The Inhabitants of the PhilippinesSawyer, Frederic H.
History
The Inhabitants of the Philippines
Sawyer, Frederic H.
Ethnology -- Philippines; Philippines -- Social life and customs
The action lasted from 7 to 11.30 A.M. The rebels were discouraged,
but still, on the 22nd, they delivered an attack as if they would
retake the town, and pressed on with great fury. They killed four of
the Spaniards and wounded twenty-one, but in the end were driven off,
leaving 400 dead on the ground. The houses in Silang were found fully
furnished and provisioned. In the house of the so-called Viceroy of
Silang, Victor Belarmino, the principal ornament of the sala was a
chromo-lithograph portrait of the Queen Regent.
The church-doors were wide open and the altars profusely
illuminated. On the sacristy table lay the priestly robes and
ornaments, ready, doubtless, for the celebration of a Te Deum for the
expected victory. But he who was to wear them, the celebrated Tagal
Bishop, lay with a bullet through his heart across the parapet he
had fiercely defended.
Lachambre preserved the best houses around the church and convent and
utilised them as storehouses, hospital, and barracks, burning the
rest of the town as a punishment to the rebels. He then garrisoned
and fortified the post and connected it with the telegraph line.
On the 24th Lachambre marched from Silang, his main body advancing by
the direct route to Perez Dasmariñas parallel to the River Casundit,
a flanking force of three companies guarding the left of the column,
whilst Lieutenant Colonel Villalon, with a battalion and a half
having started an hour earlier than the main body, took the road to
Palimparan, having the Rio Grande on his right, and by his advance
protecting the right flank of the column. Villalon advanced rapidly,
and, brushing aside all opposition, rushed Palimparan with a loss
of one killed and one wounded, killing seven of the rebels in the
attack. Here he bivouacked, and at sunset was joined by another
force consisting of half a brigade under Colonel Arizon, detached
from General Galbis' force on the Zapote River.
In the meantime the main body had advanced to within three miles of
Perez Dasmariñas and bivouacked at the hamlet called Sampalcoc. On
the following day Perez Dasmariñas was taken by assault, after a
short bombardment by the mountain batteries. The rebels were strongly
entrenched, and made a stout resistance. They had flooded the rice
fields to the east of the town and rendered them impassable.
The town was attacked from the south and west, but it took hours of
hard fighting for the Spaniards to break in, and even then the rebels
fought hand to hand, and many preferred death to surrender. Those
who fled were taken in flank by Arizon's force, which approached the
northern end of the town from the eastward. The loss of the Spaniards
was 21 killed and 121 wounded, whilst the natives left 400 dead at
the foot of their defences, and a great number were killed outside
the town.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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