Note 2 — Chapter VIII · The Benevolent Assimilation Proclamation

Ten thousand American soldiers were on hand when Manila was captured, August 13th, and 5000 more had arrived under command of Major-General Elwell S. Otis a week or so after the fall of the city.2 They had 13,000 Spanish soldiers to guard. In addition to this, by the terms of the capitulation, the city (population say 300,000), its inhabitants, its churches and educational establishments, and its private property of all descriptions had been placed “under the special safeguard of the faith and honor of the American army.”3 Some 4500 to 5000 more troops began to swarm out of San Francisco bound for Manila in the latter part of October, 1898, the last of them reaching Manila December 11th, the day after the Treaty of Paris was signed. After that there were no further additions to General Otis’s command prior to the outbreak of war with the Filipinos, February 4, 1899.3 Of these (approximately) 20,000 men, only 1500 to 2000 were regulars, having the Krag-Jorgensen smokeless gun. The rest were State volunteers, armed with the antiquated Springfield rifles, the same the 71st New York and the 2d Massachusetts had been permitted to carry into the Santiago campaign the summer before. Aguinaldo’s people were equipped entirely with Mausers captured from the Spaniards, and other rifles, bought in Hong Kong mostly, using smokeless ammunition. Major (now Major-General) J. F. Bell, who is, in the judgment of many, one of the best all-round soldiers in the American army to-day, was in charge of the “Division of Military Information” at Manila both before and after the taking of the city. General Bell has done many fine things, in the way of reckless bravery in battle at the critical moment and of bold reconnoitring in campaign, and what he fails to find out about an enemy, or a prospective enemy, is not apt to be ascertainable. In a report bearing date August 29, 1898,4 prepared in anticipation of possible trouble with the Filipinos, he estimated the number of men under arms that Aguinaldo had at between 35,000 and 40,000. This estimate is based by General Bell in his report on the number of guns out in the hands of the Filipinos, which he figures thus: