"When a small detachment is encamped in a country infested by large ladrone bands so that a night
attack may be feared, it is advisable to go into camp before nightfall, cook and eat food, build
small huts and make arrangements for remaining during the night. A short time
after dark the patrol should then slip quietly away, leaving the camp
deserted with small fires burning . . ."
--Constabulary Manual

WITH Samar in flames, the course of the Philippine Commission was well pointed out. No longer could the distasteful idea of intervention on the part of the official armed forces of the United States be delayed. Men of the Constabulary and Scouts were dying as the Army sat watching the struggle. It was time that the best armed troops in the Islands took over some of the responsibility of putting down the revolt in the flaming island.

But even in this bloody crisis, while men were dying, the interests of politics had to be served. Nothing was done to relieve the situation in Samar until four days after the Presidential election in the United States. It was the fate of the fighting men to await the pleasure of the politicians. On November 12, 1904, Governor Wright went to Samar, and upon his return the 700 Scouts and Constabulary on station there were increased to 2,000, and 1,600 regular soldiers of the 12th and 14th Infantry were thrown into the area.

On December 29, General Corbin, at the request of the Governor-General of the Philippines, ordered out regulars to garrison the towns of Llorente, Oras, Taft, Tarangunan, and Bulao. With this force in garrison, the Constabulary took the field in the interior in an effort to stem the pulajan growth.

Allen remained in Samar to lead his men, but after five months of vicious campaign he found the situation too severe for the limited troops of the Constabulary. The Insular Police could not be reinforced without drawing too many men from other badly pressed stations elsewhere in the archipelago.

A new leader had arisen among the pulajans. Dagujob was his name. He had first come to prominence in Leyte, where he had been known as Enrique Villareal. When conditions became favorable in Samar, he had migrated thither and established strong positions at Maslog on the east coast and at San Jose on the west. In later collaboration with "Pope" Pablo he became the most formidable leader on Samar.

On January 8, Dagujob met Lieutenant Averill of the 37th Scout Company and Lieutenant Helfert with fifty Constabulary in a short fierce battle at Maslog, that resulted in the retreat of the pulajan to San Jose. At San Jose, Dagujob consolidated his force with those of Pedro de la Cruz and "Papa" Pablo. Seventy-eight houses were built within a newly constructed fort.

Here Dagujob was struck again on February 3 by Lieutenants Cook and Overly of the Scouts, with 1oo men of the 18th and 35th Companies. Hastily Dagujob recrossed to Maslog, where he was again attacked by Lieutenants Wilson and DeCourt on the eighteenth.

The reports of the encounters show the difficulties of these jungle campaigns which were so often indecisive: "The attacking forces in each of the three cases, although successful, were unable to push their victories through. The long marches required to reach these places, the ignorance of the nature of the defense, the denseness of the surrounding jungle, the comparatively small columns, and the responsibilities caused by men early killed and wounded in the actions brought about the withdrawals."

During the year 1905, a murderous pulajan named Teducduc made his appearance in the Gandara Valley, and Constabulary detachments were in the field constantly in an effort to protect the civil population who were subject to the raids of this leader. Teducduc was elusive and difficult to find; for many months his principal retreat in the mountains was not found.

Finally, on May 17, a detachment of fifty-five Constabulary from the post near Mugtaon made an expedition to the north, and after passing through a region of cultivated fields that had been previously unexplored, they located the fortress of Teducduc and burned it after a savage fight. This action stirred up the lawless elements, while the discovery of the large fields of food crops was a severe blow to the pulajans, who were dependent upon the fields for their food supply.

In revenge for the assistance given the Constabulary in this campaign by the citizens of the barrio of Santo Nini, the pulajans assaulted and burned the town on June 2, slaughtering thirteen men, women, and children. Vigorously pursued by the Constabulary, they reappeared on the opposite side of the island at Balangiga and Basey, where they burned and murdered under the direction of Dagujob, Teducduc, and Pedro de la Cruz.

Farther south, Anugar and Aguilar were active; the pursuit of these five leaders was more than the limited strength of the Constabulary would allow. In spite of constant patrol, the pulajans were getting out of hand rapidly. On May 21, 1905, General Allen was forced to telegraph the Governor-General, recommending the division of Samar into two sections, the east district to be turned to the army, with the Constabulary retaining the west coast.

This was done, and the Constabulary withdrew all garrisons from the army territory and concentrated their forces for a final drive on the west coast.

