fight remained,
as the ferry carried but six men on each trip. The bank was soon won,
however, and the safe crossing of the army was assured. Such acts gave
the natives a respect for Americans as fighting men, which caused it to
be more and more difficult for the Filipino commanders to bring their
forces to battle in the open.

General Lawton in the meantime was conducting a brilliant movement to
the eastward. After breaking the enemy forces, he returned to Manila and
then marched southward into the Tagalog country, where on the 13th of
June, at Zapoti Bridge, he won the most stoutly contested battle of the
insurrection. The successful conclusion of these operations brought the
most civilized part of the island under American control.

The fighting now became scattered and assumed gradually a guerrilla
character. The abler commanders of the American forces found their way
to the top, and the troops, with their natural adaptability, constantly
devised new methods of meeting new situations. A war of strangely
combined mountain and sea fighting, involving cavalry and infantry and
artillery, spread over the islands in widening circles and met with
lessening resistance. An indication of the new character of the war was
given by the change of the military organization, in April, 1900, from
one of divisions and brigades, to a geographical basis. Each commander
was now given charge of a certain area and used his men to reduce this
district to order.

The insurgents fought in small groups and generally under local
chieftains. Their advantage lay in their thorough knowledge of the
country and in the sympathy of a part of the population and the fear of
another part, for outlaws living in concealment and moving in the dark
can often inspire a terror which regular troops under discipline fail
to engender. The Americans could not trust the natives, as it was
impossible to tell the truthful from the treacherous. Nevertheless
it was a kind of fighting which gave unusual scope for that American
individualism, so strongly represented in the army, to which the romance
of precisely this sort of thing had drawn just the class of men best
fitted for the work. Scouting, counter scouting, surprise attacks, and
ambuscades formed the daily news transmitted from the front--affairs not
of regiments and companies but of squads and individuals. When face to
face, however, the Filipinos seldom stood their ground, and the American
ingenuity and eag