In the meantime the troops under General MacArthur were by no means idle. They consisted of two brigades, that of General Hale on the right wing, and that of General Wheaton on the left wing. Of these troops the first advance was by some men of the Fourth Cavalry, who went forward to reconnoitre the enemy’s position near Quingua. The start was made during the early morning, and before long the insurgents opened a heavy fire which the Americans returned with difficulty, as the rebels were well concealed by the tall grass and their intrenchments. To aid the cavalry a number of other troops were hurried forward, also several field-pieces; and in the end the Filipinos were forced from their position, with a heavy loss. In this battle the Americans lost six killed and forty wounded. Among the killed was Colonel Stotsenburg, commanding the First Nebraska Volunteers, who, after most gallantly leading his men, was shot down in the final rush upon the enemy’s earthworks.
From Quingua the whole of General Hale’s brigade moved down the Quingua River to Pulilan. Here no resistance was encountered, and after a brief rest the brigade pushed on toward Logundi. 104 That town was not yet reached when the advance guard reported a breastwork across the main road, running to the river on the west and into the jungle on the east.
“Never mind, we’ll go ahead anyhow!” shouted the soldiers of the Nebraska regiment; and go ahead they did, with the South Dakota and Iowa troops beside them, and several guns of the Sixth Artillery protecting their advance. The fight at the earthworks was a fierce one, some of the Filipinos refusing to surrender even when they knew they were beaten; and as a consequence many of them were slain whose lives might otherwise have been spared to them.
A short distance to the northwest of Logundi, the Quingua and the Bagbag rivers join in flowing into the Calumpit. The railroad crosses the Bagbag but a short distance away, and at this point General Hale’s command reunited with that of General Wheaton, which had come up along the tracks from Malolos without difficulty. General Wheaton had with him the troops from Montana and Kansas, some Utah artillery, and one or two other commands, along with two armored cars, fitted out with Gatling and Hotchkiss guns and six-pounders.
It was soon discovered that the rebels had built strong breastworks in a semicircle along the north bank of the Bagbag and the western bank of the Calumpit Rivers, and had injured the railroad track for a distance of several hundred yards, and also the bridge spanning the river. As the approach to both rivers was largely an open one, how to dislodge the Filipinos became a serious problem.
“Forward with the armored cars!” was the cry, and they were rushed ahead as far as the torn-up condition of the railroad tracks admitted. A cannonading lasting for half an hour followed, in which one of the batteries on the highway also took part. The aim of the gunners was good, and soon the insurgents were seen to be pouring from the trenches, which were getting too hot to hold them. Yet a fair number held their ground, and when the troops on foot advanced they opened a blistering fire which laid not a few Americans low. But the victory was ours, and soon the followers of Old Glory were wading or swimming the river, while the engineering corps set to work to repair the damage done to railroad and bridge, so that the armored and baggage cars might pass through.
The cry was now, “On to Calumpit!” which 106 town lies on the Calumpit River, and is divided into two parts by another stream, called the Rio Grande. It was found that the insurgents had practically deserted the lower half of the town, but had intrenchments on the upper bank of the Rio Grande which were even more formidable than those taken on the Bagbag. Here the rebels had also a Maxim and other guns, and it seemed as if for once the advance of the Americans was thoroughly blocked. Numerous good positions along the south bank of the river were held by our troops, but it looked as if they could not get over the stream without a tremendous loss of life.
It is said that the opportunity makes the man, and in this instance the saying proved a true one. With the soldiers under General Wheaton were the Twentieth Kansas Volunteers, who had already made a record for themselves at Malolos and elsewhere, as related in a previous volume of this series. They were commanded by Colonel Frederick Funston, a man comparatively young in years and small in stature, but one who was daring to the last degree, and who had seen much of fighting and hardships during his adventurous existence. In Cuba, Funston had fought most valiantly under 107 Garcia for Cuban liberty long before any interference by the United States.
To Colonel, afterward Brigadier General, Funston belongs the honor of the passage of the Rio Grande, for it was he who planned what was done, 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 American history.