No martial law was proclaimed in Samar, but within six months seventeen Scout companies had been ordered to the field, as well as four troops of the 8th Infantry under Colonel Smith and the entire 21 st Regiment of United States Infantry.

The Scout companies and Constabulary detachments, withdrawn from other islands and sent to Samar, gradually raised the combined force of native troops to about 1 ,700 or 1,800 men, but the results of the first half-year's campaigning were not wholly reassuring. The Constabulary had gradually become involved in field operations with native troops equal to a small brigade in numbers; this in one of the largest and most sparsely populated islands of the archipelago, and one which is without a single road or practicable trail for pack animals. For such a campaign the Constabulary organization was unprepared, by reason of lack of staff and supply departments, a deficiency which could not be remedied by expedients. The insufficient means of communication with the east coast constituted a very embarrassing factor throughout the period of operations.

Scouting with an insufficient force for an elusive and half savage enemy, through virgin forests and dense jungles; wading in water courses, tortured with leeches, and dependent upon native carriers of doubtful loyalty, it is not to be wondered at that the campaign was long and unproductive of brilliant actions. To add to the difficulties, the enlistments of both Scouts and Constabulary began to expire at the height of the campaign; this, with the losses in action, combined to disorganize operations and fill the ranks with recruits, many of whom had never fired a gun. The enemy had cause for elation in the success with which they had frequently met detachments of native troops, and the facility with which they had escaped whenever the tide turned against them during more than five months of campaigning.

Whatever may have been the original cause of the outbreak, it was soon lost sight of when success had drawn a large proportion of the people away from their homes and fields. The lawless bands degenerated into opposition to all control, and carried on a reign of terror throughout a large portion of the island. It became simply a question of joining the pulajans or being harried by them. In the absence of proper protection, thousands joined in the movements to the extent of rendering aid both by furnishing food and giving information of all movements of troops. This led to the ambushing of detachments, and forced the sending of much larger columns of native troops than had previously been necessary. The movement found no permanent lodgement in the southern part of the island, nor had the northwestern part been seriously involved.

The situation gradually got beyond the control of the Constabulary and Scout forces, and in order to free them from garrison work in the towns, sixteen companies of the 12th and 14th Infantry were distributed about the disaffected coasts to enable the people who so desired to come from their hiding places and undertake the rebuilding of their burned homes.

Under the protection of the troops much progress was made, but there still remained the unsatisfactory fact that the people feared to engage in any profitable occupation out of sight of the villages, for fear of the pulajans.

Under later authority of the Division Commander, the regular troops were directed to co-operate with the Constabulary forces whenever requested by the Chief of Constabulary. Several expeditions were made, but contact with the main body of the enemy was not effected, owing to lack of information and to the fact that all of the natives of the interior appeared to be friendly to the pulajans and acted as outposts for them.

The effort to use the Army to assist the Constabulary to preserve order, without formally authorizing the troops to assume active and independent operations under military control, was not productive of the most efficient and economical results. The drain upon the Insular Treasury was growing to considerable proportions, and the end of the campaign was not in sight after nine months of constant and severe field service.

During the month of May the necessary authority for troops to aid in quelling the disorder, acting under the direction of the Department Commander, was received. Immediate steps were taken to put in the field a number of strong detachments, each comprised of half a company of American troops and a half a company of native troops; and arrangements were made so that upon the return of a detachment to its base station, another detachment should be ready to start immediately.

During the progress of the campaign with native troops the pulajans had developed a systematic method of attack, which consisted in placing bolomen in ambush in high grass (cogon) on both sides of a trail, and when a column got between them, another squad of pulajans armed with rifles would open fire from the front. During the confusion of deploying to the front, the two lines would rush from the flanks. This mode of attack proved so successful that it became necessary to provide for it. A special drill was devised which did away with advance guard and flankers, the detachments marching in columns of files well closed, and numbered alternately one and two from front to rear. At the first sign of an enemy, all the numbers one faced to the right and the numbers two to the left and opened fire into the moving grass whether the enemy could be seen or not. When the flank attack was repelled, rapid fire to the front was taken up by those at the head of the column. The first attack of this kind on American troops, a company of the 21st Infantry, resulted in a loss of nine of the pulajans killed and twelve wounded, four of whom subsequently died, and without any loss to the troops.

