Lieutenant General Arthur MacArthur, Jr. (June 2, 1845 – September 5, 1912) was a United States Army general and recipient of the Medal of Honor. He became the military Governor-General of the American-occupied Philippines in 1900 but his term ended a year later due to clashes with the civilian governor, future-U.S. President William Howard Taft.
In 1910 MacArthur was recently retired from the Army. It was at this time that he was elected to The Lambs as an Army-Navy member. It would be a short time as a Lamb, as the general died just two years later.
His son, Douglas MacArthur, was one of only five men promoted to the five-star rank of General of the Army during World War II. In addition to their both being promoted to the rank of general officer, Arthur MacArthur Jr. and Douglas MacArthur also share the distinction of having been the first father and son to each be awarded a Medal of Honor.
MacArthur was born in Chicopee Falls, then part of Springfield, Massachusetts. His father was Arthur MacArthur, Sr., a Scottish-born American lawyer, judge and politician who served as the fourth Governor of Wisconsin (albeit for only four days), a Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge in Milwaukee, and an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. His mother was Aurelia Belcher (1819–1864), the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, Benjamin B. Belcher.
On August 4, 1862, his father secured a commission for him as a first lieutenant and appointed as adjutant of the 24th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, seeing action at Chickamauga, Stones River, Chattanooga, the Atlanta Campaign and Franklin.
At the Battle of Missionary Ridge on November 25, 1863, during the Chattanooga Campaign, the 18-year-old MacArthur inspired his regiment during a largely uncoordinated and spontaneous frontal assault of Union forces against entrenched Confederate forces on a hilltop. During the charge the regimental flags were carried in front, so that every flag-bearer was constantly a target, causing immense casualty among them. MacArthur seized the flag from a fallen comrade and planted the regimental flag on the crest of Missionary Ridge at a particularly critical moment, shouting “On Wisconsin.” For these actions, he was awarded the Medal of Honor. He was brevetted colonel in the Union Army the following year. Only 19 years old at the time, he became nationally recognized as “The Boy Colonel” (not to be confused with Henry K. Burgwyn, known as the “Boy Colonel of the Confederacy”).
MacArthur was severely wounded in the Battle of Franklin, receiving bullet wounds to the chest and leg from a rebel officer’s pistol, but would ultimately survive.
On January 25, 1864, he was promoted to major and about a year and a half later, on May 18, 1865, to lieutenant colonel – shortly before he was mustered out of service on June 10, 1865. In recognition of his gallantry in action he received brevets (honorary promotions) to lieutenant colonel and colonel dated March 15, 1865.
With the conclusion of the Civil War in June 1865, MacArthur resigned his commission and began the study of law. After just a few months, however, he decided this was not a good fit for him, so he resumed his career with the Army. He was recommissioned on February 23, 1866, as a second lieutenant in the Regular Army’s 17th Infantry Regiment, with a promotion the following day to first lieutenant. Because of his outstanding record of performance during the Civil War, he was promoted in September of that year to captain. However, he would remain a captain for the following two decades, as promotion was slow in the small peacetime army.
Between 1866 and 1884, MacArthur completed assignments in Pennsylvania, New York, Utah Territory, Louisiana, and Arkansas.
In 1884, MacArthur became the post commander of Fort Selden, in New Mexico. The following year, he took part in the campaign against Geronimo. In 1889, he was promoted to Assistant Adjutant General of the Army with the rank of major, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1897.
Following the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, MacArthur was serving as the adjutant general of the Third Army Corps in Georgia. In June 1898 he was brevetted to brigadier general in the volunteer army. He was appointed as commanding general of the 1st Brigade, 2nd Division, Eighth Army Corps and led it to victory at the Battle of Manila on August 12, 1898. He was promoted to major general on August 13, 1898.
He led the 2nd Division of Eighth Corps during the Philippine–American War at the Battle of Manila (1899), the Malolos campaign and the Northern Offensive. When the American occupation of the Philippines turned from conventional battles to guerrilla warfare, MacArthur commanded the Department of Northern Luzon. In January 1900, he was appointed Brigadier General in the Regular Army and was appointed military governor of the Philippines with command of Eighth Corps, replacing General Elwell S. Otis.
