Americans could be made effective. How to get acrosswas a problem, as the insurgents had a machine gun trained on thespot. This worked for a while and then stopped; and in the lullColonel Funston secured a rowboat and went over with some of his men,and the others soon followed.
The Filipinos were now thoroughly frightened, for the Americans weremaking a great outcry down by the railroad bridge, and they imaginedthat they were to be attacked from several points at once. Somestarted to run, and as soon as Colonel Funston's men began to raintheir bullets into the long trenches, more followed, until the enemywas in a panic. Then the Americans began to cross the bridge andstream in great numbers, and the Filipinos, although reenforced by abody of Macabebes just at this time, could not make an effectivestand. Calumpit was left behind, and a running fight ensued whichended at Apalit, when a violent tropical thunderstorm put an end tothe day's operations. It was thought that the rebels' headquarterswould be found at Apalit; but this had, at the last moment, beenremoved to San Isidro, toward which General Lawton was now advancing.