Within ten days after the army was called upon to act, under the orders of the Department Commander, important captures were effected and information secured as to the location of the camp of the real leader of the pulajan movement, Colonel Enrique Dagujob. By education, native talent, and cunning, this leader had acquired control of all the people of a large district, and had succeeded in eluding the government forces for nearly a year, except when he planned attacks or ambush. He had assembled as his immediate following about fifty riflemen and an average of two to four hundred bolomen. Captured papers written by him constantly bore the heading which gave the title of the pulajan forces as "The Army of Cazadores (hunters or mountain men) of Leyte and Samar."

As soon as the information came into the hands of Major H. A. Leonhaeuser, 21st Infantry, commanding the troops in the Catubig Valley, a detachment of eighty men of Company E, 21st Infantry, and the 38th Company Philippine Scouts was organized under the command of Captain Cromwell Stacey, 21st Infantry, Captain W. W. Taylor, Jr., Philippine Scouts, commanding the Scouts.

Captain Cromwell Stacey, now a Colonel, retired, of the United States Army, living at Port Angeles, Washington, was, without question, one of the finest soldiers developed by the Philippine jungle wars. No officer of regulars, Constabulary, or Scouts saw more service against the enemy than this steel-nerved officer who saw intensive service against insurrecto, pulajan, and Moro. No officer in the jungle patrols had greater stock of bush lore than Stacey, and few were his equal in the screened movement of troops in the jungle. He was a fighting man who made each campaign a planned campaign, and he overlooked nothing to insure the success of the operations or the safety of his men.

With Crockett, Stacey stands in the very forefront of that gaudy company of brilliant fighting men that were the product of the jungle wars. Years later, the two served together in France, where Stacey topped off a brilliant and lengthy fighting service that embraced four wars as the commander of the so-called Lost Battalion of the Argonne Forest. In the Argonne Forest, as in the Philippine jungle, Stacey fought a planned battle. The men of the miscalled Lost Battalion were not lost; Stacey knew where they were at all times, and it is interesting to note that the war records of 1917 show that the men took up that exposed position in the Argonne against the wishes and the judgment of their commander. A General Order sent those men into an impossible position--not Cromwell Stacey.

On May 31, 1905, when Cromwell Stacey took the field against Dagujob, he was a young Captain of the 21st Infantry and a veteran of the northern island campaigns. It was fitting that he should be selected to conduct operations against Dagujob for, during the earlier days of the Philippine Insurrection, Stacey, as a First Lieutenant of the 19th Infantry, had fought Dagujob who was then a Captain of artillery of the insurgent army.

On the afternoon of June 1, 1905, at Camp Hartshorne in Laguan, Samar, his final instructions from Major H. A. Leonhaeuser of the 21st Infantry were received, and he embarked with his men on the launch Florida for Catubig, Samar. He had aboard thirty-five men of Company E of the 21st Infantry, and one Hospital Corps private. Upon arrival at Catubig, Stacey organized a disciplined force of 120 cargadores (bearers) into six gangs of twenty each, each marked with strips of colored calico tied around the wrist. There he was joined by forty-four Philippine Scouts of the 44th Company under Captain W. W. Taylor, and with two native guides Stacey set out into the bush.

The party was accompanied by Third Lieutenant Juan Sulse of the Philippine Constabulary, who collaborated in the securing of the guides and was permitted to join the attacking force as an observer. By eight o'clock of the evening of June 2, the party had crossed the Catubig River and had taken up the trail formation that, was preserved during the entire campaign. The elements were arranged as follows: First the guides and a few Volunteers, immediately followed by Captain Stacey and a part of Company E of the 21st Infantry; then Captain Taylor with a portion of his Scout force; then the cargadores, who were followed by the rear guard of Scouts and Infantry under First Sergeant Joseph Lees. The rear guard numbered about twenty men. The column marched entire, that is, there were no divisions into advance, main body, and rear guards, as is usual in civilized fighting. Stacey had learned from many a bolo rush that in the Philippines it was better to keep the men closed up and well in hand.

The column remained on the main trail until within five miles of the barrio of San Vicente, at which point they turned away to the right, crossed the San Vicente River, and struck off into the jungle. From that time until they struck the camp of Dagujob on June 4 they carefully avoided all trails and all open places. They picked their way silently through the bush, many times making wide detours to avoid clearings. The rate of march was very slow, averaging about two miles per hour.

