Note 32 — Chapter XV · Governor Taft—1901–2

Under General Orders No. 100, 1863, men and squads of men who, without commission, without being part or portion of the regularly organized hostile army, fight occasionally only, and with intermittent returns to their homes and avocations, and frequent assumption of the semblance of peaceful pursuits, divesting themselves of the character and appearance of soldiers; armed prowlers seeking to cut telegraph wires, destroy bridges and the like, etc., are not entitled to the protection of the laws of war and may be shot on sight. In other words, the game being one of life and death, you must take even chances with your opponent. General Bell’s defenders on the floor of the Senate simply relied on General Orders No. 100. However, there is nothing about reconcentration in that order. We learned that from the Spaniards. In fact we never did succeed in bringing to terms the far Eastern colonies we bought from Spain, until we adopted her methods with regard to them. Another of the expedients adopted by General Bell in Batangas seems harsh, but it was used by Wellington in the latter end of the Napoleonic wars, and by the Germans in the latter end of the Franco-Prussian War. It was to promise the inhabitants of a given territory that whenever a telegraph wire or pole was cut the country within a stated radius thereof, including all human habitations, would be devastated. It is in General Bell’s Circular Order No. 7 of December 15, 1901,32 that we find the genesis of the idea of basing tactics used by Weyler in Cuba on Mr. Lincoln’s General Order 100. He there says: