Thursday, May 4, 1899. The Battle of Santo Tomas and the remarkable Elanor Pray.

 

The 1st Nebraska advancing during the Battle of Santo Tomas

The Battle of Santo Tomas was found in this day at Santo Tomas, Pampanga.  The battle resulted in the complete route of the large Filipino force, its second defeat in recent days, and the wounding of General Antonio Luna, a primary Filipino commander.

Like many battles of the Philippine Insurrection, the battle was fought, on the American side, by state volunteers, who were, for all intents and purposes, National Guardsmen.  In this case, the US forces consisted of the 20th Kansas, the 1st Montana, 1st Nebraska and 51st Iowa.

Elanor Pray, an American from Maine who was living in Vladavostock where her husband was posted to the "American store" sent a letter with photographs of some of the local scenes and her observations of them.

I think you will be interested in the photo of our premises here even if it does have to be curved to make the thing come together. Fred took it from the roof of the new P[ost] O[ffice] and the building half completed in front of us belongs also to the P.O." 

Little known in the US, Pray's heavily photographed letters have made her well known in Russia, as her long residence there, 1894 to 1930, meant that she's chronicled, and preserved, an entire epic in Russia's history which would otherwise have seen much lost.  She apparently liked the region, as she stayed on after the death of her husband in 1923 and only left in 1930 when her employer closed its facility in the area, which was also experiencing hardening Stalinist repression.

From Vladivostok she moved to China and was interned in World War Two by the Japanese, becoming part of a 1943 prisoner exchange which resulted in her return to the US. She smuggled her papers out in the process.  She died in 1954 at age 85.

Manuel won the Kentucky Derby.

Last prior edition:

Monday, May 1, 1899. Prisoners of the Philippine Republic.

1890s, 1899, Philippine Insurrection, U.S. Navy