GENERAL LAWTON’S LAST FIGHT
The Battle of San Mateo
Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization. Pages 174-176. New York, February 24, 1900. (Public Domain)
by WILLIAM DINWIDDIE
This Website’s Author’s Notes:
The Battle of San Mateo will forever be entwined with discovery of Sol Levinson boxing gloves left by a renegade African-American Soldier from the 24th Infantry who was teaching the local Filipinos of the Manly Art of boxing
Source of info: Damon Runyon: https://philippineboxinghalloffame.org/gloves-of-san-mateo-by-damon-runyon/
We republished the entire article from Harper’s Weekly to establish timelines on the history of how boxing travelled from America to the Philippines.
Sad as it may seem, General Lawton went to his death a disappointed man. He was ambitious, as are all military men, to be recognized and rewarded by his country for meritorious service. He wanted, above all things, to be made a brigadier in the regular service while he was actively campaigning in the field, and not made one by the favorite shelving process of putting an officer up at grade and then retiring him. General Otis knew that the President was ready to nominate him for his merited honor, but he kept silent, and let the greatest general who has been evolved in this campaign pass out of his presence, at his palatial home, into the sullen rain of night, to death, without uttering that word which would have meant so much to him.
Loyal to the centre of his great heart to every man who had gained his esteem, and to every man to whom he was subordinated in official life, he little understood the machinations and petty intrigues of other men in their struggle to win recognition by subtle dexterity of speech; by holding this commander back and showing that one forward for political purposes, or the concealment of truth for fear it might injure an administration. In his honest mind, conditions confronting the army and the country were subjects to be frankly discussed, that the people might know the true inwardness of the new national problem we are attempting to unravel, so that from their comprehensive understanding there might emanate a definite, vigorous national policy. To him military men professionally were merely parts of a great machine for the preservation of the dignity and integrity of his country. He critically analyzed the ability of men to rise to the needs of an immediate situation, and demanded they should see far into the future, else he cast them out as flawed machinery, unsuited for the work in hand. His moral uprightness resented the governmental tendency to appoint unsuitable men to military positions and to give promotions to those with the most political friends. Either a man was capable or he was a failure. That he was a cultured society man, that his father was or had been a man of marked prominence, that he was a man who controlled so many votes in the Committee on Military Affairs, or that he had in past times been a brilliant fighter, formed no part in his mental equation. To be accepted he must be the man who could do the right thing promptly, at the right time, and with energy, be his father a blacksmith or a statesman.
Such was the mental attitude of the man who sat in the beautiful rooms of his tropical home, within sight and hearing of the swiftly moving waters of the Pasig River, on the night of December 18, 1899. Around him in the great room studded with massive gold-framed mirrors, with walls hung in handsome draperies, and from whose polished floors the softened light of crystal chandeliers was reflected back over tinted foliage plants and handsome carved furniture, were his devoted wife, Mrs. Colonel Liscum, Major Rogers of his staff, who accompanied him on his expedition, and myself.
He was dressed for the field, and his massive figure, in rough campaign clothes, seemed to stand out the bolder amid these luxurious surroundings. He was not very talkative, but sat absorbed and silently thinking, unheeding the play of small talk around him. The rain beat down monotonously, with now and then a gust of wind which drove it rattling against the closed blinds. He roused himself to listen to the elements, and then became again lost in thought.
“General,” I asked, “is the insurrection over?” He turned, instantly interested, and replied: “Why, you know more about the situation than I do! You must remember that I have been away two months, out of touch with the events, on as hand a campaign as an army ever made. The insurgent army is dispersed and broken up in the territory that I have passed through and we will keep it running if our troops are not withdrawn. What do you think about it?”
I answered: “At the Palace, they are confident that the end is very near. One newspaper man at least has committed himself unequivocally by the statement that all organized resistance is over. I have not been willing to go so far and I should like very much to hear your judgment.” “You know,” I continued, “it would be quite a diplomatic stroke if I might quote you as saying the insurrection is over.”
