After the refusal of General Otis to end hostilities following the San Juan bridge incident, General Arthur MacArthur ordered the advance of American troops toward Filipino positions in Manila and the suburbs. Regiments from Kansas and California captured Santa Ana and Makati. Troops from Nebraska and Utah occupied the San Juan Bridge. On the other hand, volunteers from Idaho and Washington massacred hundreds of Filipinos who were then trying to cross the Pasig River. The coastlines were pounded continuously by Admiral Dewey’s naval guns. Capturing Manila and the Suburbs. Several American soldiers who took part in the battles in Manila and the suburbs wrote letters telling about those battles to their relatives in the United States. These letters were published in local and national press in the United States by the Anti-Imperialist League in 1899 in the United States.

Source:
Soldiers’ Letters: Being Materials for the History of a War of Criminal Aggression. (N. p.: Anti-Imperialist League, 1899).
http://www.accinet.net/~fjzwick/ailtexts/soldiers.html
In Jim Zwick, ed., Anti-Imperialism in the United States, 1898-1935.
http://www.accinet.net/~fjzwick/ail98-35.html (December 12, 1996.)

From Manila, wrote Private Fred B. Hinchman, Company A, United States Engineers:

At 1:30 o’clock, the general gave me a memorandum with regard to sending out a Tennessee battalion to the line. He tersely put it that “they were looking for a fight.” At Puente Colgante (suspension bridge) I met one of our company, who told me that the Fourteenth and Washingtons were driving all before them, and taking no prisoners. This is now our rule of procedure for cause. After delivering my message I had not walked a block when I heard shots down the street. Hurrying forward, I found a group of four men taking pot-shots across the river, into a bamboo thicket, at about 1,200 yards....

Narrating his exploits in Santa Ana, Manila, Captain Albert Otis, wrote:

I have six horses and three carriages in my yard, and enough small plunger for a family of six. The house I had at Santa Ana had five pianos. I couldn’t take them, so I put a big grand piano out of a second-story window. You can guess its finish. Everything is pretty quiet about here now. I expect we will not be kept here very long now. Give my love to all.

On to Marikina.

The Americans pushed towards the suburbs, including Marikina. Thinking of the impending Marikina fight, James A. Reid, a Colorado volunteer, had this to say:

Maybe you think this isn’t a fine country—to keep away from. In fact, all of the country around here is just “lousy” with “niggers.” To the right of us is the lake. About seven miles away, to the north and east, is the little town of Marquina, which will soon have to be taken. As it is the birthplace of Pio del Pilar, one of “Aggie’s” great generals, we expect quite a fight. Malabon and Malolos have not as yet been taken. Don’t know about Malolos, but Malabon can be taken any time, as it is next to the bay....We are not nearly as anxious to fight these people as some of people may think we are, and we do not enter any of the fights with the same spirit we did when fighting the Spaniards. If a vote was taken to take us home now or wait six months and discharge us here with our travel pay and finals, which would amount to nearly five hundred dollars, I do not believe that ten percent would be willing to stay, so you see how the men look at this addition to the United States....There have been about one hundred and twenty-five killed and three hundred wounded all together, and, when you consider that these beastly islands are not worth one American life, you can see what they are costing.

La Loma Fight.

Major Jose Torres Bugallon, one of the bravest Filipino officers, was killed in the battle of La Loma, near the Chinese cemetery. After capturing La Loma, General MacArthur pushed toward Caloocan. General Antonio Luna and his brave troops were there to fight the Americans. Caloocan Battle. Describing the Caloocan battle, Charles Bremer, of Minneapolis, Kansas, wrote:

Company I had taken a few prisoners, and stopped. The colonel ordered them up in to line time after time, and finally sent Captain Bishop back to start them. There occurred the hardest sight I ever saw. They had four prisoners, and didn’t know what to do with them. They asked Captain Bishop what to do, and he said: “You know the orders, and four natives fell dead.”

Writing his own version of the Caloocan fight, Captain Elliot, of the Kansas Regiment said: Talk about war being “hell,” this war beats the hottest estimate ever made of that locality. Caloocan was supposed to contain seventeen thousand inhabitants. The Twentieth Kansas swept through it, and now Caloocan contains not one living native. Of the buildings, the battered walls of the great church and dismal prison alone remain. The village of Maypaja, where our first fight occurred on the night of the fourth, had five thousand people on that day—now not one stone remains upon top of another. You can only faintly imagine this terrible scene of desolation.

War is worse than hell.

