Frederick N. Funston

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Frederick Funston, 1906

Frederick N. Funston (born September 11, 1865 in New Carlisle , Ohio , † February 19, 1917 in San Antonio , Texas ) was an American officer in the United States Army , most recently major general . A hero of the Filipino-American War and Medal of Honor recipient, he was the first candidate until his untimely death to head the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I , which then fell to John J. Pershing .

Life

Funston was born the son of a Union Army officer and later Republican Congressman Edward H. Funston . His family moved to Allen County in Kansas in 1868 , where he attended Iola High School . In 1884 Funston applied unsuccessfully for admission to the West Point Military Academy and then attended the University of Kansas for two semesters without completing a degree. At the university he made a lifelong friendship with the future Pulitzer Prize winner William Allen White and the biologist Vernon L. Kellogg . In the following years he worked as a railroad clerk on the Santa Fe Trail and as a journalist in Arkansas .

Funston in the uniform of a Cuban insurgent

In 1890 Funston joined the Department of Agriculture and spent the following years on expeditions to the western United States, including the Dakota Badlands , Death Valley , Yosemite Valley and Alaska . In the Cuban War of Independence he fought from 1896 on the side of the insurgents in more than 20 skirmishes against the Spaniards. After his return to the USA due to a serious malaria disease, he was appointed Colonel of the Voluntary Commander of the 20th Kansas Regiment ("Kansas Scarecrows") after the outbreak of the Spanish-American War . The regiment was prepared for its war effort in Topeka , but was transferred to San Francisco after the end of the war in August 1898, to be shipped from there to the newly acquired property in the Philippines . A few days after his wedding to Eda Blankart, his regiment sailed from California for Manila .

In the beginning of February 1899 with the Battle of Manila sparked Filipino-American War Funston's regiment was involved in 19 skirmishes before the end of the year and earned the nickname Fighting Twentieth . Funston was wounded in the hand in one of the skirmishes for the rebel capital Malolos and was promoted to Brigadier General of the Volunteers after his recovery . For crossing the Rio Grande de Pampanga near Calumpit on a raft on April 27, 1899, he later received the highest military award in the United States, the Congressional Medal of Honor . After his temporary return to the USA with the Fighting Twentieth, General Arthur MacArthur proposed him for promotion to Major General of the Volunteers for his meritorious service . Funston, who was supposed to be retired due to illness, returned to the Philippines at the end of 1899 and took over a district command in northern Luzon , where he often led field operations. On March 23, 1901, he achieved his greatest success in the guerrilla war when he captured the rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo using a trick in his hiding place in Palanan . For this he was accepted into the Regular Army with the rank of Brigadier General . He was just 35 years old, making him the youngest general in the US Army at the time.

After his recall from the Philippines due to illness in 1902, he served as the commander of several territorial departments of the Army in the western United States. In 1902 he was criticized by Mark Twain in his sarcastic text A Defense of General Funston for his appearance as a proponent of war and territorial expansion. In 1906 he was in command of the Department of California when the Great San Francisco Earthquake struck there on April 18 , and organized rapid relief efforts by the units under his command. From 1908 to 1910 he was in command of the Army Service School at Fort Leavenworth . He then served for three years as Commander of the Department of Luzon in the Philippines and then for a few months in the Hawaiian Department . In the spring of 1914 he became the commander of the US troops during the occupation of Veracruz . In November 1914 he was promoted to major general.

In 1916 he served as commander of the Southern Department on the Mexican border, where there were increasing attacks by Mexican rebels on American territory. After Pancho Villas attacked the small town of Columbus in New Mexico on March 9, 1916, with the approval of President Woodrow Wilson , he sent his subordinate then Brigadier General John J. Pershing on the Mexican expedition . Wilson and Secretary of War Newton D. Baker favored Funston as the leader of the expeditionary forces, should the United States intervene in the First World War, which has been raging in Europe since 1914. This did not happen due to Funston's early death: on February 19, 1917, less than two months before the United States declared war on the German Reich, at the age of 51, he died of a severe heart attack. His body was both the Texan Alamo and in the City Hall laid out from San Francisco on the San Francisco National Cemetery buried. According to him, among other things, were Fort Funston to the north of San Francisco, the Camp Funston , Kansas (now part of Fort Riley named) and three roads: In San Francisco, New Carlisle (Ohio) and in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

In the movie

  • Troy Montero played Funston in the Filipino film El Presidente in 2012.
  • Pablo Espinosa played Funston in the 1997 Rough Riders series.

literature

  • Frederick Funston: Memories of Two Wars: Cuban and Philippine Experiences. Reprint, University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

Web links

Commons : Frederick Funston  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Funston, Frederick N.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American major general
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH New Carlisle , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH February 19, 1917
Place of death San Antonio , Texas