Beginning with the departure from Catubig, Captain Stacey had made careful notes of the streams crossed and the direction of the march by means of compass bearings. For two days the troops marched in a terrible tropical rain that soaked clothing and provisions. Two-thirds of the ten days' ration of rice was rendered unfit for use and was abandoned.

Stacey permitted no noise while on the march or in camp. The men were not allowed to talk, and orders were given in whispers; tin cups and mess kits were filled with grass and packed carefully to prevent a rattle of sound. The camps were made in gulleys and in the heart of the forest, and all fires were fanned continually to prevent any smoke from disclosing their whereabouts. No wood was chopped; the fires were fed with small pieces or with large ends pushed carefully into the fire. So silent was the command and so successful the concealment efforts that on the evening of June 2 they pitched their camp in a hollow within 500 yards of three natives working in a field, without being noticed. The movement of more than 200 soldiers and cargadores in this manner was a tribute to the bush lore of Stacey. No lights or fires were allowed in the camp after dusk; Stacey cooled the ground under the fires with water before breaking camp, in order that investigating pulajans would be unable to determine whether the fires were new or old.

The camp was made on the night of June 3 within one and one-half hours' brisk march of the camp of Enrique Dagujob. At daylight the march was resumed, and Stacey took more than five hours to cover the distance. At one time he was so close to the fires of Captain Andres that the smoke was plainly seen through the bush. This camp was on the main trail to Dagujob's camp and about 600 yards to the north. Stacey made a wide detour through the bush in order to strike the main camp on the flank. They came in sight of the camp at five minutes after ten in the morning, the first view coming from the top of a small hill scarcely more than 100 yards distant.

Here, on the hilltop, Stacey left his cargadores and had his men remove their haversacks. He took stock of his situation. The evening before, his First Sergeant had injured his leg while in camp and was unable to march. Stacey had left him with seven men, entrenched on a hilltop near water, with three days' rations, in a place admirably suited for defense. This left Stacey, on the morning of the attack, with 71 men available for the assault.

Of this number the Captain detached 20 men under Sergeant Preston Ayres as a guard for the cargadores, and with twenty-two men of Company E and 29 Scouts under Captain Taylor, Stacey made provision for immediate attack.

The camp of Enrique Dagujob, Jefe Principal de Pulajans de Samar y Leyte, was situated in a small level valley entirely surrounded by an arroyo about 8 feet deep and 12 feet in width, and hemmed in on all sides by hills about 100 feet high. Stacey attacked from the west, with the sun directly ahead. He led his men down the hill, and they were within 40 feet of the most westerly houses of the camp before they were discovered. Stacey immediately saw that there were at least 400 fighting men in the camp, and he decided to kill the men in the houses nearest to the attacking force before attempting to cross the arroyo in the face of bolo attack.

He lined up ten men of Company E and opened fire. After a few rounds had been fired by each man, bayonets were fixed and the Captain charged across the arroyo at the head of his forty-eight men. In spite of all his carefully laid plans, Stacey had chosen an unfortunate approach to the outlaw camp. His line of attack was directly across the main latrine that Dagujob had established in the arroyo.

But at that moment, in 1905, Stacey was concerned with greater matters than the condition of his uniform. As he appeared over the edge of the arroyo the guide with him dropped, shot through the heart. A moment later a private fell, badly wounded. But then Taylor and his Scouts were across, and the force fought its way slowly through the camp. Taylor turned to the north after the camp was entered and engaged the force of Captain Andres, who had hurried from his outpost camp at the sound of the firing. Stacey, forty yards down the main street, was under direct fire from forty armed pulajans who were in the van of the attack. The pulajans were armed with Springfields, Krags, Remington rifles, Colt revolvers, and shotguns.

Thirty yards distant Commandante Felipe Senobio was rallying his bolomen for a charge and Stacey killed him with one shot. No stand was made by the pulajans after the death of Senobio. In the dogfight through the camp which followed and which lasted twenty-five minutes in all, every pulajan in the camp was killed, including Dagujob, Senobio, Captain Barnobal, Captain Titulado, and more than ninety pulajan soldiers.

In the camp Stacey found two prisoners who had been undergoing torture. One of the men was lashed hands and feet on the ground, with his body arched away from a sharp bamboo stake that was set in the ground beneath the small of his back. Another was lashed in a standing position, bent forward over a sharp stake that would impale the victim in the stomach as soon as he collapsed from weariness.

