Missionary Ridge and a Legacy of Courage

One hundred sixty-two years ago, on November 25, 1863, 18-year-old Lt. Arthur MacArthur picked-up the Union flag from the second flagbearer that had fallen in the Union’s attack on Missionary Ridge in Tennessee, yelled “On Wisconsin” to the troops of the 24th Wisconsin who were scaling the ridge under Confederate fire, and reached the top of the ridge where he planted the flag for the other blue-clad soldiers to see. The Confederates fled in disarray. The Battle of Chattanooga was over. In 1890, Arthur MacArthur was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroics that day. Fifty-two years later, his son Douglas would receive the same Medal for his courageous leadership in the defense of the Philippines.

Arthur MacArthur had been cited for gallantry at Perryville, Kentucky, a year earlier. At Missionary Ridge, one of his commanding officers remarked that the young man “seems to be afraid of nothing.” After Missionary Ridge, Arthur distinguished himself repeatedly in 13 battles in Gen. William Sherman’s Atlanta campaign. He was wounded twice at Kennesaw Mountain. He also fought in the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, where he was wounded two more times. His bravery and heroics resulted in his promotion to colonel — at age 19, the youngest colonel in the Union army.

After the Civil War, Arthur stayed in the army, though he reverted to the rank of captain. He was eventually stationed out west. In 1880, while stationed at Fort Dodge near what became Little Rock, Arkansas, his son Douglas was born. Douglas’ first memories, at age four, were of a 300-mile march from Fort Wingate to Fort Seldon, north of El Paso. Arthur MacArthur was part of a force that guarded the fords of the Rio Grande River from marauding Indians led by Geronimo. In 1883, Captain MacArthur wrote a 44-page paper that envisioned America’s global destiny in the lands of the Asia-Pacific. Arthur sent the paper to former President Ulysses S. Grant, who forwarded it to President Chester Arthur.

Arthur MacArthur eventually rose to the rank of General, and after the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War, he was tasked with leading the military occupation of the Philippines. A violent insurrection developed among groups that sought immediate Filipino independence, and General MacArthur’s job was to crush that insurrection. In a foreshadowing of his son Douglas’ experience in Korea some fifty years later, Arthur clashed with William Howard Taft, the civilian in charge of the occupation, and was relieved of command.

By that time, Douglas was achieving academic records at West Point that still stand to this day. And Douglas’ military exploits would exceed those of his father. He was cited for bravery in Mexico in 1914. He was awarded seven Silver Stars for his command of the Rainbow Division in World War I. His superiors called him “the bloodiest fighting man” in the army. Then-Colonel George Patton told his family that Macarthur was the bravest man he ever met. Other officers in the Rainbow Division at war’s end presented him with a cigarette case engraved with the phrase “Bravest of the Brave.”

After the war, Douglas’s rise was meteoric: Superintendent of West Point, and Army Chief of Staff at age 50 in 1930. President Franklin Roosevelt clashed with MacArthur over the army’s budget, and eventually sent him to the Philippines. Douglas had accompanied his father on a tour of Asia shortly after graduating from West Point. And like his father, Douglas believed America’s destiny was in Asia and the Pacific. When Japan invaded the Philippines, MacArthur forces were eventually overwhelmed. Retreating to the island of Corregidor, MacArthur was prepared to die with his men rather than surrender, but President Roosevelt ordered him to leave the Philippines and go to Australia, where he made his famous promise to return to the Philippines. President Roosevelt awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor.

MacArthur planned his return to the Philippines. His armies fought in New Guinea, where, in historian Mark Perry’s words, MacArthur “coordinated the most successful air, land, and sea campaign in the history of warfare.” He was poised to invade the Philippines, but first had to persuade President Roosevelt to override the Navy’s objections. He succeeded, and famously landed at Leyte in October 1944 to begin the liberation of the Philippines. MacArthur was assigned the task of planning the invasion of Japan’s home islands, but the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, coupled with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria forced Japan to surrender. MacArthur led the military occupation of Japan for the next five years, helping to transform the country from a militaristic autocracy to a constitutional democracy.

When Soviet and Chinese-backed North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950, MacArthur was appointed U.S. and UN commander of American and allied forces. He temporarily snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with his brilliant landing at Inchon, which U.S. Admiral Bull Halsey called “the most masterful and audacious strategic stroke in all history.” Geoffrey Perret wrote that Inchon placed MacArthur “among the other military immortals” of history. To launch that invasion, MacArthur had to overcome the doubts of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He recalled when he heard their objections to Inchon, that he could almost hear his father’s voice saying “Doug, councils of war breed timidity and defeatism.” After the success at Inchon, the drive into North Korea was halted by a massive Chinese intervention in the war. MacArthur, like his father during the Filipino insurgency, was relieved of command when he clashed with civilian authorities.

Biographer William Manchester judged Douglas MacArthur to be the greatest man-at-arms this nation produced. In a career that spanned more than 50 years and three major wars, it is a judgment that is hard to argue with. Douglas MacArthur was shaped and molded by a legacy of courage that began on Missionary Ridge more than a century and a half ago.

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