Reveille at 4.40 a.m. Biscuit and coffee at 5.30 a.m. Inspection of quarters at 8 a.m. by General Anderson. There was a big battle between the Insurgents and the Spaniards last night in which the Insurgents captured a number of the Spaniards. I visited the town hospital, the prison and local churches with Lieutenant Ballinger. The inmates of the hospital said they had nothing to eat for three days. The churches had been stripped of decorations leaving only a slat of the cross and a few statues. Vestments had been thrown in all directions. There was a fine organ in one church. The Insurgents had made a prison out of one church and we were not allowed to visit it. We also visited machine shops where the Insurgents were repairing guns taken from the sunken Spanish ships. In the prison we met a Spanish prisoner who claimed he was born in the United States but left there at the age of five. The Spaniards are all very young looking and small in stature. I was very sick during the night with stomach cramps.
James J. Loughrey
(July 4, 1869 — August 28, 1965), Sergeant in ‘A’ Company of the United States California Volunteer Infantry.
All Posts