Dateline Omaha, May 1900: The Omaha World-Herald newspaper published a letter from a soldier in the 32nd Volunteer Infantry Regiment serving in the Philippines:
Now, this is the way we give them[Filipino resistance fighters] the water cure. We lay them on their back , a man standing on each hand and each foot, then put a round stick in the mouth and pour a pail of water in the mouth and nose , and if they don't give up pour in another pail. They swell up like toads. I'll tell you it is a terrible torture.
General Order No. 100, Paragraph 16 from the Army's Civil War era combat regulations :
Military necessity does not admit of cruelty--that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in a fight, nor of torture to extort confessions.