The Battle of Bud Dajo - a brief account

The Battle of Bud Dajo (March 6-8, 1906)

In the middle of June, 1905, the tax collector for the island of Jolo, Sawajaan (who also occasionally acted as an interpreter and secret informant for the Americans), made a careful estimate that 610 persons, all Tausugs, consisting of three separate bands of people whose datus and headmen had been killed, homes destroyed, and crops razed in the earlier fighting, had sought sanctuary atop a dormant volcano six miles from Jolo City named Bud Dajo. Sawajaan further estimated there were 220 men who had brought with them 136 rifles. The remaining 390 were women and children, the families of the men. The largest group, about 250 in total, were led by a Muslim cleric, Imam Harib, and had concentrated at the top of the East trail. Another 200, also led by a cleric, Imam Sanuddin, were settled near the West summit. The remainder were on the South summit and led by a former minor headman named Adam. The datus of the island later told the Americans they thought that, while the number varied from month to month, by the time of the battle in 1906 at least another 300 persons had joined the existing bands, most of them relatives. A somewhat reliable estimate can be made that 900 Tausugs were on top of the mountain at the outset of the battle, a third men and two-thirds women and children.

An unusual drought and severe storms earlier in the year had resulted in wide-spread crop failure throughout the Sulu archipelago. Many people were starving, and the Governor of Sulu, Major Hugh Scott, had met with indifference and outright obstruction from Governor Leonard Wood's Headquarters when he requested emergency supplies of rice and relief from taxation for the islands. With steep, rugged and wooded sides but a large fertile crater on top and underground springs, Bud Dajo offered a refuge for these dispossessed people, remote from the Americans and safe from their Moro enemies. They wanted to raise crops, be left alone, and not pay the insidious cedula, or head tax, imposed by Wood on every male Moro. One sympathetic American officer described their position (to Wood’s fury) as partly motivated by something familiar to Americans, “taxation without representation.”

Twice before Scott had been able to talk the dissidents down off the mountain peacefully and had worked out alternative ways to collect the tax and handed out rice from his own stores. General Wood and his Aide de Camp, Captain George Langhorne repeatedly clashed with Scott over of what they perceived as insolent flouting of American sovereignty, haranguing Scott to just take his troops and "clean the place up." Scott stoutly resisted, countering that these were simply demoralized, desperate families doing what it took to stay alive, not insurgents. But in early January Scott was forced to take an emergency medical leave in the U.S. the same week as Wood, recently returned from a six month absence in the U.S., was promoted to Commanding General of the Philippine Department, a signal increase in his power. With Scott now out of the way Langhorne, in a letter dated February 9, 1906 addressed to Wood, proposed a simple and unequivocal solution —“exterminate them.” Wood telegraphed his enthusiastic agreement.

Three steep trails led to the top of Bud Dajo, and each group (there being no single overall leader), fortified their trail. In secret Langhorne and Captain James Reeves, Scott’s temporary replacement, offered a bribe to the leader of the group controlling the South trail, Adam, whereby his band would stand aside to permit a column of American soldiers to ascend the mountain at night and make a surprise attack on the other two groups. But there was a strict standing order in place specifically put in place by the Secretary of War William Howard Taft, with the agreement of President Theodore Roosevelt, that advance approval had to be obtained from Washington before launching any military expedition in Moroland, with no exceptions. Taft's purpose had been to rein in the often insubordinate Wood. Nevertheless, Wood proceeded to organize, in secrecy and without a hint to any of his superiors, a strike force of just under 800 officers and men, and dispatched them to Jolo on March 2 after giving blunt orders to the designated field commander, Colonel Joseph Duncan, to either kill or capture all “the outlaws” atop Bud Dajo. Nor did he advise his designated successor, Brigadier General Tasker Bliss, of his intentions.

As Colonel Duncan assembled his new command on Jolo and reconnoitered the mountain redoubt, Captain Reeves failed to bring Adam to the table. He had promised Adam that only a small force from the Jolo garrison would be used and that their objective would be to chase the other two groups down the mountain, leaving the base of the other two trails unguarded. When Adam learned of the size of the force from the troop arrivals, and not trusting Reeves, he felt a double cross was in the works. He sent back a message that he would take a stand and fight with his fellow Moros.

