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artillery officer during the Civil War and a fiery Republican
congressman afterward. At six feet two and 200 pounds, he
was regarded by all as an exemplar of nineteenth-century
manhood. But Frederick, born in 1864, was only five feet four
and slightly built. His schoolmates had teased him. He com-
pensated with bravado displays of martial manliness. He
craved a military career, but though his father was a con-
gressman, West Point rejected him: His grades were
mediocre, and he was too small.
In 1886 he enrolled at the University of Kansas but
didn’t fit in. He devoted himself to the pursuit of the most
desirable women on campus, all of whom spurned him.
Increasingly he retreated from social situations, preferring to
drink alone in his room, periodically bursting out in a
drunken rage, screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs.
He dropped out of college and avoided contact with
other people. First, he explored an unmapped section of Death
Valley in California. Then he volunteered to gather botanical
samples in Alaska for the Department of Agriculture. When the
department proposed that he command an entire expedition
for the purpose, he flatly turned them down. “I do not need
anybody to take care of me, and I do not want to take care of
anybody.” Alone, he trekked into the frigid wastes of northern
Alaska and remained there for the better part of a year. When
he ran out of food he ate his sled dogs.
During those long, silent nights, Funston realized that
he could hardly prove that he measured up if no one were
around to take the measurements. He decided to become a
soldier, not caring much against whom he fought. In 1895
he contacted a recruiter for the cause of Cuban indepen-
dence and accepted a commission as an artillery officer in
the rebel army.
In Cuba he was given command of a Hotchkiss cannon;
he made up for his lack of gunnery skill by sneaking his can-
non absurdly close to Spanish fortifications at night, often
within 400 yards. As the sun rose, the Spaniards, aghast at
what was sitting on their doorstep, fired everything they had
at Funston’s cannon. Funston calmly adjusted the sights,
pulled the lanyard, and climbed upon the parapet, shouting
“Viva Cuba libre!” He was repeatedly wounded; once, a bullet
pierced his lungs. When a severe hip wound became infected,
he returned to the United States for medical assistance.
But he was not done with war. In 1898 Funston was
given command of the Kansas regiments that had volun-
teered against Spain. To his dismay, they were sent to the
Philippines, where the Spaniards had already ceased fight-
ing. But after President McKinley decided to annex the
Philippines, war broke out between the Americans and the
Filipino nationalists. Funston finally got what he craved:
sweeping charges, glorious victories, and newspaper feature
stories. Yet the jokes persisted. Behind his back, his men called
him the “Bantam General.” The New York Times, in its coverage
of a battle in which he won a Congressional Medal of Honor,
ran the headline: “Daring Little Colonel Funston.”The openingO
n the night of March 22, 1901, as rain battered his
campsite in the deep jungles of Luzon Island in the
Philippines, Frederick Funston pondered what awaited him
the next day. Ten miles to the north lay his prey, Emilio
Aguinaldo, President of the Philippine Republic. For two
years, the American army had been trying to capture
Aguinaldo. But repeatedly Aguinaldo had slipped away. This
time Funston was close. His ruse was working.
It had been a wild idea, something out of a boy’s adven-
ture story. He conceived it after capturing a Filipino messenger
carrying coded documents. Funston’s interrogation of the
courier had been successful. (It was later said that Funston had
subjected him to the “water cure,” an effective new aid to mili-
tary intelligence whereby several gallons of water were forced
down a suspect’s throat; his painfully distended belly was then
beaten with logs.) The courier confirmed that Aguinaldo’s
secret headquarters was located in a remote area of Luzon.
Funston had chosen eighty Filipino scouts from the
Macabebes, a tribe hostile to Aguinaldo. He outfitted them in
the uniforms of Aguinaldo’s army and trained them to pre-
tend to be Filipino nationalists. These “nationalists” would
escort five American “prisoners” (including Funston) for pre-
sentation to Aguinaldo. When Funston outlined his scheme
to his superior, General Arthur MacArthur had deep misgiv-
ings. “Funston, this is a desperate undertaking,” he said as
they parted. “I fear I shall never see you again.”
The words pleased Funston, who longed to be a hero.
Ever since he was a child, he worried that he failed to mea-
sure up to his father. Edward “Foghorn” Funston had been an
AMERICAN LIVES
Frederick Funston
Frederick Funston: hero or antihero?