RICE TO DAVIS, OCTOBER 22, 1902

APPENDIX I.

PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., October 22, 1902.

Gen. GEORGE B. Davis,
Judge-Advocate-General, U. S. Army.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter and deeply regret that charges of cruelty should be brought against any officer of my command. No complaint of the punishment known as the "water cure" having been administered by an officer or enlisted man ever reached me and it was well known that I had no sympathy with it. I had no authority to direct the use of a gunboat.

The post of Banate, Company D, Twenty-sixth U. S. Volunteers, commanded by Capt. C. M. Brownell, was in the district of Panay and it does not seem possible that a detachment could have left Banate and gone to Iloilo without my knowledge. It seems to me the fact that over 50,000 natives took the oath of allegiance in my district before the Twenty-sixth Regiment left Panay for the United States ought to prove that the inhabitants had been well treated by the troops of this command.

Yours, truly,

E. Rice,
Colonel Nineteenth Infantry.