The massacre shocked the U.S.

public; many newspaper editors noted that it was the worst disaster
suffered by the U.S. Army since Custer's last stand at Little Big Horn. An infuriated Maj. Gen. Adna R.
Chaffee, military governor for the unpacified areas of the Philippines, assured the press that "the
situation calls for shot, shells and bayonets as the natives are not to be trusted." He advised newspaper
correspondent Joseph Ohl, "If you should hear of a few Filipinos more or less being put away don't
grow too sentimental over it."

Chaffee informed his officers that it was his intention "to give the Filipinos 'bayonet rule' for years to
come." President Theodore Roosevelt ordered Chaffee to adopt "in no unmistakable terms," the "most
stern measures to pacify Samar."

Adna Romanza Chaffee (LEFT, in 1898) was born in Ohio in 1842. A veteran of the
Civil war and countless Indian campaigns, he served throughout the Spanish-
American War, and commanded American troops in the capture of Peking, China,
during the Boxer rebellion. He replaced Brig. Gen. Arthur C. MacArthur, Jr., as
military governor of the unpacified areas of the Philippines on July 4, 1901. He
appointed Brigadier Generals James Franklin Bell to Batangas and Jacob Smith to
Samar, with orders to do whatever was necessary to destroy the opposition--he
wanted an Indian-style campaign. Chaffees orders were largely responsible for the
atrocities that marked the later stages of the war. When the war ended in 1902, Chaffee returned to the
States, where he served as lieutenant general and Chief of Staff for the U.S. Army from 1904-1906. He
retired in 1906 and died in 1914.