Source: Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization, Pages 174-176 New York, February 24, 1900 by WILLIAM DINWIDDIE (Public Domain)
I may state, parenthetically, that my relations with the general through the Cuban and Philippine campaigns had become of such nature that he was always willing to talk more or less confidentially. He sat and studied for a moment, and then replied: “I would like to say that and when I can do so honestly I will. I want to think over the situation for a few days. The fact is I do not know yet whether this insurrection is over or just begun.” He leaned toward me and earnestly added: “This organized resistance business has been a bubble. There has never been a moment when we could not have chased the insurgents all over the island if we went after them. When General Young reached Taguig and telegraphed me, ‘The bubble is pricked.’ I knew that the backbone of the insurrection was broken. The same thing could have been done last spring when I went to San Isidro.” He broke out suddenly with: “Why call the insurrection over if it requires an army of sixty-five thousand to preserve the peace? They have not surrendered.”
The conversation drifted into other channels, and the majore told some of Mr. Dooley’s stories in inimitable brogue, delighting the general immensely. The general twitted and teased his wife and Mrs. Liscum, and I came in for a share of the railery for having “cold feet ” and deserting his last expedition.
I asked him if he had heard anything about his appointment as brigadier in the regular army. “Not a word,” he replied. “I do not believe they intend to make me one now. My friends have asked the President to make me a brigadier and retire me, but I do not want them to do that. If the President believes I deserve it, he will give it to me; otherwise he will let some other fellow have it. You see, I am ‘a soldier’ and not a politician, and it may be that I do not know how to please them. The President has always, however, expressed great confidence in me. They have got me cowed, Dinwiddie. I am afraid to talk, for fear of saying the wrong thing, and I don’t talk, some newspaper man prints an interview with me anyway.”
It may be said that General Lawton always consistently refused to be interviewed for publication, and his statement, which was carefully qualified, that a hundred thousand men would ultimately be needed in the Philippines afterwards caused him much worry, because he was set upon by General Otis, and somewhat by the department, for making incautious utterances.
It neared the hour of twelve, and Captain Stewart had come; booted and spurred, he clanked up the marble staircase, dripping with rain, to report that the cavalry escort was in the street. The general appealed to him, as he had done to all of us during the evening, asking if he did not believe it would stop raining. General Otis in the early evening had suggested that the movement be called off on account of the weather, but with General Lawton a plan conceived was a plan to be executed without being delayed by a few hours of bad weather, and he requested that he be permitted to carry the operation through to a finish, to which General Otis acquiesced.
A few moments before the general turned on the crisis in the Transvaal. His eyes brightened, and looking towards his wife, he exclaimed: “I’ll go down there when I get through with this. They know how to fight, and that’s what I like.” His wife answered, “No, you will not, dear. You’re going home with me to Southern California to raise oranges. That is good enough for us.” He stood watching her for an instant and spoke as if repeating after her, “Yes, that’s good enough for us.”
I had asked the general if he thought it would be well for me to go with him, and he answered, “No, I think not. There probably will be no fighting; at most just a skirmish. I am going up with the troops garrison San Mateo, and will come right back. General Otis has not accepted my plans for a campaign on the south yet.” It was that little skirmish that lost our country a hero.
The general passed out of his house into a blackness of night, which was broken only here and there by ghastly white patches from the fluttering arc light. The streets ran deep in water, and the heavy towering clouds poured down their moisture in a steady drizzle. His tall form on horseback led the cavalcade; on his head was his famous white helmet, and his frame was encompassed by a long yellow slicker. Behind him were his aides, Sewell and Breckenridge and Major Rogers. Behind them came Stewart with Troop I of the Fourth Cavalry, which had acted as the general’s personal body guard on many a hand weary march.