The initial American assault force totaled 752 officers and men. On the line were 372 infantrymen, 220 cavalry troopers, and 52 Moro Constabulary soldiers led by 29 officers. The Infantry were armed with .30-.40 Krag rifles, the Cavalry with .30-.40 Krag carbines, and the Constabulary with single-shot 1889 Springfield .45-.70 trapdoor carbines. Each man carried 200 rounds of ammunition and five days rations. 67 artillerymen manned four 75mm Vickers mountain guns, with both solid and shrapnel rounds. On May 7, three Colt "potato-digger" machineguns with 8,300 .30 caliber rounds were added to the mix; one manned by a 9-man Army crew and the other two by 11 sailors from the gunboat USS Pampanga, incongruously dressed in white. Supporting the line, were 3 surgeons and 7 hospital corpsmen, 5 Signal Corps, 6 HQ, and 150 mules driven by American civilian packers. A composite company of approximately 40 men were held in reserve in Jolo, but never called upon. Unit-wise, it consisted of five companies of the 6th Infantry Regiment, two companies of the 19th infantry Regiment, four troops of the 4th Cavalry Regiment, the 28th Artillery Battery, the ad hoc Moro Constabulary company, a shore party from the USS Pampanga. Officially there were 12 "observers" for most of the battle, including Generals Wood and Bliss, two Navy officers, and a French Army officer. Wood, who did not arrive until May 7 after the initial assault, brought along two newspaper correspondents (Hamilton and Wright), and a cameraman as well.

Duncan had split his new command into three separate columns, one each deployed at the West, South, and East trailheads leading to the three summits. His HQ, the field hospital, Signal Corps and a fourth "flying column" of two cavalry companies, camped behind the column at the West trail. On March 5 a probe was made up the South trail by the company of the Moro Constabulary with its its commander, Captain John R. White, 30-40 yards in front, closely followed by a company from the 6th Infantry. To everyone's surprise, White's daring foray made it nearly two-thirds of the way up the mountain before encountering Moro trenches. The next day, White led a reinforced column up even further, but was blocked by fierce resistance at a large log and bamboo abattis across the trail. Even then, White might have been able to fight his way through it, but was forced to abandon his effort by inadvertent "friendly fire", in the form of artillery shrapnel shells, coming from the other side of the mountain. However, White's unexpected progress and information relayed from Jolo that a group of other Tausugs might be planning to reinforce those on top of the mountain, caused Duncan to order a coordinated, simultaneous dawn attack by all three columns (later modified to the South and East trails when he realized there would be a good chance of them shooting each other. However, Duncan failed to comprehend that, owing to the complexity of the trails and a serious underestimate of the time required to move messages between the three different positions, his order to the East trail was never received.

At dawn on May 7 Captain White resumed the advance up the South trail and broke through the abattis, his men and companies K and M of the 6th Infantry scrambling up a 45-degree slope, through intense fire, to take cover below the log walls of a large cotta, teaming with Adam's men (and a few women warriors). At this point White was badly wounded and Captains Samuel Schindel and Dwight Ryther of the 6th Infantry took command, just as the Tausugs poured over the cotta walls in a fierce counterattack. In intense hand-to hand combat, it became a fight to the death. When the fighting stopped, all the Tausug defenders, about 150 in total and including Adam, were killed. On the American side, also about 150, 3 US soldiers and 3 Moro Constabulary were killed and 35 US soldiers and 13 Moro Constabulary wounded plus Captain White and Lt. Gordon Johnston of the Signal Corps; a 37% casualty rate. Schindel and Ryther then led those still standing, crawling on all fours under sporadic fire, up the last hundred yards to seize the South summit. Major Omar Bundy, close behind with the rest of his command, brought up the rest of the column to the top.

Bundy had expected to be seeing Captain Edward P. Laughton and his men to their right, at the top of the East summit. But he concluded quickly, due to the lack of battle noise, that something had gone awry and Lawton had not launched an assault. This information was signaled back to an astounded Duncan, who dashed off a blistering message to Laughton to launch an immediate attack. The situation became rather confused for the next three hours, made even more complex by the sudden arrival of General Wood and his party and Wood's subsequent issuance of his own, conflicting orders.

Nevertheless at 1:30PM, Lawton got underway on the East trail. Despite its being the steepest trail (at places nearing a 60-degree incline), an assault party of one company each of the 6th and 19th Infantry, about 110 infantrymen, led by Captain A.M. Wetherill and accompanied by 11 sailors from the gunboat USS Pampanga carrying two Colt machine guns, quickly advanced under fire to a position about 20 yards below the crater rim. Sharpshooters from below kept the Moro defenders from firing down the hill on the men, many clinging to vines to avoid slipping back down the steep slope. Meanwhile Captain Lawton came up with a bugler to signal a charge. In less than a minute, the men swarmed over the parapet of the crater edge of the East summit and dropped to their knees to begin firing at two large defensive trenches only twenty feet away while the sailors quickly set the two machineguns on their tripods. Trapped and packed in tight in the deep ditches were at least 400 Tausug men, women and children.

It was at that moment, the battle turned into a massacre. In the adrenalin of the charge and the through thick smoke black powder discharges of the Tausug defenders, as many as 10,000 .30 caliber rounds may have slammed downwards into the deep pits at point blank range from Krag rifles and the two Colt “potato-digger” machineguns of the Americans; with a collective force that tore bodies apart. Less than ten minutes later Lawton's shouts and a bugle call caused the firing to cease. By then no Moros were left alive in the trenches. For the next hour, before night fell, Lawton's men had their hands full cleaning out snipers firing from hidden rifle pits and others hiding in the crater bottom. With the South and East summits and crater bottom under their control, as night fell only one lone cotta and a few rifle pits remained in the hands of Tausug defenders.

