Justifying Torture in the Philippine-American War

Through primary documents such as court-martial transcripts, letters, and diaries, the Philippine-American War (1899–1902) provides an underexploited opportunity to see torturers themselves justifying their behavior at length. U.S. soldiers accused of abusing prisoners consistently played down their acts, arguing that the rope went around the detainee’s jaw instead of his neck, that the hits were slaps from the sides rather than punches straight out from the shoulder, that the “water cure” (which is somewhat like waterboarding) did not last very long, and so on. Yet at the same time, soldiers believed that it was necessary to use methods that would not be considered appropriate in other settings, because, as one veteran of the war put it, “[S]cruples often mean[t] flat failure or belated action.” Overall, U.S. interrogators in the Philippines believed that their techniques were, in the words of one practitioner, “the least brutal and painful which would be efficacious.”

Rebuilding Pittsburgh (1845–46)

The Great Fire of Pittsburgh devastated the city, in the process consuming the old wooden Smithfield Street Bridge, leaving only the piers in the river. With John already at work on a similar structure across the river, and with the city desperate to rebuild, John received the contract to rebuild the Monongahela crossing almost immediately. His Allegheny Aqueduct was opened afterward to universal acclaim, after which he retreated to Saxonburg to recuperate and plunged wholeheartedly into his next big obsession: the water cure. Despite devoting much of his life to science, John was always distrustful of doctors and traditional medicine, and he relied increasingly on his own theories and practices, many of which we would now call deluded at best. Thankfully, John soon returned to what he was undoubtedly good at and set about rebuilding the Monongahela Bridge. Again, the effort was immense and the results spectacular. The bridge was finished and opened the following spring, by which time John was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost suspension bridge engineers in the world.