Due to the Americans’ superiority in arms, Caloocan fell. But General Luna didn’t give up. On February 22, Luna marched towards Manila to try to capture it. He even ordered the burning of houses in the suburbs to create confusion to the American troops. Afterwards he fought the enemy on Azcarraga. General Luna and his troops suffered heavy losses so he then retreated to Polo, Bulacan. Malabon, Here we Come! The Americans advanced towards Malabon (near Caloocan), as if saying, “Here we come!” Describing their adventures in Malabon, Anthony Michea of the Third Artillery wrote:

We bombarded a place called Malabon, and then we went in and killed every native we met, men, women, and children. It was a dreadful sight, the killing of the poor creatures. The natives captured some of the Americans and literally hacked them to pieces, so we got orders to spare no one.”

Cavite Fight.

Burr Ellis, of Frazier, Valley, California, narrated what he did in Cavite. He wrote: They did not commence fighting over here (Cavite) for several days after the war commenced. Dewey gave them till nine o’clock one day to surrender, and that night they all left but a few out to their trenches, and those that they left burned up the town, and when the town commenced burning, the troops were ordered in as far as possible and said, “Kill all we could find.” I ran off from the hospital and went ahead with the scouts. And you bet, I did not cross the ocean for the fun there was in it, so the first one I found, he was in a house, down on his knees fanning a fire, trying to burn the house, and I pulled my old Long Tom to my shoulder and left him to burn with the fire, which he did. I got his knife, and another jumped out of the window and ran, and I brought him to the ground like a jack-rabbit. I killed seven that I know of, and one more, I am almost sure of: I shot ten shots at him running and knocked him down, and that evening the boys out in front of our trenches now found one with his arm shot off at the shoulder and dead as h____. I had lots of fun that morning....

From Fred D. Sweet, of the Utah Light Battery, came these words:

The scene reminded me of the shooting of jack-rabbits in Utah, only the rabbits sometimes got away, but the insurgents did not. Help! Help! Help! Reinforcements from the U.S. American reinforces arrived from the United States in late February and early March 1899. Then Americans advanced towards Polo, Bulacan, capturing other towns along the Manila-Dagupan Railway.

Battles in the Visayas.

The Americans then decided to invade the Visayan provinces. In particular, General Otis directed General Miller to invade and capture Iloilo Province. The Filipinos, headed by General Martin Delgado, did not surrender as demanded by Miller. Instead, he decided to fight the Americans. The Filipino soldiers burned Iloilo City to prevent the Americans from making it as the enemy’s base of operations. Describing their invasion of Iloilo City, D.M. Mickle, of the Tennessee Regiment, wrote:

The building had been taken possession of by a United States officer, and he looted it to a finish. I suspected something and followed one of his men to the place. I expected to be jumped on by the officer as soon as I found him there, as I was away from my post, but it seems he was afraid I would give him away; in fact, we were both afraid of each other. He was half drunk, and every time he saw me looking at anything he would say, “Tennessee, do you like that? Well put it in your pocket.”...The house was a fine one, and richly furnished, but had been looted to a finish. The contents of every drawer had been emptied on the floor. You have no idea what a mania for destruction the average man has when the fear of the law is removed. I have seen them—old sober business men too—knock chandeliers and plate-glass mirrors to pieces just because they couldn’t carry it off. It is such a pity.

On February 14, 1899, the town of Santa Barbara was captured by the Americans. Next they captured Oton, Mandurriao, and Jaro, Iloilo. On February 22, Cebu was surrendered to the Americans by the Filipinos. On to Malolos. In central Luzon, by March 30, the Americans were already near Malolos, Bulacan, where the Philippine government was headquartered. General Aguinaldo evacuated Malolos and moved his headquarters to San Isidro, Nueva Ecija.

At that time, General Otis ordered General MacArthur not to pursue Aguinaldo, but to temporarily stay in Malolos. Meanwhile, the Americans immediately captured Bacoor, Zapote, and Dasmarinas, all in Cavite; Paranaque and Las Pinas, in Morong, and Paete, Santa Cruz, and other towns in Laguna. On April 23, the same year, General Gregorio del Pilar, known as the “boy general,” defeated the American cavalry under Major Bell in a stiff battle in Quinqua (now Plaridel), Bulacan. The enemy suffered heavy losses, including Colonel Stotsenberg who was killed in action. On the other hand, General Licerio Geronimo overpowered the Americans under General Lawton in San Mateo, Morong, in which battle Lawton was killed. General MacArthur moved towards Kalumpit, Bulacan, where General Luna was waiting for him. According to Teodoro Agoncillo (History of the Filipino People,) when the Americans were about to attack, Luna, together with his foot soldiers, cavalry, and artillery left Kalumpit to punish General Tomas Mascardo for his insubordination. Mascardo was then in Pampanga Province. General del Pilar was left to fight and repulse the enemy, which the “boy general” was not able to do. It was too late when Luna and his soldiers came back at nightfall. The Americans had already broken through the Filipino defensive lines. Thus they lost the fight, The Filipinos sustained other battle losses.

Source
The Filipino Americans (From 1763 to the Present): Their History, Culture, & Traditions.
Veltisezar B. Bautista