SCOTTS BLUFFS
Major-General G. M. Dodge and train on march from Julesburg to Fort Laramie, in the Indian Campaign, August, 1865.
MISPLACED SYMPATHY
Address to The
New York Commandery, Military Order of Loyal
Legion, on Cruelties in the Philippines
I desire to enter my protest and call the attention of the companions to the position of a portion of the public press, and some people, towards our Army in the Philippines, and what they assert are cruelties perpetrated there.
There is a certain portion of the press, and also of the people, who are and always have been absolutely opposed to the operations of our army in the Philippines. They were very anxious to push us into a war which we were all opposed to, but after getting us there they refused to accept the results, and have persistently opposed everything done that was not in exact accordance with their views. In order to work upon the sympathies of the people, some of the papers are publishing pictures showing our soldiers in the very act of committing great outrages; the pictures were manufactured in their own offices, as were also most of the outrages complained of. You have not, however, seen in these papers any pictures portraying the cruelties perpetrated upon our soldiers, which have been worse than any acts ever committed by the savages in our wars with them; they are, in fact, too revolting to relate. I have had much to do with Indian warfare, but have never seen any cruelties to be compared with those inflicted upon our soldiers by the Filipinos, and these occurrences were not rare, but general,—happening all the time. Very little has been said on this subject, for it was not the policy of the Government to have the stories of these atrocities printed, or brought before the people; but now that our army is being so bitterly attacked, it is time that, the soldiers' side of the question should be presented, and we are learning of the soldiers who have been assassinated, their feet burned, buried alive, killed by slow-burning fires, their bowels cut open and wound around trees. The Filipinos indulged in every torture and indignity that was possible, and, as a general thing, our soldiers did not retaliate. How they managed to refrain from taking vengeance is beyond my comprehension, but their action is greatly to their credit and honor.
The questions I wish to bring before you, however, are, What are the rights of an officer in such matters? What are his duties and privileges in war in an enemy's country that is under martial law? Take, for instance, General Smith's position when he was sent to Samar, with instructions to wipe out the insurrection there. He is said to have issued instructions to kill everybody found in arms that was over ten years of age, and to burn the country, if it was necessary to wipe out the insurrection, and the result is that in ninety days or less he did wipe out the insurrection, and without any great loss on our side or on the part of the enemy. Now they are denouncing him for a threat,—not an act. The temptation to retaliate must have been very great, for the treatment the Ninth Infantry received from those savages was nothing short of murder, followed by the most horrible mutilation, by a people who pretended to be their friends and at peace. In the ninety days he was operating there General Smith brought the island to peace, everybody in it had surrendered, and it is quiet. If he had made war under the methods advocated, allowing no one to be hurt, in all probability the subjugation of the island would have required a year's time, and there would have been ten times the suffering and loss of life than actually occurred. He simply followed the plan of war that was pursued by Grant, Sherman, and other commanders in the Civil War; that is, made it just as effective and short as possible. You know Sherman's position was that after a certain length of time when an enemy had been whipped, it was their duty to cease making war, and if they did not do so, he considered that any means were justifiable in order to bring it to an end. He stated this very clearly in his St. Louis speech. He stated the case as follows:
I claim that when we took Vicksburg, by all the rules of civilized warfare the Confederates should have surrendered, and allowed us to restore peace in the land. I claim also that when we took Atlanta they were bound by every rule of civilized warfare to surrender their cause, which was then hopeless, and it was clear as daylight that they were bound to surrender and return to civil life; but they continued the war, and then we had a right under the rules of civilized warfare to commence a system that would make them feel the power of the Government, and make them succumb. I had to go through Georgia to let them see what war meant. I had a right to destroy, which I did, and I made them feel the consequences of war so fully they will never again invite an invading Army.