On Nov. 25, 1863, an 18-year-old Union lieutenant from Wisconsin grabbed the flag of his regiment (the 24th Wisconsin) from an exhausted color bearer and exhorted his men to continue their valiant charge up the steep slope of Missionary Ridge near Chattanooga, Tenn.
The remarkable charge by Union troops under the command of Gen. George H. Thomas was the culmination of the Battle of Chattanooga, during which Union forces seized control of eastern Tennessee, setting the stage for the campaign to take Atlanta and Gen. William T. Sherman’s famous March to the Sea. That young lieutenant, Arthur MacArthur, would again demonstrate remarkable courage and leadership at Kennesaw Mountain in June 1864 and the Battle of Franklin on Nov. 30, 1864.
Though the young Wisconsin soldier was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism and bravery at Missionary Ridge and later attained the rank of lieutenant general in the U.S. Army, he is remembered more for being the father of the man historian William Manchester called the greatest soldier this nation ever produced, Douglas MacArthur, who would be awarded the Medal of Honor in World War II and rise to the rank of general of the Army.
’Boy lieutenant’
Arthur MacArthur joined the Union Army in August 1862. He was the son of a prominent Milwaukee judge. As a young boy, Arthur dreamed about performing heroic deeds as a soldier. He lied about his age and used his father’s political influence to enter the Army as an officer.
At first, many of the soldiers under MacArthur’s command ridiculed the “boy lieutenant.”
“When he shouted out his orders,” writes his biographer, Kenneth Ray Young, “the men laughed at his high, squeaky voice.” MacArthur soon earned their respect, however, by repeatedly demonstrating extraordinary leadership and courage under fire.
MacArthur’s first exposure to hostile fire came near the end of the Battle of Perryville, Ky., in October 1862, when he bravely galloped on horseback up and down the Union line conveying orders to the Wisconsin troops to charge across a cornfield at Confederate positions. The Confederate troops soon fled from the field, and MacArthur and his regiment were ordered to fall back. “[M]any of the men in the regiment,” Mr. Young writes, “gawked in amazement at Little Mac’s courage.”
MacArthur’s next test came at the bloody Battle of Stones River, near Murfreesboro, Tenn. Over the course of three days, from Dec. 31, 1862, to Jan. 2, 1863, Union and Confederate forces suffered nearly 24,000 casualties in fierce combat that ended in stalemate.
MacArthur and the 24th Wisconsin helped fend off a horrific Confederate onslaught on New Year’s Eve, including holding the line in an area known as the Round Forest, which some combatants renamed “Hell’s Half Acre.” The 24th Wisconsin lost nearly a third of its men at Stones River. MacArthur’s commanding officers praised him for behaving with “great coolness and presence of mind” in the midst of battle.
Missionary Ridge
After surviving a serious illness in the summer, MacArthur returned to his regiment in October 1863. The Union Army had retreated recently to Chattanooga after suffering its worst defeat in the West at Chickamauga. Confederate forces under Gen. Braxton Bragg occupied two seemingly impregnable positions overlooking Chattanooga: Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge.
On Nov. 24, in what later was called “the Battle Above the Clouds,” the Confederates were pushed off Lookout Mountain with surprising ease. The next day, more than 20,000 Union troops assaulted Missionary Ridge.
MacArthur’s regiment was part of the force that attacked the center of the Confederate line on Missionary Ridge. After seizing Confederate positions at the base of the ridge, Union troops climbed the steep slope in the face of withering enemy fire. At a critical moment in the fight, MacArthur seized hold of the regimental flag, cried out, “On Wisconsin,” and led his troops to the crest of Missionary Ridge. Rebel troops fled down the opposite slope of the ridge into northern Georgia, across Chickamauga Creek. The Union had firm control of Eastern Tennessee.
Arthur MacArthur was now a genuine war hero. One of his commanding officers at Missionary Ridge described MacArthur’s conduct as “magnificent.” “He seems to be afraid of nothing,” the commander exclaimed. “He’d fight a pack of tigers in a jungle.”
Another commanding officer reported that MacArthur “was the most distinguished in action on a field where many in the regiment displayed conspicuous gallantry.”
Capture of Atlanta
In February 1864, MacArthur was promoted to major. From May to September 1864, his regiment participated in Sherman’s campaign to capture Atlanta. As part of that campaign, Union forces in late June attacked entrenched Confederate troops on Kennesaw Mountain, where MacArthur suffered wounds to his wrist and chest.