The fight force of the expedition was to leave the pumping station of Manila’s water works, four miles out of the city at midnight, and proceed up the right bank of the stream, past the town of Mariquina (which we have taken a few odd times and relinquished), until opposite San Mateo, where the insurgents have lived in undisputed possession since our defeat ten months ago. The troops were two squadrons–one mounted and one dismounted– of the Eleventh Cavalry, under Colonel Locket; two battalions of the twenty-ninth Infantry, under Colonel Sargeant; and one battalion of the Twenty seventh, unjer Major Bryam.
General Lawton went out of the city by way of La Loma Church where so many Filipinos lay dead after the desperate conflict of last February. A pail of darkness had fallen over the party as they left the scattering lights of the city behind. No sound was heard except the sodden thud of the horses’ feet in the narrow muddy road and the champ of bits as the animals fretfully tossed their heads. Now and again some trooper muttered a curse as the mud splashed to this cheek, and he wiped it away with a swish of his water-tricked hand. Farther and farther they pulled the brims of their battered campaign hats over their eyes to protect their faces and necks from the driving rain. The moon came up behind the heavy clouds, and men who could not before been seen became black silhouettes against a heavy gray sky. The great white dome of the church hung seemingly suspended above the black earth like a huge ball.
At half past two, King, his most trusted personal aide, and Fuller, ordinance officer, who had been sent ahead to instruct the troops, joined the general’s party. It may not be amiss to say that Captain King has been with the general since the beginning of the Cuban campaign. His relations have been of the most confidential nature. He has received the approval of the general over and over again for the conspicuous gallantry in the field, where he has been with him in every engagement, and lastly it was his arms that Lawton died.
Hour after hour they rode, each one seeming longer than the preceding, as the men shifted their frail ponchos in vain endeavors to shed the water, and and only became wetter and more chilled. Just before the light of morning grayed the melancholy sky, their ears caught the oozy splashing of marching men ahead of them. It was the rear column of the troops from the water-works plunging doggedly toward San Mateo.
At half past six the light of day began to come, and the weary force found themselves at the crest of the great bluff escarpment, six hundred yards from the silent town, and separated therefrom by a river. Not a moment did General Lawton lose in putting the troops into motion to surround and attack the village. Colonel Locket, with the Eleventh Cavalry, was ordered to move to the left above the town, ford the river, and attack on the north. His mounted troops were to move several miles before fording, so as to cut off the retreat of the enemy in that direction; while the dismounted men were to cross at the first available opportunity, and take the insurgent trenches, which lined the riverbank, in reverse. The Twenty-ninth infantry, under Colonel Sargent, were to move down to the right, attract the enemy’s attention, and engage them; but the right wing of his deployed line was to ford the river and execute a flank movement to the south of the village. Major Byram, with the Twenty-seventh, was to fill the centre of the line, and re-enforce if necessary.
The execution of this movement was no easy task. The troops were in a narrow trail sixty feet above the small alluvial flood-plain, and down to this lower level led merely a slippery, mud bound foot-path. To their left in this bottomland stretched a great cane-field. In their front and to the right were rice fields flooded knee-deep in water. The view of the town was quite open in the centre, but on each side great bamboo fringes raised their fantastic feathery shaft, and afterwards proved of great protection to our men, as they lay within two hundred yards of the enemy, under a galling fire.
The cavalry, in single file, slipped and floundred down the path,and plunged northward through the rice fields. The foot troops had barely began to move into this path, one man slipping, and bowling down half a dozen ahead of him, when ragged rattling reports of small-arms began, and the insurgents could be seen piling into trenches pell-mell, all dressed in white clothes.
As the Twenty-ninth moved across the open rice-field, the fire steadily grew louder, seemingly all Mausers, and the bullets swept high, to bury themselves in the slide of the bluff, or to go even higher, surging into the country beyond.
Below San Mateo the river divided to flow around a tiny densely ventured island, and from the rear of this protection the troops moved as hastily as men can move with their legs pulling from sticky mud and water like suction pumps.
