The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1909-07-02
ARTHUR Nc ARTHUR.
An Honor to the American Army and
People.

r People.
The most m%eritorious and modest
man in the army retired yesterday
for age, Arthur Macarthur, the last
of the lieutenant generals, unless
congress creates the rank again--as
inevitably it will if there is another
a
Macarthur never looked the SOL
der he was, and there never was a
Drawer. Concerning the latter af-
firmation we refer to the gallantry
o N many fields of the stripping Of
seventeen who Joined the Twenty
fourth Wisconsin as Lieutenant and
adjutant in 1862, to the growing
disgust of its colonel, long since for
gotten, who vowed that he would
ask Governor Solomon to take back
the boy, put him in a kindergarten
and oblige the regiment with a wood
en- man in his place. Slender, eff
Terminate in look and voice, and
quite unable to speak for himself
from an incurable difidence, young
Macarthur was the sport of the reg
iment-until@ it got into action. He
first caught his %colonel's eye at Stone
River, where the Twenty-fourth lost
half it's complement. On that hard
fought field-seven times the Twen-
ty-fourth formed in line of battle
under fire-the boy officer became
the pride of the regiment. At Mis-
sionary Ridge, being then eighteen,
he won the medal of honor by TAX
ing UP the colors at a critical moment
and placing them ON the captured
works. One who served with him
tells the story.
when our flag went down there
was nothing whatever to rally our
line with, and then the boy adiutant
made the second hit of his caree in
the Twenty-fourth. He seized the
staff and waved the flag a moment as
a signal to rally on the center, then
sprang forward to the very crest,
the leader of the whole line, his
standard the foremost of fifty battle
flags then moving up the SLOPE"
At Franklin, one of the most stub
born conflicts of the war, Macarthur
commanded the regiment. Il will
not say" reported General Stanley,
reviewing the work of his division,
that the Twenty-fourth saved the
day at Franklin, but it had a hard
part i'm it, and in the achievement
it was led by its gallant boy Colonel,
Arthur Macarthur"
The youngster who emerged from
the chaos of that bloody field with
so much glory, was born i'm Spring
field, Mass, 10 years before. Splen-
did as his civil war record was it
of infantry i'm the regular army.
Thirty-two years later, at the out
break of the Spanish war, he had
climbed laborously to the grade of
lieutenant colonel and was doing
desk work in the adjutant generals
office, the same modest, refined and
reticent man as ever as far removed
in look and part from the typical
soldier as could be imagined. His
services in the Spanish war at the
capture of Manila and in the war in
the Philippines as commander of the
American army are fresh in the pub
lie mind. We have always thought
that if Arthur Macarthur had not
embraced a military career he would
have been an eminent publicist and
civil executive, for his reports and
addresses as military governor Of the
Philippines and his speeches at ban
quets since. his return to his coun-
try show him in the light of a clear
headed student of affairs who has
command of a vigorous style.
At sixty-four General Macarthur
is still young in spirit, and we can
not believe that his usefulness is
ended. The army salutes a brave
soldier as he retires; civil life well
comes him and will at once proceed
to place him on the active list
New York Sum.