General Jacob Hurd Smith (January 29, 1840 – March 1, 1918) was a U.S. Army officer notorious for ordering indiscriminate retaliation on the island of Samar in response to what is called the Balangiga massacre during the Philippine–American War."Jacob F. Smith."(2010). Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
Smith's plan involved stopping the flow of food and causing extensive destruction in order to make the people of Samar abandon their support for the rebels out of fear and malnutrition and turn to the Americans instead. He ordered, "kill everyone over the age of ten [and make the island] a howling wilderness."PBS documentary "Crucible of Empire"; Ten days after President William McKinley's death, the residents of Balangiga, a tiny village 400 miles southeast of Manila, attacked the local U.S. garrison. While U.S. soldiers ate breakfast, the church bells rang a signal. Filipinos brandishing machetes emerged from their hiding places. Forty-eight Americans, two-thirds of the garrison, were butchered, in what is called the Balangiga massacre. On the orders of General Jacob H. Smith, U.S. troops retaliated against the entire island of Samar where Balangiga is located. The exchange is known because of two courts-martial: one of Waller, who was later court-martialed for ordering or allowing the execution of a dozen Filipino bearers, and the other of Gen. Jacob H. Smith, who was actually court-martialed for giving that order. The jury is out to the extent that order was carried out, because Littleton Waller actually countermanded it to his own men and said "Captain David Porter, I've had instructions to kill everyone over ten years old. But we are not making war on women and children, only on men capable of bearing arms. Keep that in mind no matter what other orders you receive." Undoubtedly, some men did commit atrocities regardless of Waller's commands. Court-martialed for his conduct of operations on Samar, he was dubbed "Hell Roaring Jake" Smith, "The Monster", and "Howling Jake" by the press as a result. Most estimates are that American soldiers killed between 2,000 and 2,500 civilians. Some Filipino historians put the number as high as 5,000 civilians. Some sources place the death toll as high as 50,000, but these are now believed to have resulted from typographical errors and misreading of documents.
During the massacre, American soldiers killed military-age males, but simply ignored most of the women and children. At times, they ignored Smith's orders outright and took male prisoners. This was due to Smith's subordinate, Littleton Waller, partly revoking the order and telling the troops to show restraint.
Civil War and post-bellum Smith enlisted in the Union Army early in the Civil War, but was disabled in the Battle of Shiloh in 1862; he would later receive a brevet promotion to Major in 1867 for his actions. He tried to return to duty that summer, but the wound would not heal properly, so he became a member of the Invalid Corps, serving out the remainder of the Civil War as a mustering officer/recruiter in Louisville for three years. His service record states that he excelled in recruitment efforts for the United States Colored Troops.
While working in Louisville, he met and later married his first wife Emma L. Haverty on November 10, 1864; they quietly divorced October 1, 1880. After the war, he became a Veteran Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
Wartime misconduct In 1869, Smith's father-in-law Daniel Haverty was being sued for fraud in connection with a bankruptcy. The creditors looked into the assets of Haverty's family, believing Haverty had hidden most of his wealth by transferring it to others. These investigations revealed a tremendous enlargement of Jacob Smith's assets during the war, from $4,000 in 1862 to $40,000 in 1865. Smith was called as a witness in the suit to explain his sudden fortune.
Smith claimed ignorance of any fraud on behalf of his father-in-law, and explained that the money was the result of a bounty brokerage scheme. During the war, eastern seaboard states were offering recruits enlistment bonuses (then called "bounties") of up to $700. Smith, along with a group of eastern recruiters, planned to fill eastern troop quotas using men from the Midwest, paying those recruits the regional bounty of $300 and pocketing the difference. Smith claimed he believed the plan was legal, at first. But before it could get off the ground, Smith took $92,000 the eastern recruiters had deposited for the bounties and used it to make speculative investments in side businesses involving whiskey, gold and diamonds. When the eastern recruiters demanded repayment which Smith could not provide, Smith noticed the recruiters refused to engage the law. From that, he concluded the plot must have been illegal. Eventually Smith's investments produced large profits, and Smith claimed he repaid all of his creditors in full, except for a few who had died or left town.
At the time of the Haverty bankruptcy, Smith had been given a temporary judge advocate assignment with the army that he was attempting to convert into a permanent position. One of the parties in the bankruptcy case informed the Judge Advocate General of the United States Army, Joseph Holt, about Smith's bounty brokerage scheme. Smith wrote a letter to Holt in response. Smith's letter attempted to cast the scheme in a sympathetic light. He wrapped himself in the flag and argued that he had been in seven engagements and had been wounded in the Battle of Shiloh. He portrayed himself as "one who took upon himself all the odium that the rebels and conservatives of Louisville, Kentucky, heaped upon him, by being the first officer, to my knowledge, who commenced mustering into service the colored man in Kentucky during the year 1863." Smith said that he had scoured Kentucky's prison pens, jails, and workhouses to find these men and that his only aim was to serve his God and his country properly. Smith admitted to speculating, but justified it by saying that others had made three times as much money as he had in Louisville during the war, and he had not defrauded anyone.