When the battle was over Stacey found a strongly built pulajan lying on the ground near one of the houses. It was Dagujob, leader of the pulajan movement in Samar, and he was dying of several gunshot wounds. Stacey turned away and went to supervise the preparations for the return, leaving the pulajan leader in charge of a Sergeant. Some moments later the Sergeant came to report that Dagujob was dead, his end hastened by a severe bolo wound in the stomach. When pressed for an explanation, the Sergeant described the death of the pulajan leader.

A young camp servant in Stacey's party had come to stand before the dying pulajan. For a moment he had looked at Dagujob, and then he had spoken, "You do not remember me, Dagujob?"

The pulajan had shaken his head.

"I am Pedro, who was a servant in a house in a barrio you raided last year. It was then you cut off my ears and carried away my young sister into the jungle. You are slow in dying, Dagujob."

Then the youngster had lifted a bolo and stabbed Dagujob in the stomach.

Stacey reproved his Sergeant for allowing the servant to bolo a dying man and the Sergeant replied, "It was only a question of moments anyway, and seeing as this was a personal affair, I didn't see fit to interfere."

Stacey, remembering American soldiers he had found with their feet cut off, standing upright in wet sand where the pulajans had left them; remembering men with intestines nailed to tree trunks and then forced to run around and around the tree at the point of a bayonet until they were disembowled; remembering men in ant hills with honey on their faces and men impaled on sharp bamboo, was inclined to forget this little incident and not deal too harshly with a Sergeant who had conveniently looked the other way as Pedro had lifted his bolo. . . .

The men were issued rations in the center of that dreadful camp of dead pulajans, and as the sentries fired into the bush at the last of the retreating outlaws, their comrades in arms sat down to lunch surrounded by the bodies of the slain. The cook moved the bodies of the dead to make room for his fire, and there in those ghastly surroundings, with the customary tact of army cooks, served the men portions of canned roast beef.

Shortly after noon the troops departed for Catubig, carrying with them the wounded and the body of Dagujob. The dead outlaw was lashed to a bamboo pole to be carried back for identification. During the course of the long hot march, Dagujob became almost as offensive in death as he had been when alive, and Stacey was forced to relieve the men who carried the dead bandit at fifteen-minute intervals. The Filipino is not noted for any delicate sensibility to smells, but Dagujob so made his presence known during that march to Catubig that the carriers would complain to Stacey, "Dios mio, Capitan, no puede aguantar . . . no puede aguantar."

In this manner Dagujob was returned to Catubig, and there, in the market place of the barrio, the villagers gathered to view the remains. The Presidente raised his hands, and three times he spoke to make the identification complete and official. "This is Dagujob . . . this is Dagujob . . . this is Dagujob." And then they buried the pulajan leader and--in a measure--peace came to Samar Island.

But only in a measure, as we shall see.

Two months later, on August 16, Antonio Anugar, who had been the scourge of the Gandara Valley, was met by a patrol of Constabulary under Lieutenant George A. Helfert and Lieutenant Juan Sulse. Sulse killed Anugar in the course of a running fight in the deep forest, and his band was broken up and scattered. In this action the last of the rifles captured at Balangiga were recovered.

Under the heavy concentrations of Scouts, Constabulary and regulars, the resistance of the pulajans began to weaken. The island was systematically covered, with each branch of law enforcement keeping to its assigned territory.

The result of army operations and especially the death of Dagujob, had been to cause a breaking off of several thousands of natives in northern and eastern Samar, many of whom had been actively engaged in pulajanism and others who through fear had given support to the outlaws. Those who had presented themselves at the various stations, had been established in temporary camps until it was safe to return them to their former villages. The most needy were assisted, and those able to work were allowed passes to go out for food and hemp, which was their main article of trade. A strict reconcentration would have produced much suffering and would have brought about no good results at this stage of affairs. The end was not in sight, for the repulses in northern and eastern Samar had resulted in the transfer of pulajan operations to the southwest coast. There were some leaders and many of their followers who would not surrender as long as they could manage to move about from one part of the island to another. Nearly all of those men had been guilty of arson, torture, and murder. Preparations had been made to press the campaign regardless of the rainy season, with a view to forcing all organized bands to disperse. Once they were broken up, it became possible through the aid of friendly natives to locate individuals and guns, but the recovery of arms was possible only after patient and laborious work.

