The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-06
BOY coLoNEL's FINE RECORD.
The Story of General MacArthurs Ser
 vices in the Civil War

N"-N,NN-NNa Manila, has a reputation as a fighter gained from the civil war. He was known as the "boy colonel" A veter- an of the Twenty fourth Wisconsin said recently:
 When the governor made him our adjutant in 1862 he was only seventeen and small for him age. His voice had not fully changed. It sounded like the growing of a young rooster in its first efforts. We made all sorts of fun or him, and felt that we had been impos- ed upon by the governor. We wanted a man, not stripling, for adjutant-- an office almost as important as that of colonel.
 You ought to have heard the boy on dress parade. His chicken voice didn't reach half way down the line when he piped out: ITO the rear; open order; march!' and when he minced to the center of the regiment, moved out in front and said: First Sergeant to the front and center, march,. there was a broad grin on the faces of the thousand men and a scowl on that of the colonel The first colonel had seen service and wanted competent man for adjutant. The night after the first dress parade he said, I shall write to the governor to send me wooden man for adju- tant.' The boy heard some of the col- onePs comments and said he could see that the men were guying him. It cut him to the quick.
 I'll show them that. I can fight, anyway. Then maybe they'll come to like me better, said the boy, as he brushed away something damp from his soft cheek"
 Another story from the same lips brings out the qualities this boy had for winning the love of his men. At Kenesaw the veteran who tells this story was badly wounded and left be- hind when the Twenty-fourth was or dered back after the repulse. Young Macarthur was in command, and when he learned that Sergeant Dunn was among the missing in battle he sent a file of men to the front again to search for him. Said he: If he is wounded and alive, see that he is given in charge of the surgeon at once; if dead bring his body in and it shall be sent home The thought was the impulsive one of a boy, but the act that of a firm and ready commander.
 Macarthur won his eagle. He was no acicdental colonel. At the first great battle of the regiment, Stone River, the colonel and lieutenant colonel were both absent, and the command of the Twenty-fourth devolved upon the ma jor and the boy adjutant. The regi- iy ,,r i,;o is served all through the war. At Stone River the three brigade con- manders of the brigade were shot down early in the fight, and the regiments were left to themselves. It was 2. ter rible struggle, too well known to be re- peated here. The Twenty-fourth came out with 200 men in the ranks, having lost almost as many in the fight. This was in 1862, a few months after the de- but of the boy adjutant. He was not guyed any more, and after the next battle, bloody Chickamauga, the regi- 5ment looked up to him as a feature it couldn't do without and remain the same.
 Then at the battle of Mission Ridge he capped it all by a deed of personal heroism and presence of mind only to be expected of a true soldier. The TWenty-fourth, under Sheridan's lead started on the signal to go up the slope at double quick, for the emergency called for rapid action on the line. They carried the first of the enemy's defen- ces, and after a short breathing spell orders came to go ahead. It was up- hill work in the double sense, for the men had to fight for right of way and struggle up the steep and rugged hill- side under fire. Finally, the color bear CT dropped down from physical ex- haustion, while the line was strung out wavering as to which course to take to avoid the enemy's fire and the ob- tructions in the path. Macarthur, still adjutant was at the front and seizins the flag in the hands of the proctrate bearer, unfurled 1t and rushed forward the actual leaner of the while line.
 For the deed at Misison Ridge the boy adjutant was promoted to the rank of major, a field officers position, two grades below that of colonel. A major commands 6 battalion of the regiment when in action, and often when the regiment is small there are but two field officers and the major is second in command. The Twenty fourth had become so depleted that there were but two field officers after Mission Ridge During the Atlanta campaign it was led by a lieutenant colonel and at the storming of Kenesaw that office was held by young Macarthur. He was not yet nineteen years old, for only one and half years had passed since he piped his feeble war notes at battalion dress parade.
 At the battle of Franklin November 30, 1884, the Twenty-fourth Wisconsin led by Colonel Macarthur, was one of the seven regiments which made his tory that day on Carter's hill in the famous charge of Opdycke's brigade That, too is well known story, but one to bear recalling. The main line of breastworks in front of Carters i'll was preached by desperate and over- whelming charge of Cleburne's Tennes- seeans. Opdycke's brigade lay in re- serve behind the breach. The men had been in action out at the front for thir- ty-six hours and were resting and talk ing coffee when the Confederates burst through the line in front At the quick command of Opdycke: First brigade fall in: double quick: charge!" the regiments in three lines, as they lay al