‘The Devil’s Causeway’: A tale of heroism and the siege of Baler in 1898

MANILA, Philippines - Most people who know their Philippine history have at least some knowledge of the famed Siege of Baler in 1898, the strange-but-true story of the last holdouts of the Spanish empire who, half-starved and wracked by disease, refused to surrender to Filipino revolutionary forces that surrounded them.

New research underpinning a recently published book, The Devil’s Causeway by Matthew Westfall, now dramatically expands our understanding of this tale of heroism and heart, placing Baler and its historic siege as the backdrop to a long-forgotten United States Navy debacle that altered the course of the Philippine-American War.

In early 1899, as American military forces began a bloody campaign to pacify the Philippines, a secret mission was launched on Admiral George Dewey’s orders to liberate the detachment of starving Spanish soldiers besieged by insurgent forces at Baler. An American warship, the USS Yorktown, was sent to the rescue, dropping anchor off the far-flung rebel stronghold on April 11, 1899.

Before dawn the next day, a crew of 15 American sailors rowed towards shore, under muffled oars, in an armed cutter to reconnoiter enemy defenses. And then it happened: the cutter’s commander, a foolhardy Lieutenant James C. Gillmore Jr., broke from his orders and pushed up the river, headlong into a deadly rebel ambush. Bullets flew and men died. The surviving sailors — the “Gillmore Party” as they were called — became the first-ever American prisoners of war in the Philippines.

Marched into northern Luzon during a harrowing eight-month captivity behind enemy lines, Gillmore and his sailors became front-page news across the United States and valuable pawns in the Filipino Army of Liberation’s fight for freedom. Over the course of three years, from 1899 to 1902, the United States deployed some 126,000 soldiers, unleashed in successive waves, to subdue the restive Philippines. After 47 years of American colonial administration, the country was finally granted its independence in 1946.

The Devil’s Causeway details Lieutenant Gillmore’s reckless grasp for glory at Baler, the eight-month captivity of the USS Yorktown prisoners, and the torturous mountain expedition sent to their rescue, recalled today as one of the greatest marches in US Army history. One man’s “desire for adventure,” we find, takes a striking human toll and prolonged the bloody and increasingly brutal conflict in our islands by almost two years.

To tell this story, author Westfall relied heavily on primary source material drawn from libraries and archives in the United States, Spain and the Philippines, including diaries, memoirs, letters, trial transcripts, news articles, and an exhaustive array of original military files. Intensive research undertaken over a five-year period, which included the fielding of military archival researchers working in the US National Archives in Washington, DC, uncovered rare documents and images that have not been accessed or seen in over a century.

Westfall, whose fascination with the subject matter arises from a career in international development that brought him to the Philippines, has resided in Manila for nearly three decades. He is a passionate collector of rare books, antiquarian photographs and military ephemera relating to the Philippine-American War (1899-1904) and the early years of the American experience in the country. Notably, Westfall’s grandparents and father, émigrés from Europe, held Filipino citizenship in the 1920s and ’30s before landing on American shores.

A cascade of positive reviews for The Devil’s Causeway have followed the book’s release in the US. Publishers Weekly, the publishing industry’s “bible,” honored the book with a prestigious “starred” review, writing “Westfall gives a thrilling and fast-paced adventure story that brilliantly illuminates an untold aspect of one of America’s first overseas wars, as well as the beginning of the complex relationship between America and the Philippines.”

The influential Library Journal sums the book up as a “harrowing circus caused by an incompetent launch commander, short-tempered insurrectionists, the media, the US Army, grand strategy and American politics. The determined captives, a bloodthirsty insurrection commander, crusty Civil War veterans, headhunters, priests, and deranged Spanish soldiers all make appearances… Westfall has brought to life the people and societies that clashed at the end of a century when America was determined to build a worldwide empire.”

The Devil’s Causeway is available exclusively at all Fully Booked bookstores. For more on the book, visit the author at www.matthewwestfall.com and at www.facebook.com/matthewswestfall.