The next morning, May 8, the remaining rifle pits were quickly taken, and in a sharp, half-hour battle the cotta defenders fought to the death. To the horror of many of the American soldiers observing the bodies, it has become obvious that at least two-thirds of the dead were unarmed women and children. In piecing together the estimates made by the individual field commanders and the leading datus of the island, some of whom witnessed the battle, the best estimate of this author is that from a low of 700 up to 850 Tausugs were killed during the course of the entire Battle of Bud Dajo, probably no more than 250 being adult males. This is measurably lower than the estimate of 600 dead with less than 20% women and children, later supplied by General Wood. Only seven were captured, three women and four children found in hiding shortly after the cotta on the South trail was taken. Two weeks later it became known that at least eighteen men had escaped from the carnage by fleeing the mountain during the battle, and the number might have been double. Casualties taken by the American side were low in comparison, but not necessarily insignificant. Roughly 350-400 soldiers, sailors, and Constabulary took part in the combat at some point. Out of that twenty-one were killed and seventy-three severely wounded (hospitalized, with a number of those losing limbs and/or invalided for life), a relatively steep 20% plus casualty rate. Among the 52-man Moro Constabulary, which led the initial assault, the rate was closer to 25%.

The fall out in the U.S. when the news arrived by cable of what was quickly dubbed the “Battle of the Crater” was almost as furious and contentious as the battle itself. It was called the “worst massacre in U.S. history, exceeding that of Wounded Knee South Dakota. Despite a massive attempt by Wood and the War Department to suppress the details, some details leaked out, including that women and children were among the dead. Wood was excoriated on the floor of Congress. However, the most scathing attacks came from the pulpits. In a fiery sermon, the Rev. Dr. Charles Parkhurst of New York’s Madison Square Presbyterian Church, President Roosevelt’s own personal congregation, castigated the administration. (The famous humorist Mark Twain wrote a satirical, stinging rebuke of Wood. But, contrary to popular lore, Twain never published his tract, nor was it disclosed until following his death in 1910). Closing ranks, Republicans vehemently defended Wood, claiming outrage over what they termed was the “unfair besmirching of the honor of the U.S. Army” and placing the responsibility on the “Christian-hating fanatical Moros” for their own demise. It was claimed that the women died because they were “dressed like the men”, children were held up as shields against American bullets, wounded Moros had leapt up from operating tables to kill American doctors seeking to treat them, and that the if there had been casualties among women and children it had been due to “long-range artillery shelling” (all inventions). In a resolution, Democratic legislators in the House of Representatives demanded a full accounting from the Roosevelt administration, and threatened a Congressional investigation, blaming General Wood, but not the troops. However the largest minority party, the Socialists, attacked American soldiers, depicting them as "sadists" and “beasts” who laughingly shot down innocents.

It is evident from the record, although suppressed at the time but nevertheless preserved, that Wood was the source for most of the false tales and had illegally censored press reports coming out of Zamboanga. He sequestered the field reports in Manila and claimed to have been merely present, “observing” the action of Colonel Duncan, whom he claimed was in full charge; even though he had personally planned and organized the expedition and had usurped its command on at least four occasions. He claimed the assaults were halted in mid-operation several times in order to issue calls for surrenders and to plead for the women and children to be sent down the mountain, which never occurred. Taft and the War Department were almost as egregious in inventing and spreading false stories about what had happened, using their allies in Congress. At one point it was claimed that no women and children had been killed but instead all had been seized and held in “protective custody” during the battle. But, at the height of the debate, the War Department’s many contradictions and unproved assertions began to wither under intense scrutiny. As the inconsistencies piled up, even many hard-core administration supporters soon became suspicious and raised their own questions.

But fate intervened. Early on the morning of April 18, 1906, a gigantic earthquake tore San Francisco apart and killed over 3,000 people in a matter of a few minutes. For the next two weeks the destroyed city was seen burning in photographs headlined across the front pages of every newspaper in America. The Battle of Bud Dajo all but disappeared from print, as public attention turned to the great drama taking place in the nation’s own backyard. Whatever righteous outrage had been stirred in the American breast at an avoidable tragedy inflicted on a distant, small brown people evaporated overnight. Congressional anger dissipated even faster. The field reports were locked away in War Department files and made unavailable for decades afterwards. Theodore Roosevelt simply chose not to be further informed about what really did happen, and continued to protect and favor his close friend General Wood for the rest of his career and noted public life. William Howard Taft was almost certain that Wood had violated orders, lied, and caused the deaths of innocents. But, angling to be anointed by the very popular Roosevelt as his successor two years hence, the obligations of his office and conscience took a back seat to his political prospects (Taft became President in 1909 and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1921). General Wood was never held to account for his actions at Bud Dajo and went on to later become the Army Chief of Staff in 1910 and in 1920 narrowly lost out to Warren G. Harding to be the Republican candidate for President.