General Lawton and his aides came straight across the rice field toward the now clearly visible trenches. He gave orders now to one and then another of his aides, which they sped off to execute apparently not noticing the bullets that hissed closely by the little party. He watched the trenches through his field glasses, and remarked on the construction of one trench, where it ran abutting against a stone building, surrounded by a heavy wall,
Some one remarked, as the fire grew hotter, “General, I believe they’re shooting at you.” He laughed slightly, more a grim smile than anything else, and replied “Don’t launch, and keep moving.” Suddenly young Breckenridge jumped into the air, whirled around a time or two, and exclaimed, “General, they’ve got me’ and then fell down. The general was instantly at his side, and with the aid of King, Fuller ,and Rogers carried him to the left into a little gulch, where they were partially screened from the fire. “Find a surgeon!” the general commanded, and Fuller ran toward the Eleventh Cavalry to find one but failed. King saw a surgeon to the right and came back, bringing Dr. Beardsley of the Eleventh Cavalry with him. As the doctor examined the wounded man, General Lawton stepped out into the rice field to watch the progress of his troops, and was joined by Lieutenant Fuller a moment afterwards, who remarked, as he came up, “General, Breckenridge is not mortally hurt.” The general looked at him calmly, as a bullet passed by their faces, and replied: “Oh, I knew that. When a man is mortally hit it knocks him down, and his face becomes ashy pale and drawn around the nose, and then black ring come under his eyes.”
The bullets got closer and closer, and the general finally said, as they spitefully dug into the ground or sent jets of water into the air: “I am afraid this is not a good place for a general. I always like to be on the firing-line when I can be the least bit of good, but to-day I am going to let somebody else do it.”
He turned away into the bushes, and followed the path toward the top fo the bluff, leaving his aides to execute his final orders. How far he went to the rear no one knows.
King and Fuller were hurrying back from opposite directions to bring him information concerning the location of the forces when, to their surprise they saw him calmly walking over the open rice-field alone, lifting his glasses from time to time as some object of interest caught his unassisted eye.
He towered above the landscape, giant that he was, with his yellow slicker trailing to his feet like a gown. The sater streamed from his white helmet in the steady downpour of the rain.
Suddenly, when they were within twenty feet of him, he brushed his hand before his left breast, as if stung by an insect, turned his head slightly, and spat a clot of blood; the single exclamation, “God!’ came from his lips.
King, the man who idolized this brave soldier, sprang forward with a cry touched with agony, exclaiming, “General, are you hurt?” he answered, in a natural voice, “I’m hit.” King questioned back,”Where?” and the general replied, “Through the lungs.” These were the last words this wonderful man uttered–a man who was the dominating spirit, though not the highest in rank, of the army of the Philippines. He swayed backward and forward, clinching his nails into the palms of his hands in one mighty effort to stand on his feet, and then fell into King’s and Fuller’s arms– into the arms of men who in their loyalty and devotion would have sacrificed their own lives gladly to save the other.
Dr. Beardsley had seen the tragedy from where he was binding Breckenridge’s ugly wounds in arm and rib, and rushed to the general’s side. Slowly, he turned his head with tightly clenched teeth, fighting for life; his mouth burst open, and from it gushed the fountain of life’s blood in one great stream. Backward he sank tighter in the arms of his aides. Lawton, the commander of men, was dead, through his heart throbbed on for some three minutes, emptying with every pulsation the arteries his gigantic frame of the blood which gave him health and force and mentality. The hour was a few minutes of nine o’clock, the nineteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and ninety-nine.
A mighty cheer rose from the throats of the American troops as Colonel Sargent’s men broke from cover on the little island they had gained, and charged through the waters of the swollen stream straight on the town. If they had but known the commanding general lay dead behind them, that cry would have changed to a fierce shout for vengeance.
