But I do know that the invariable statement of all Filipinos unarmed and un-uniformed when captured, to the effect that they were amigos, became to the American soldier not remotely dissimilar to the waving of a red rag at a bull. Of course this was also due, largely, to the guerrilla practice of hiding guns when hard-pressed and actually plunging at once into some make-believe agricultural pursuit. As for Major Bishop, it is inconceivable to me that he gave any order to kill unarmed prisoners. Even admitting for the sake of the argument that he is a fiend, he is not a fool. As a matter of fact, he was a brave soldier, as all the reports show, and is a reputable lawyer, having many warm friends whose opinion of any man would command respect anywhere. The truth of the whole matter probably is that just before going into battle, when our troops were in an ugly temper by reason of the rumors of barbarities alleged to have been perpetrated by the enemy, or contemplated by him, the word was passed along the line to "Take no more prisoners than we have to," and that that thought originated with some irresponsible private soldier of the line inflamed by stories of mutilation of our dead or of maltreatment of our wounded. Such a "word," so passed from man to man, can, in the heat of conflict, very soon evolve into something having for practical purposes all the force and effect of an order. Through the foregoing, and like causes, including the "water cure," later invented to persuade amigos to discover the whereabouts of hidden insurgent guns or give information as to the movements of the enemy, [211] our war with the Filipinos became, before it was over, a rather "dark and bloody" affair, accentuated as it was, from time to time, by occasional Filipino success in surprising detachments from ambush, or by taking them unawares and off their guard in their quarters, and eliminating them, the most notable instance of the first being the crumpling of a large command of the 15th Infantry by General Juan Cailles, in southern Luzon, and the most indelibly remembered and important example of the second being the massacre of the 9th Infantry people at Balangiga, in Samar, in the fall of 1901. Certainly more than one American in that long-drawn-out war did things unworthy of any civilized man, things he would have believed it impossible, before he went out there, ever to come to. Personally, I have heard, so far as I now recollect, of comparatively few barbarities perpetrated by Filipinos on captured American soldiers. Barbarities on their side seemed to have been reserved for those of their own race whom they found disloyal to the cause of their country. Personally I have never seen the water-cure administered. But I once went on a confidential mission by direction of General MacArthur, in the course of which I reported first, on arriving in the neighborhood of the contemplated destination, to a general officer of the regular army who is still such to-day.