Holt did not accept Smith's excuse, and submitted the papers to the Secretary of War with the recommendation that the matter be given to the United States Senate Committee on Military Affairs, who had the authority to confirm Smith for the permanent position he sought. Smith wrote a more apologetic explanation to the Secretary, painting himself as a gullible dupe. He explained the plot in detail, and argued that his only offense was using other people's money for his own profit. He claimed that all his creditors had been repaid, and no recruits had been defrauded out of their bounty. But conveniently, Smith claimed that all other witnesses to his story had either died or left the country, and that he had destroyed or lost all of his own bank account records for that period.
The Secretary found Smith's explanation to be unavailing. Smith's temporary appointment as judge advocate was revoked by the President. In the Judge Advocate General's summation of the events, Holt excoriated Smith for how his own testimony appeared to suggest he believed it was alright to mislead and deceive military auditors. Holt concluded, "[b]y his conflicting statements and his unfortunate explanation, he is placed in a dilemma full of embarrassment."
Further gaffes In 1877, Smith responded to a written reprimand from his colonel with a disrespectful longhand response. Technically, the colonel could not censure Smith because he had been released from his command because of the incident that was being investigated. When Smith's company was marching away, the colonel indicated his displeasure. Smith's reply made fun of the colonel, saying he was like Prussian general von Moltke. Smith said the colonel's rebuke was like an "Irishman who was remonstrated for letting his wife whip him, and answered, 'It is fun for her, and don't hurt me.'" The colonel notified Smith there would be a court-martial, and so Smith wrote the colonel a nasty letter. Smith was not court-martialed, and instead Major John Pope lectured Smith and recommended the whole affair be dropped since Smith had apologized.
Legal problems During the 1870s, Smith was called away from duty for several lawsuits for debt. One case dragged on in a Chicago court from 1869 to 1883.
Another creditor, named Henry, continued a claim against Smith for $7 for payment of a harness. The case dragged on from 1871 to 1901. Henry even sent a letter to President McKinley about Smith and his $7 debt.
On July 31, 1884, Smith was sued again in Chicago by the legal firm Pedrick and Dawson.
Smith was court martialed in 1885 in San Antonio for "conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman", for deeds in the "Mint Saloon" in Brackett, Texas. The opposing party claimed Smith had been playing a game of draw poker with M. S. Moore and C. H. Holzy a.k.a. Jiggerty, lost $135 to Moore, and refused to pay the debt. Smith was found guilty and was confined to Fort Clark for a year and forfeited half his pay for the same time period. The Reviewing Authority thought the court was too lenient on Smith. It also felt that Smith's courtroom tactics made a mockery of the legal procedure:
demanding witnesses from distant and impractical locations especially since he never actually used the witnesses in court, local civilian witnesses for the plaintiff were intimidated so they refused to testify against Smith, local civilian witnesses for the defense selectively decided which questions they would answer and which they would not.
While the draw poker case was still pending in 1885, Smith wrote a letter to the Adjutant General of the Army regarding the case, but many of the statements were lies. Because of this, Smith was tried again in 1886. He was found guilty, and would have been thrown out of the military. Smith was saved by the intercession of President Grover Cleveland, who allowed Smith to return to the military with merely a reprimand.
In 1891, Smith was charged with using enlisted men as his servants in his home.
Philippine–American War
Smith was sent to the Philippines during the Philippine–American War.
Smith describes his tactics to the media In December 1899, Jacob H. Smith (now a colonel) boastingly informed reporters in the Philippines that, because the natives were "worse than fighting Indians", he had already adopted appropriate tactics that he had learned in the American frontier fighting Native Americans, characterized by Smith as "savages", without waiting for orders to do so from General Elwell S. Otis. This interview provoked a headline announcing that "Colonel Smith of 12th Orders All Insurgents Shot At Hand", and the New York Times endorsed Smith's tactics as "long overdue."; Death For Luzon Bandits; Guerrillas Caught by Col. Smith Will Be Shot or Hanged. Criminals Infest the Island Some American Officers Say the Campaign Is Worse Than Fighting Indians. New York Times, December 13, 15, 1899; San Francisco Call, August 28, 1899, January 11, 1900; Boston Evening Transcript, January 12, 1900
Promotion to Brigadier General Starting in the late 1880s, the U.S. Army had adopted the system of filling each brigadier general position not by qualifications, but by mere seniority. The system usually gave elderly colonels a few more months, weeks or days of active duty with a new title, followed by nearly immediate retirement at a higher pay rate. Jacob Smith was slightly younger and his promotion to general was made earlier than typical; he had three years left until retirement became mandatory by law.