During the war, President William McKinley relieved Major General Elwell S. Otis of command and replaced him with MacArthur giving him the title of Military Governor of the Philippines on May 6, 1900. However, William Howard Taft was appointed to head the Philippine Commission by President William McKinley and arrived to Manila in June 1900 to effect the transition from military to civil government. MacArthur firmly opposed the timing of direct involvement by the Philippine Commission as he did not believe the Philippines was ready for civil rule yet. Both Taft and MacArthur, in separate correspondences, informed Secretary of War, Elihu Root, of the contention between each other and their differing views on the future of the Philippines. On February 27, 1901, shortly after promoting MacArthur to the rank of Major General, Secretary Root informed Major General Adna R. Chaffee that he would succeed MacArthur as military governor in the Philippines. However, Chaffee would be subordinate to William Howard Taft, who would be appointed as Civilian Governor.
On June 21, 1901, Root’s War Department informed MacArthur that Chaffee was to replace him as military head in the Philippines with the change to take place on July 4, 1901. Taft decided, “four, possibly five and two small parts of others”, of the 27 organized provinces across the Philippines (16 additional provinces remained unorganized at the end of 1900), “in which armed insurrection continues, will remain under the executive jurisdiction of the military governor and commanding general”. The contentiousness between Taft and MacArthur seemed all too apparent as Taft stated publicly that neither his approach of municipal code nor the provincial government act under both Otis and MacArthur would form a perfect government, “though it was possible to make the former much more complete than the latter”. After the combined ceremony installing Taft and change of command from MacArthur to Chaffee on July 4, 1901, MacArthur packed his bags that same day and boarded a ship for the United States.
In the several years that followed, he was assigned to serve at various times as commander of the Department of the Colorado, the Lakes, the East, and eventually the Pacific Division.
On July 17, 1906, MacArthur, Mrs. MacArthur, and Douglas MacArthur sailed from Yokohama and arrived at San Francisco to resume his post at Fort Mason as Commander of the Pacific Division. As the commander of the Pacific Division, he was promoted to lieutenant general in September 1906, but though now the highest-ranking officer, was not elevated to chief of staff then or later.
In early 1907, MacArthur, after 47 years of devoted and distinguished service, was told by Taft’s War Department that he had been passed over for chief of staff of the Army. Instead of chief of staff, he was offered command of the Eastern department (on Governors Island). MacArthur refused Taft’s offer of commanding the Eastern department, stating that it would mean a humiliating reduction in authority for him. MacArthur proposed that the War Department either accept his retirement or assign him to some “special duty” which would not be an affront to his honor.
Taft was inaugurated as President of the United States in March 1909, and MacArthur retired quietly from the Army on June 2, 1909. MacArthur never did realize his dream of commanding the entire Army. He was one of the last officers on active duty in the Army who had served in the Civil War.
On September 5, 1912, while addressing a reunion of the 24th Wisconsin veterans in Milwaukee, MacArthur was suddenly and fatally stricken by a stroke. As MacArthur recounted “one of the most remarkable scouting expeditions of the war”, he told his men, “Your indomitable courage…”, then halted his speech with the words, “Comrades, I am too weak to go on”. He sat back down and collapsed, dying moments later. A young medical intern, serving as a waiter at the banquet, pronounced him dead on the platform.
Both Mrs. MacArthur and Mr. Charles King, a retired officer and close friend of MacArthur, carried out MacArthur’s final wishes to not be dressed [buried] in his uniform and for the funeral service to be ‘utterly devoid’ of military display. Except for MacArthur’s two sons, the only active military officer present at the funeral was a solitary colonel from a nearby fort. Finally, per MacArthur’s final wishes, he was interred in a cemetery in Milwaukee rather than in Arlington National Cemetery. He was originally buried in Milwaukee on Monday, September 7, 1912, but was moved to Section 2 Gravesite 856-A of Arlington National Cemetery in 1926. He is buried among other members of the family there, while his son Douglas chose to be buried in Norfolk, Virginia, the hometown of his mother, Mary Pinkney Hardy.