LUKBAN
Chapter 8‘ Kill and Burn’
The atrocities committed by the American troops after Balangiga were not the sole responsibilities of Gen. Jacob H. Smith or his alleged hatchet man Maj. Littleton Waller. Smith’ s orders, though excessive, stemmed directly from policies spelled out by his superiors in the war department. The responsibility went all the way to US President Theodore Roosevelt who told Chaffee adopt“ in no unmistakable terms … most stern measures to pacify Samar,” and Secretary of War Elihu Root who replaced MacArthur with Major General Adna R. Chaffee on July 4, 1901. Root had picked MacArthur’ s replacement in February, realizing that MacArthur opposed implementing civilian rule of the Philippines before the war ended. 1
Root could not have chosen a better man for the job. Chaffee began his military career as a private, but he won a battlefield commission at Gettysburg and later served as a cavalryman under General Sheridan. Chaffee earned a well-deserved reputation as a tough Indian fighter, campaigning against the Cheyenne and the Apaches. Leading his troop in a charge against the Cheyenne, he had inspired his men by yelling,“ Forward, if any man is killed, I will make him a corporal!” Before his assignment to the Philippines, Chaffee had served in Cuba and led American forces to Peking during the Boxer Rebellion. Two months after he took over from MacArthur, he would direct the implementation of the most repressive counterinsurgency policies seen in the Philippines. 2
Within weeks of the Balangiga attack, four hundred insurgents armed with long, slightly curved knives common in the Philippines assaulted another Army detachment on the Gan dara River in Samar, killing ten soldiers and wounding six. Additionally, a small garrison at the town of Weyler was be sieged for nearly two days, and several other minor stations on Samar were also attacked on a smaller scale. Because of these events, General Chaffee is reported to have metaphorically equated the Army’ s tenuous hold on the archipelago with standing on a volcano. On many morn ings, the general would alarmingly ask his staff,“ Has it blown up yet?... The volcano, damn it! The volcano we’ re
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