TO THE PHILIPPINES
Defiance Daily Crescent, August 25, 1899, page 1
"George Hesselschwardt is in receipt of the following letter from J. S. Hesselschwardt, who was a member of Company M, who has joined the regular army and is now enroute to the Philippines.
"SUNDAY, JULY 30th, '99, and on the ship.
MY DEAR COUSINS:
George and Mary, I take the pleasure once more to address you a few lines to let you know that I am well and improving on my trip so far. I am about two thousand miles from 'Frisco,' Cal., out on the dark blue sea and we expect to land at Honolulu by Monday night and so I will finish my letter after I get there...
George, tell the Co. M boys that I send my best to all, and that we get plenty to eat and I have drawn my second set of clothes and my bill for both suits is only $4.40, and that we wear tan shoes and cream colored shirts, and Oh, but we swell up. George, the news is scarce, for there is nothing to see but sky and sea...
The name of the boat we are going over on is Tartar and she is a nice, old rocking chair, you bet...
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| The steamship, Tartar |
The Defiance Daily Crescent, December 27, 1899
"BEER. The Soldiers in the Philippines Have It On the Firing Line
Defiance County Boy Tells of His Experience Battling in Our New Possession.
He Likes Army Life.
Cebu, P. I. October 12, 1899
Dear Cousins George and Mary Hesselschwardt,
You must excuse me for not writing sooner, but I had a very bad arm caused by being vaccinated, but it is all right now... We are on our post and guard duty all the time, .. I thank you as ever so much for the papers you sent me.
George, it is nice to be a soldier in the Philippines. We have both Anhauser Busch and Schlitz beer, right out on the firing line.
On Sept. 27th, I lined myself up for my first battle; it did not seem like going to battle when we lined up, but the farther on the hills we got, it more it cheered us, for we knocked those cities all to glory...We line up at St. Nickle's church and started for the mountain on (a hunt for the enemy). I was picked as one of Company H sharpshooters and the first capture we made, we got ten bushels of rice and $29.60 in cash, and three bolo knives, and a box of silverware worth about $200.
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| Bolo knives |
At about 2;30 p.m. we halted to camp for the night at the foot of the hills and put out our outpost. At 8:30 p.m. we had our first (enemy). Company H got him. He was shot three times and then he was finished off with the butt of a gun by Private Warner of Deshler. Company H did a search for more (enemy), but could not find any, so we went to bed and at 5:30 a.m. we had our breakfast and at 6:30, started for the top of the hill and at 9 a.m. were fired upon and then the battle began.
The first shot just missed my left ear and the second one went over the top of my head, and I saw the (enemy) and returned the salute, and I never saw him since... in the next four days we captured seven horses, four large guns and thirty-seven rifles and forty-eight bolo knives...
The company then marched to Cebu, after taking seven lives and wounding seventy-nine. Seventy seven of the enemy were captured. Hesselschwardt's estimate was that 980 Army men were against 15,000 of the enemy. They continued to fight the guerillas in the hills and did not lose a man, but they had two wounded, one shot in the leg and the other caught in a trap where a stick entered his leg.
The Defiance Daily Crescent, December 27,1899
"LETTER FROM THE PHILIPPINES
SOLDIER WRITES OF CONDITIONS AS THEY EXIST.
REMOVAL OF THE CANTEEN CAUSES FAR MORE INJURY TO THE SOLDIERS AS STRONG NATIVE DRINK IS USED
At this point, Joseph Hesselschardt was still on Cebu Island, where he was enjoying good health. The Philippine Nationalists continued to create trouble for the army, cutting telegraph wires, stealing horses, and threatening peaceful citizens to join the rebellion or be killed.
Joseph has ten months yet to serve,but felt he might be 8 months there and then home for the rest. To re-enlist would bring him a $250 bonus,if he didn't go home, so he was weighing that decision. But he commented that "the money must be paid first as promises have not been holding good of late."
The closing of the csnteen had affected soldier morale for the soldiers no longer had their beer, but instead some native drink which was much stronger and made the soldiers drunk,rebellious, and prone to trouble.
The Crescent-News, December 18, 1900
FIGHTING IN THE PHILIPPINES
A LETTER FROM J.S. HASSELSWERTH, WHO SAYS THE
WAR IS NOT OVER
American Soldier Camps Nightly Fired Upon.
The Service is Nothing Like a Summer Picnic Occasion.
Describes Their Troubles.
Elpardo, Cebu, P.I.
October 30, 1900
My Dear Cousins, George and Maria:
I have the pleasure once more to write you a few lines in regard to my good health and soldiering in the Philippines.
I have read in some papers that the people of the United States think that the war in these islands is about all over with. But we boys here don't think so. We are doing more fighting here in one month than we did all together last year. But we still hold our own. My company is one of the best and when we come along, the (enemy) is always kicking his last.
It is dangerous here now that a man is not safe to lay his rifle down or he will hear bullets all around him, and at night, they come down out of the hills and fire into our camp, and then fly to the hills again. But we have caught them a few times and made it quite interesting for them.
One night they fired into our camp at half past 8. Some of us had gone to bed. We soon got up again, and that next morning we went up to the hill where the (enemy) had been firing from and we found seven dead (men). Of course, we didn't do any shooting, but we could see that Mr. Kragjorgensen had wished them all goodbye.
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| The Krag-Jorgensen rifle used by the American Army in the Philippines |
The next night we received an order that they expected an attack at a town about seven miles west of Elpardo. We quickly started and kept off the main road so no one could see us. We got lost, but it was lucky that we did, for if we hadn't, we would have got there too soon, and this way we arrived in time to come up from behind and we opened up on them from the opposite side. When the smoke cleared away, we were all able to march back our seven miles. But twenty-three (enemies) did no more fighting from that night on. They are too slick for us with their guns. They always get away with them some way. We can never find them.
My company is one of the luckiest in the Philippines. We have lost but three men since we left the state of Pennsylvania. One of them died of heart diseas, another had consumption and died on the transport Tartar while in Manila Bay. The other one died in Manila from the effects of whiskey. The rest of us are able to do our duty. In the last month we have had but very little rest..."
Joseph was one of the prolific writers about the war; more of his letters can be found by searching Newspaper Archives. He kept his family in Defiance informed, and thankfully, lived to come home and marry in 1903.
Dianne Kline, Researcher
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