American fury in the Philippines. XXXIV / Puente Colgante

Private Fred B. Hinchman, Company A, United States Engineers, writes
from Manila, February 22d:

"At 1:30 o'clock the general gave me a memorandum with regard to
sending out a Tennessee battalion to the line. He tersely put it that
'they were looking for a fight.' At the Puente Colgante (suspension
bridge) I met one of our company, who told me that the Fourteenth and
Washingtons were driving all before them, and taking no prisoners.
This is now our rule of procedure for cause. After delivering my
message I had not walked a block when I heard shots down the street.
Hurrying forward, I found a group of our men taking pot-shots across
the river, into a bamboo thicket, at about 1,200 yards. I longed to
join them, but had my reply to take back, and that, of course, was the
first thing to attend to. I reached the office at 3 P.M., just in time
to see a platoon of the Washingtons, with about fifty prisoners, who
had been taken before they learned how not to take them."