Unable to dislodge the Rebels from the mountain, Sherman ordered flanking movements that eventually resulted in a Confederate retreat. MacArthur and the 24th Wisconsin entered Atlanta on Sept. 8, 1864, after marching 200 miles and fighting several major battles and skirmishes.
The capture of Atlanta presented Sherman with the opportunity to pursue his planned March to the Sea. However, the Union Army still had to deal with Confederate forces in Tennessee under the command of Gen. John Bell Hood. Hood, a brave but overly aggressive commander, was determined to defeat Union Gen. George Thomas’ army in Tennessee and retake Nashville.
Battle of Franklin
Hood’s march toward Nashville brought his Army of the Tennessee from Decatur, Ala., to the town of Franklin, Tenn., where the 24th Wisconsin waited along with more than 20,000 Union troops under the immediate command of Gen. John Schofield. On Nov. 30, 1864, Hood’s army attacked entrenched Union positions near the Carter House in Franklin. It was, novelist Winston Groom wrote, “one of the most breathtaking infantry charges in the history of warfare.”
“In all its bloody four years,” Mr. Groom wrote, “the war had rarely — if ever — seen fighting so ferocious on so large a scale in so confined a space. … Thousands of men within an area no larger than a few acres shot, bayoneted, gouged, and bludgeoned one another to death with rifle butts, axes, picks, guns, knives, and shovels.”
In the midst of the furious combat, MacArthur conveyed orders and encouragement to the regiment: “Stand fast, 24th” and “Give them hell, 24th!” MacArthur’s horse was shot from under him, and he suffered musket-ball wounds in his chest and left leg. After the battle, he was removed from the field and transported to Nashville.
Hood’s Confederate army was decimated at Franklin, and it was destroyed as a fighting force the next month at Nashville. Once again, MacArthur’s leadership and bravery at Franklin received praise from his commanding officer. MacArthur “bore himself heroically” and fought “with a most fearless spirit,” reported Col. Emerson Opdycke.
After recovering from the wounds he received at Franklin, MacArthur returned to his regiment in Nashville. Before the war ended, he was promoted to the brevet rank of lieutenant colonel. He was, at 19, the youngest lieutenant colonel in the Union Army.
The Philippines
After the Civil War, MacArthur briefly studied law, but returned to the Army as a second lieutenant in 1866. During the next 30 years, he was stationed at several military posts, including some in the Western territories of the United States. He gradually rose through the ranks, becoming a brigadier general during the Spanish-American War of 1898. In that war, MacArthur commanded troops in the Philippines and participated in the capture of Manila.
At war’s end, President McKinley appointed MacArthur the military governor of the Philippines. MacArthur spent the next several years attempting to suppress Philippine insurgents who preferred independence to U.S. colonial rule.
The war against the Philippine insurgency was brutal and controversial (like the current war in Iraq) with atrocities committed on both sides. MacArthur’s military strategy succeeded in containing the insurgency, but he soon clashed with the top American civilian official in the islands — William Howard Taft, future U.S. president and chief justice of the Supreme Court.
The Taft-Arthur MacArthur clash foreshadowed the similar clash that MacArthur’s son, Douglas, would have with President Truman during the Korean War — and with the same result: Arthur MacArthur was relieved of command in the Philippines, just as Douglas would be in Korea 50 years later.
Highest rank
In January 1905, MacArthur received an assignment to observe the Russo-Japanese War, and he spent most of the next two years in Asia. He met several Asian civilian and military leaders and toured much of the continent with Douglas, who had recently graduated at the top of his class at West Point.
In September 1906, MacArthur was promoted to lieutenant general, the highest rank in the U.S. Army. He returned to the United States in 1907 and retired from the service on June 2, 1909, having reached the mandatory retirement age of 64.
Arthur MacArthur died on September 5, 1912, while attending the 50th reunion of the 24th Wisconsin Volunteers in Milwaukee.
Francis P. Sempa is the author of “Geopolitics: From the Cold War to the 21st Century.” He recently wrote the introduction to a new edition of William Bullitt’s “The Great Globe Itself: A Preface to World Affairs.” He is an assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania and an adjunct professor of political science at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.