When the first outbreak occurred in the Gandara Valley, it appeared on the surface to have been purely the result of dissatisfaction of native hemp workers with the agents of the large commercial houses which practically controlled the market. This cause of dissatisfaction continued to exist as long as the presidentes were in control of the only form of government with which the poorer natives came in contact, particularly as long as those same presidentes continued to serve as business agents for firms whose sole interests lay in securing hemp at the lowest possible price and selling rice at a correspondingly exorbitant figure. There was no relief for this except with the gradual development of the Islands, which brought increased transportation facilities, and, as a consequence, competition. These conditions were for years the cause of ill feeling amongst the natives, and a criminal element was always in waiting to take advantage of isolated situations and lead in disorders.

Public opinion as understood in the United States, which makes it odious to shield and conceal criminals, did not exist to any great extent in Samar.

Notwithstanding all this, it was felt that Samar was worth saving. It is an island of wonderful resources, and could easily absorb a great increase in population. There are many beautiful valleys which will produce rice and probably sugar, while the highest grade of hemp grows in all the foothills. The value of copra grown about the island is enormous. The Catubig Valley and the many small valleys debouching in it, will furnish homes for a hundred thousand people from other islands whenever they become overcrowded. In fact, as early as 1906, it was suggested that a wise policy would be to establish settlements of natives in Samar to assist in its development and at the same time to help end disorder.

It seems proper, at this point, to mention the help given by the Navy to the various organized land forces that operated in Samar. The Admiral of the Fleet placed at the disposal of the Department Commander five gunboats and two launches, all under Lieutenant Commander Hugh Rodman, U. S. Navy. The moral effect of the presence of these vessels about the island of Samar was very great, and their services in moving troops to exposed points and in standing by several towns threatened with burning until troops could be brought in, had been the kind of assistance that counted for much. The cordial co-operation of the younger generation of the Army and Navy on this service laid a good foundation for harmony and success in future operations.

But there was still a sputter of resistance, and several more bloody hand-to-hand fights were to result from pulajan ambuscades.

On July 28, 1905, occurred the first of these affairs. Captain Ralph Jones, Captain William Green, Lieutenant Hemmett, and sixty-eight Constabulary were attacked by a large force of pulajans as they traversed a narrow trail. The mountaineers swarmed upon the police from both sides of the trail and were able to get hand to hand before they could be stopped by rifle fire. Six of the Constabulary were killed, and Jones and five of the men were wounded. The Constabulary withdrew in good order after inflicting heavy casualties upon the pulajans.

In March of the next year, the Constabulary suffered the terrible disaster at Magtaon. Here occurred the greatest massacre of Constabulary in the history of the corps. To the Insular Police the word Magtaon brings up the same memories as are the portion of the army men when they remember Balangiga.

Today, this town of grim memory is known as Concord. It is a tiny town on the south coast of Samar. In 1906 it was the scene of great activity on the morning of March 24. George Curry, an old-time officer of Roosevelt's Rough Riders, had been appointed Governor of Samar. Curry was very familiar with the natives in his district; he spoke their language and he was in every respect a good administrator. For months he had been negotiating with Aguilar in an attempt to persuade the pulajan to come in and surrender. The Governor had ridden into the mountains to visit Aguilar in his camp, and the pulajan chief had repaid with several visits to the Constabulary post at Magtaon. At last all details were arranged, and Aguilar agreed to surrender. At the suggestion of Governor Curry, the men unloaded their rifles to show confidence in the pulajans. The affair was to be made very ceremonious.

Aguilar, with 130 men, marched into the station and halted in a line facing the Constabulary, and some forty yards distant. Captain Jones of the Constabulary was standing in the rear of the pulajan line with the dignitaries who were there to see the surrender. He was chatting with Judge Lobinger, Superintendent of Schools Hoover, and two government officials named Scott and Campbell. Captain Bowers and Lieutenant Puno were in front of the cuartel with their men.

As Jones talked with Judge Lobinger there was something in the manner in which the pulajans waited that aroused his suspicions. He turned and leisurely made his way to the cuartel. As he reached it and attempted to speak to Captain Bowers, Aguilar gave a signal. The pulajans fired a volley and rushed the Constabulary. Fourteen of the Constabulary became separated by the sudden, unexpected advance. The pulajans ploughed through the center of the police line with their long crescent knives. Jones, Bowers, and Puno stood their ground and rallied the surviving Constabulary as they cleared a path and shot holes in the pulajan ranks with revolvers. A spear whistled to pin Jones through the chest; he extracted it and remained on his feet. Bowers received a gunshot wound through the left arm, but he too remained in action.

