Connecticut western news., 1914-05-07
GEN, FUNST0N'S
 FEATS I'l WAR
Captured Agullal1O Almost
 Single Handed.
WON HIM A BRIGkDIERSHIP.

Leader Of Fifth Brigade Into Mexico
 Entered Army In 19o1-Wounded Ten
 Times Tn Battle-Sueh q Factor In
 Cuban Troubles That Butcher"
 WeyIer Set Price Upon His Head.
 Fighting Fred Funston. who has been ordered to lead the first advance of the army to Vera Cruz, is the senior brigadier general of the American army. although he is now only forty nine years old and did not enter the regular army until 1901. He came into the regular establishment with the rank he now holds. his commission having been given by President Me Kinley in appreciation of his remark able feat in capturing almost single handed, Emilio Aguinaldo. the Filipino insurrecto ,leader.
 Funston had been in the volunteer service from the outbreak of the Span ish-American war, when he recruited the Twentieth Kansas among the same kind of men forming the backbone of the rough riders. Before he engaged in the enterprise he had been for about two years a soldier in the Cuban army of liberation, and so big a factor was he in the warfare that Butcher" wey- Ter, the Spanish generalissimo, set a price upon his head.
 Daring Explorer and Soldier.
 Funston Is product of the Universi- ty of Kansas. After his student days he became n newspaper man, then en- tered the service of the United States department of agriculture and was sent to Alaska to study the flora. He show ed the stuff of which he Is made by floating down the Yukon alone in ca- noe In 1893.
 He was wounded ten times in battle. During his Cuban experience he took part In twenty-three engagements. and he kept that pace after entering the American volunteers. Once he was ar- rested in Cuba by Spaniards as he was trying to reach the seacoast. He rep resented himself as a deserter from the patriot army. having swallowed his passport, which indicated his rank. He was condemned to death, but eventual ly was liberated and got back to this country. .'. ....
 His Kansas regiment was assigned to Philippine duty, and on his way he met and married his present wife in San Francisco. He joined General Mer- ritt before Manila, which he aided in re- ducing. Leading the pursuit of AguI- naldo in April, 1899, he came to the Murilac river, on the other side of which was a considerable force of the enemy. The bridge had been destroy ed. but Funston, with twenty of the many men who volunteered, swan the river, drove the hostiIes back and took eighty prisoners.
 As "Prisoner," Took Aguinaldo.
 A few days later he crossed the Rio Grande at Calumpit on raft and drove the enemy, 2,500 strong, from an intrenched position. This feat won his brigadiership of volunteers.
 1t was in 1901 that he made his biz mark. From his hiding place in the province of Isabella, Aguinuldo had called the insurgents to rendezvous near his headquarters. Funston cap tured the messenger who carried this command. He and several comrades made their way through the thick of a hostile country with eighty Maca- bebes. who passed as insurgent Taga- logs who had captured the Americans. Word was sent to Aguinaldo. and or- ders were given for the prisoners to be brought to him.
 Before the strategy was suspected Funston had entered the rebels house and taken him prisoner. That net broke the neck of the insurrection, and peace negotiations were at once begun.
 Funston is little man. with limp a memento of several wounds. He pos sesses a bubbling sense of humor.