The Thirty-Third Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Philippine War
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SERVICE HONEST AND FAITHFUL: THE THIRTY-THIRD VOLUNTEER INFANTRY REGIMENT IN THE PHILIPPINE WAR, 1899-1901 Jack D. Andersen, M.A. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS December 2017 APPROVED: Richard B. McCaslin, Major Professor Roberto R. Calderón, Committee Member Harland Hagler, Committee Member Brian M. Linn, Committee Member Nancy L. Stockdale, Committee Member Harold M. Tanner, Chair of the Department of History David Holdeman, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Victor Prybutok, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Andersen, Jack D. Service Honest and Faithful: The Thirty-Third Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Philippine War, 1899-1901. Doctor of Philosophy (History), December 2017, 269 pp., bibliography, 72 primary resources, 97 secondary resources. This manuscript is a study of the Thirty-Third Infantry, United States Volunteers, a regiment that was recruited in Texas, the South, and the Midwest and was trained by officers experienced from the Indian Wars and the Spanish-American War. This regiment served as a front-line infantry unit and then as a constabulary force during the Philippine War from 1899 until 1901. While famous in the United States as a highly effective infantry regiment during the Philippine War, the unit's fame and the lessons that it offered American war planners faded in time and were overlooked in favor of conventional fighting. In addition, the experiences of the men of the regiment belie the argument that the Philippine War was a brutal and racist imperial conflict akin to later interventions such as the Vietnam War. An examination of the Thirty-Third Infantry thus provides valuable context into a war not often studied in the United States and serves as a successful example of a counterinsurgency. Copyright 2017 by Jack D. Andersen ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation has been the result of the endless generosity, patience, and support of several people. Without the efforts of these men and women (and dozens more whom I have regretfully and unintentionally omitted here due to space limitations), this work would have been an impossible undertaking. Naturally, my committee members deserve special mention: professors Richard B. McCaslin, Roberto R. Calderón, Harland Hagler, Brian M. Linn, and Nancy L. Stockdale all deserve my profound thanks. Dr. McCaslin, my major professor, worked tirelessly in helping me chip away the manuscript’s rough edges into a finished product. Additional scholars and colleagues have also helped me in their own ways over the years. They are Dr. Randolph “Mike” Campbell, Dr. Guy Chet, Dr. Donald Chipman, Jonathan W. Deiss, Michelle Findlater, Dr. Jeff Fortney, Dr. Jody Ginn, Dr. Michael V. Leggiere, Dr. Richard Lowe, William McWhorter, Thomas Pickens, Dr. James Pohl, Jenny Reibenspies, Jose Romero, Beth Standifird, Kevin Sykes, and Sarah Trimble. I would also like to thank the dedicated archivists and librarians who assisted me in this project. The people who work at the archives I used for my research are too numerous to name here, but all of them were helpful in many ways in locating and suggesting useful sources for me. I also wish to thank my brother Dr. Mike Andersen, my sister-in-law Katherine Lowry, and my parents Jack and Mary Andersen. My father did not live to see this work completed, but he always encouraged me to complete it. I hope that this work lives up the expectations and hope that everyone had for it. Any mistakes and oversights are my own. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2. A NEW REGIMENT FOR A NEW WAR ............................................................ 23 CHAPTER 3. “1200 SHARPSHOOTERS AND 1300 CRAPSHOOTERS” .............................. 56 CHAPTER 4. “A DARE-DEVIL REGIMENT” .......................................................................... 85 CHAPTER 5. THE GILLMORE EXPEDITION ....................................................................... 127 CHAPTER 6. THE COUNTER-INSURGENCY....................................................................... 151 CHAPTER 7. “AND RETURN US TO OUR OWN BELOVED HOME” ............................... 181 CHAPTER 8. SERVICE HONEST AND FAITHFUL .............................................................. 212 CHAPTER 9. CONCLUSION.................................................................................................... 242 APPENDIX: PHOTOGRAPHS AND TABLES ........................................................................ 247 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................................... 260 iv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In 2006, the United States Army and Marine Corps recognized in their newly published field manual a certain neglect in studying counterinsurgency tactics since the end of the Vietnam War. The authors of the manual’s foreword, Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus of the United States Army and Lieutenant General James F. Amos of the United States Marine Corps, observed that the analysis of counterinsurgencies and the means to combat them must have their basis in the then-contemporary conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but they also “must be grounded in historical studies.”1 The manual admits that the United States military has throughout its long history often engaged in counterinsurgency warfare (COIN) but is forced to relearn the lessons of COIN.2 More recently, Colonel Gian Gentile, a retired West Point instructor and historian, wrote that “the COIN argument is a blend of some history, a lot of myth, and suppositions about roads not taken. COIN depends on a narrow and selective view of histories that are messy and complicated.”3 This admission that the United States military must relearn the lessons of insurgencies is, however, incomplete. The manual, as a practical guide to warfare, did not address the philosophical aspects behind the basic question as to why the United States Army must relearn lessons of the past. The oft-quoted warning that people who do not understand history are condemned to repeat it set aside for the moment, it is an unfortunate but 1 United States Department of the Army, Counterinsurgency (Field Manual 3-24, 15 December 2006), foreword. 2 Department of the Army, Counterinsurgency, ix. Interestingly, the authors of this manual did not address occasions when Americans were insurgents, such as in the War of American Independence or, in the case of Confederates, the American Civil War. 3 Gian Gentile, Wrong Turn: America’s Deadly Embrace of Counter-Insurgency (New York: The New Press, 2013), 12. 1 plain truism that Americans tend to willingly forget the lessons of “dirty little wars” because they do not fit into what Americans believe that war should be. Despite the long and interesting history that the United States has of fighting counterinsurgencies (and, in the cases of the United States during the American War of Independence and the Confederate States during the American Civil War, Americans were the insurgents), many Americans tend to focus their attention on conventional wars. As the United States waged an increasingly frustrating war in Vietnam during the 1960s, military historian Russell F. Weigley wrote that “guerilla warfare is so incongruous to the natural methods and habits of a stable and well-to-do society that the American Army has tended to regard it as abnormal and to forget about it whenever possible.” He concluded that “Each new experience with irregular warfare has required, then, that appropriate techniques be learned all over again.”4 For most Americans, war is supposed to be a thing reluctantly entered into for noble purposes and high-minded ideals, and is ended on terms that are morally acceptable. The government and popular media have traditionally, either separately or through collusion, packaged and sold these notions to the American people for the purposes of establishing and maintaining popular support for a war effort while hostilities between the United States and its adversaries of the day continue. Once a conflict ends, most Americans return to “business as usual” and neglect the lessons of the country’s recent conflict. This quick shift often includes both civilians and the military. Additionally, when a conflict does not fit the traditional narrative of a conventional war, the lessons become more difficult for Americans to understand and are perhaps even more quickly set aside. This is especially the case when Americans do not believe that there are clear goals or a clear victory, such as in Vietnam or the operations conducted by the United States 4 Russell F. Weigley, History of the United States Army (London: B. T. Batsford, 1968), 161. 2 military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Oftentimes, Americans overlook a sober analysis of official conduct in the war in favor of sensational narratives that offer simple solutions to complex problems.5 An excellent case study of this problem in American popular and military thinking can be found in the closing years of the nineteenth century when the United States defeated Spain in a short war and began to shoulder the burdens of a new empire. At the end of hostilities with Spain on 12 August 1898, the United States had soldiers occupying Manila, the capital of the Philippines.