The fighting lasted but a few minutes. As the Constabulary fell, their rifles were seized by the pulajans, who made off into the jungle. In less than five minutes only seven of the Constabulary were on their feet. Twenty-two were dead; seven were seriously wounded, some to die later, and all had suffered minor bolo cuts. The place was a shambles, and fifty-seven dead pulajans and Constabulary locked in last frenzied embraces within the post grounds.

As the fight had begun, Governor Curry and the other government officials had escaped to the river. The Constabulary lost fifteen rifles in the action. Seventeen Medals of Valor were awarded the participants in this heroic stand. With Jones, Bowers, and Puno, the soldiers Villas, Barboza, Cunanan, Castro, Llorando, Abobo, Macariola, Bobo, Cuello, Cipriano, Fumar, Lopinac, Nofes, and Tazon were honored. Barboza died of his wounds a month later.

Cromwell Stacey, transferred now to the Philippine Scouts with the rank of Major, had meanwhile been ordered by Major-General Wood to make a report of suggested recommendations for the best means of bringing order to Samar. This Stacey did, after conference with General Allen of the Constabulary.

In all particulars Major Stacey's suggestions were carried out, and in no small measure much of the success of the pacification measures on Samar Island may be credited to this first-class fighting man.

During the year between July 1, 1904, and June 30, 1905, the United States regulars, the Scouts, and the Constabulary were in almost constant conflict with the pulajans. The fighting reached a virtual end with Stacey's assault on Dagujob.

A fact not generally known by the casual reader of the history of the fighting in Samar is that the pulajans were organized into a complete military corps. The hillmen were organized into regiments and brigades with Line and Staff officers. In the Dagujob campaign, Captain Stacey brought to light the interesting fact that in the pulajan army, as in more civilized armies, there was continual bad blood and argument between line and staff. Included in the mass of pulajan correspondence captured by Stacey was a complete file of the letters that had passed between Line and Staff, the Line officers complaining bitterly that their troops were unable to march on the trails due to army, Scout, and Constabulary, and the Staff countering with the suggestion that the troops operate only at night.

The outcome of this correspondence seems to have been that the Line adopted the advice of the Staff, for some weeks later while Stacey was in a jungle camp, his outpost sentries reported a long line of flickering lights which marked the approach of a column of pulajans moving in accordance with Staff instructions. The troops under Captain Stacey held their position in perfect silence until the pulajan column was within fifty feet of the sentries, and then opened with a volley of rapid rifle fire. In the next batch of correspondence between the pulajan Line and Staff, the incident was reported by the Line officers with great indignation.

Major Hugh D. Wise of the Philippine Scouts contributed another potent source of friction within the pulajan ranks. This Major, while on an extended patrol in pulajan country, sought shelter from a tropical rainstorm in a native hut. Happening to glance up to the roof tree of the hut the Major noticed a red bandanna handkerchief suspended from the roof beams. Curious, the Major scaled to the roof and found the handkerchief to be filled with .45 Springfield shells, ready for delivery to the pulajan ordnance section.

While waiting out the rain the Major carefully removed the powder from all of the shells and replaced it with dynamite. Sometime later the pulajan official correspondence became filled with fierce letters between Staff and Line. The Line complained bitterly that so many men had been killed by defective shells that the men were afraid to fire their rifles, the Staff countering tartly with the suggestion that the line see that the men kept their arms clean and in serviceable condition.

All of which was obviously to be traced back to an idle afternoon in the rain when Major Wise had filled some dozens of pulajan shells with dynamite. Official reports of the day mention the finding of dead pulajans lying beside their shattered rifles.

Meanwhile, this quality of resistance had indirectly aided the hard-pressed Constabulary forces in Samar. In April, 1905, authorization was received for the purchase of 500 Krag rifles with bayonets. Three hundred of these weapons were issued to the Constabulary by the middle of the year.

There were still many deficiencies in the organization of the Insular Police. The ammunition issued was old, and the shells were prone to stick in the rifles. But with the gradual arming with Krags, the odds became more even in that terrific struggle for the mastery of Samar Island.

Return to Main Page - Jungle Patrol

Original publication © 1938 E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.

Filipiniana Reprint Series © 1985 Cacho Hermanos, Inc.

This publication (HTML format & original artwork) © 2001 Bakbakan International.

Transcription courtesy of Ashley Bass.