Page:American Boy's Life of William McKinley.djvu/315

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OF WILLIAM McKINLEY
269

there was the end of a railroad line running along the Pei-ho to Tien-Tsin, about twenty-seven miles inland.

At Tien-Tsin the foreigners were suffering fully as much as at Pekin, and hither the Allied forces moved. A series of battles lasting several days ensued, and finally the Allies got possession of one part of Tien-Tsin. More fighting followed, and at last the Boxers fled, the majority toward Pekin.

General Chaffee was in command of the American soldiers, which numbered several thousand. All told, there were at least forty thousand Allies in the field, but of these only sixteen thousand participated in the attack on Pekin itself. The distance from Tien-Tsin to Pekin is about eighty miles, and the enemy made several halts on the route, stopping to give battle and then fleeing with all the swiftness at their command. To the American soldiers, fighting against the Chinese was a great novelty.

"I fought in Cuba and in the Philippines," said one old regular, in telling about it afterward, "but I never saw any-