Usually the sufferers were themselves bloody murderers, who had only to tell the truth to escape punishment.

The men who performed these cruel acts knew what treatment was being commonly accorded to Filipinos, and in some instances to their own comrades.

I mention these facts to explain, not to excuse, their conduct.

Cruel acts cannot be excused, but those referred to seldom resulted in any permanent injury to the men who suffered them, and were the rare and inevitable exceptions to the general rule that the war was waged, so far as the Americans were concerned, with a degree of humanity hitherto unprecedented under similar conditions.

The Insurgents violated every rule of civilized warfare, yet oathbreakers, spies and men fighting in citizens' clothes not only were not shot by the Americans, as they might very properly have been, but were often turned loose with a mere warning not to offend again.
The false news circulated to aid the Insurgent cause was by no means limited to such matters.