The fight was over. It cost us one major-general’s life and thirteen wounded men and officers. While it was only a skirmish, it took two and a half hours to execute the flanking movement and capture the town. The insurgents lost half a dozen killed, and the cavalry captured a few prisoners.
General Lawton’s body was carried across the swollen stream into San Mateo with great difficulty, and two couriers started to Manila with the news. All the afternoon they foundered through the mud and water and struggled against the wind and pelting rain. Night came on prematurely, and in the darkness they felt their way Manila-ward, foot by foot, making detours around each native village, where lights of candles crept through the crevices in the tightly barred houses. At eight o’clock on the 19th General Otis knew that Lawton was dead. Messengers were sent scurrying over the city to notify the remaining members of Lawton’s staff of his death; and Colonel Edwards, the trusted adjutant-general, with a sore and aching heart, bore the dreadful tidings to the little woman who waited for her soldier husband’s return, and dreamed betweentimes of the happy days to come, when together they would raise oranges in the balmy air of southern California.
Colonel Hayes, with four troops of the Fourth Cavalry, was ordered to move by daylight on the 20th from Psay barracks, below Manila, to Marquina, and protect the general’s body on its way to the city.
The incessant rain had swollen the streams to such an extent that fears were felt by those at San Mateo that they would not be able to send the boy in, but instant preparations were begun. No transportation had gone with the command, and not a mouthful of food had the troops had for twenty-four hours, except that which they foraged from the empty houses of the town. A covered two-wheeled quilez was found, and its oil-cloth top and stanchions were broken off for General Lawton’s hearse. His body, lying on a stretcher, swathed in looted sheeting and army blankets, was strapped into position over the wheels, and following behind this crude vehicle came a string of wounded in other two-wheeled conveyances drawn by captured prisoners, all guarded by Stewart’s band of sorrowing men.
A short distance below San Mateo a rushing stream blocked progress, and as no easy ford was discovered, the body was unlashed and taken over in a narrow teetering canoe. The carts were floated over, one by one, and the funeral march again began. No resistance was met with at Mariquina, though it was necessary to advance on the town cautiously, thus losing much time. It was night when the pumping-station was reached, and as the river was a foaming, raging torrent, it was necessary to await daylight before attempting the perilous crossing.
It was here on the morning of the 20th that Colonel Hayes met the returning party, but hours were spent in getting the funeral cortege over the river, and not until half past three did the closely curtained ambulance draw through the gates of the Manila home and give back to the wife all that remained of Major-General Henry W. Lawton.
Outside the gate stood the general’s twelve-year-old son–a delicate little chap who has accompanied his father on expedition after expedition, but was left behind this time on account of the weather. The boy worshiped the father, as the father did the son. After a hard day’s work, when the general had not had a moment’s rest and in his least communicative mood, his boy would turn the tide of feeling, and from within the doors of his headquarters room the staff would hear the general laughing as the youngster told, with enthusiasm of youth, some happening of the day. Poor little chap! He stood, pale as death, staring up the long white road, waiting for that procession. He made but one remark–”I can’t bear to see him come home”; and every soldier around him choked something down in his throat and furtively put his hand to his eyes. One sight of the solemn with a single ambulance between, and the boy, so much a man, was a child wrecked with grief.
Source: Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization, Pages 174-176 New York, February 24, 1900 by WILLIAM DINWIDDIE (Public Domain)
They have deposited his earthly remains in the secluded little chapel of Paco cemetery, and over the roof the great boughs of mimosa-trees slowly rustle in the air, and below at the door a sentry’s even footsteps pace to and fro. We are, with military honors, guarding the body whose soul had fled.
The nation will take him back to his own fair country; they will bury him with high pomp and ceremony on the rolling hill-sides of Arlington, overlooking the nation’s capital, and great guns will bellow with hollow sounds the last salute to the hero; but, after all, how paltry a nation’s grief compared to that of a woman who looks forward only to reunion in heaven, though she breathes: “It cannot be true. It seems as if Henry must come home to me once more.”
