Eli Dawson
Paullina Times, 29 Dec 1898, p. 1
Killed at Manila
(Sheldon Mail)
The American volunteer who was killed in the battle near Manila, in the Philippine Islands, July 31 last, proves to have been an Iowa boy. He was the nephew of Mrs. Erwin Morfitt, of Carroll township, and of Enoch Philby, of Baker township. The name of this hero was Eli Dawson. He was a hired hand some eight years ago on the farm now owned by F. M. Perkins in Carroll township.
The killed volunteer was a very excellent young man, a Christian, and a dutiful and devoted son of a widow who is just now a sufferer at Adel, Iowa, in the last stages of consumption. His aunt and uncle in this vicinity and other relatives only recently learned of his sad fate. A comrade, in writing to a Des Moines paper, gives this brief account of the battle in which Dawson alone met death.
"You have all heard of the fight we had the night of July 31 and during the early morning hours of August 1. You have all read accounts given by the papers, so I will not tire you with another description of it. Suffice it to say that Battery K went to the front, through a regular rain of bullets, and that it had been a wonder ever since then that there was not more of us killed than there was. The road along which we went was lined on either side with a bamboo hedge. After the battle it looked as if a huge mowing machine had come along and mowed it down, so evenly was it cut.
The only man we lost was Mr. Eli Dawson, of DeSoto, Iowa, who came to Des Moines and enlisted and came through to the battery with me. He was shot through the head and instantly killed. I helped carry him to one side of the road and then went on, while the doctor did his best to revive him, not being sure whether he was dead or not, for it was so dark he could not see where he was shot."
Transcribed by Alan Nicholson
