Dr. Phelan’s report closes thus:
At the conclusion of the meeting it was said that as this question involved the integrity of the entire republic, it could not be further discussed here, but must be referred to the Malolos Government.
There is one other statement made by the spokesman of the Filipinos, at their meeting with Dr. Phelan, which arrested and gripped my attention. That it may interest the reader as it did me, it will need but a word or so as preface. In the fall of that same year, 1899, when my regiment, the 29th Infantry, U. S. Volunteers, reached the Islands, it was supposed that the insurrection had about played out, i.e., that it had been “beaten to a frazzle,” because the Filipinos no longer offered to do battle in force in the open. Yet all that fall, and all through 1900 and after, a most obstinate guerrilla warfare was kept up. Anywhere in the archipelago you were liable to be fired on from ambush. At first we could not understand this. Later we found out it was the result of an order of Aguinaldo’s, faithfully carried out, not to assemble in large commands, but to conduct a systematic guerrilla warfare indefinitely. We learned this by capturing a copy of the order, which was quite elaborate. Dr. Phelan’s report says:
I told him [Melliza] that the city was in our power, and that we could destroy it at any time * * *. Lawyer Melliza replied that he cared nothing about the city; that we could destroy it if we wished * * *. “We will withdraw to the mountains and repeat the North American Indian warfare. You must not forget that.”
Later, they did.
On January 15th, General Otis wrote General Miller[14] again cautioning him against any clash at Iloilo, and saying of conditions at Manila and Malolos: “The revolutionary government is very anxious for peaceful relations.”
Three days later Senator Bacon saw the situation with clearer vision from the other side of the world than General Otis could see it under his nose, and said on the floor of the Senate on January 18th concerning the conditions at Manila and Malolos:
While there is no declaration of war, while there is no avowal of hostile intent, with two such armies fronting each other with such divers intents and resolves, it will take but a spark to ignite the magazines which is to explode.[15]
The spark was ignited on February 4, 1899, by a sentinel of the Nebraska regiment firing on some Filipino soldiers who disregarded his challenge to halt, and killing one of them. War once on, General Miller was directed on February 10th, after he had lain in Iloilo harbor for forty-four days, to take the city. So at last he gave written notice to the insurgents in Iloilo demanding the surrender of the city and garrison “before sunset Saturday, the 11th instant” and requesting them to give warning to all non-combatants.[16] Thereupon the insurgents set fire to the city and departed.