Sunday, June 13, 2010

13 JUNE


1899 - The (second)  Battle of Zapote Bridge, one of the bloodiest battles and actually the largest single battle in the Philippine-American War involving 5,000 Filipinos and 3,000 imperialist enemy forces, is won by Gen. Henry Ware Lawton of the invading United States;  Lawton, who would later be killed by the men of Gen. Licerio Geronimo later that year, remarked on the uncanny bravery of the Filipinos who valiantly fought with much less inferior firepower; the battle would help make President Emilio F. Aguinaldo decide into reforming the regular Philippine Army into guerrilla style units to better engage the enemy Americans and capitalize on the Filipinos' endemic knowledge of the landscape.

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Photo credit:

U.S. Library of Congress
(through Tucker, Spencer
The encyclopedia of the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars: a political, social, and military history, Volume 1)

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