At the town of Caloocan, some three or four miles out to the north of Manila, were located the shops and round houses of the Manila and Dagupan Railway, which runs from Manila in a northwesterly direction about 120 miles to Dagupan, and was then the only railroad in the archipelago. It was fed by a vast rich farming country, the great plain of central Luzon. Naturally, the central plain which fed the railroad that traversed it and kept its teeming myriads of small farmers in touch with the great outside world was to be sooner or later, the theatre of war. To seize transportation is instinctively the first tactical move of a military man. Lieutenant-General Luna, commander-in-chief, next to Aguinaldo, of the revolutionary forces, the man whom later Aguinaldo had shot, was just then at Caloocan with 4000 men. So it fell to General MacArthur, commanding the Second Division of the Eighth Corps, to move on Caloocan, which he did on February 10th. John F. Bass, correspondent for Harper's Weekly, writing from Manila a short time after this, describes this movement. It was our first move away from the city of Manila. With a few masterly strokes of the pen, which I regret there is not space to reproduce here in full, Mr. Bass gives a vivid picture of the various engagements, and of "a background of burning villages, smoke, fire, shot, and shell, the ceaseless tramp of tired and often bleeding feet," etc. "Heroism," he says, "became a matter of course and death an incident." Finally his story pauses for a moment thus: "The natural comment is that all this is merely war--the business of the soldier. True, nor do I think Jimmie Green [Mr. Bass's name for our "Tommy Atkins"] is troubled with heroics. He accepts the situation without excitement or hysterics. He has little feeling in this matter for his heart is not in this fight." Here brother Bass's moralizing ceases abruptly, and the contagious excitement of the hour catches him, just as it always does the average man under such circumstances: From La Loma church you may get the full view of our long line crossing the open field, evenly, steadily, irresistibly, like an inrolling wave on the beach * * *. Watch the regiments go forward, and form under fire, and move on and on, and you will exclaim: "Magnificent," and you will gulp a little and feel proud without exactly knowing why. Then gradually the power of that line will force itself upon you, and you will feel that you must follow, that wherever that line goes you must go also. By and by you will be sorry, but for the present the might of an American regiment has got possession of you.