Yes, today is Father’s Day in America. The following is sent to you to help us both remember what it means to be a father and to have a father:
Ron
U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Center for Disease Control, and other agencies report that children from fatherless homes are:
• Five times more likely to live in poverty;
• Nine times more likely to drop out of school;
• Twenty times more likely to go to in prison;
• Higher risk of drug and alcohol abuse;
• Increased incidents of internalized and externalized aggressive behavioral problems;
• Greater chance of runaways and homelessness;
• Twice as likely to commit suicide.
In an effort to recognize the importance of a father in the home, several “Father’s Day” services were celebrated:
One was organized by Grace Golden Clayton, who on July 5, 1908, arranged a church service to honor all fathers, in memory of her father who was a Methodist minister in West Virginia.
Another event was celebrated June 19, 1910, in Spokane, Washington.
Sonora Louise Smart Dodd heard a church sermon on the newly established Mother’s Day and wanted to honor her father, Civil War veteran William Jackson Smart, who had raised six children by himself after his wife died in childbirth.
Sonora Louise Smart Dodd drew up a petition supported by the Young Men’s Christian Association and the ministers of Spokane to celebrate Fathers’ Day.
In 1916, Woodrow Wilson spoke at a Spokane Fathers’ Day service.
On December 6, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt addressed Congress:
“No Christian and civilized community can afford to show a happy-go-lucky lack of concern for the youth of to-day; for, if so, the community will have to pay a terrible penalty of financial burden and social degradation in the to-morrow.”
Roosevelt continued:
“The prime duty of the man is to work, to be the breadwinner; the prime duty of the woman is to be the mother, the housewife. All questions of tariff and finance sink into utter insignificance when compared with the tremendous, the vital importance of trying to shape conditions so that these two duties of the man and of the woman can be fulfilled under reasonably favorable circumstances.”
In 1972, President Nixon established Father’s Day as a permanent national observance (Proclamation 4127), stating:
“To have a father, to be a father is to come very near the heart of life itself. In fatherhood we know the elemental magic and joy of humanity. In fatherhood we even sense the divine, as the Scriptural writers did who told of all good gifts corning ‘down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning’ (James 1:17); symbolism so challenging to each man who would give his own son or daughter a life of light without shadow.”
Nixon added:
“Our identity in name and nature, our roots in home and family, our very standard of manhood, all this and more is the heritage our fathers share with us. It has long been our national custom to observe each year one special Sunday in honor of America’s fathers; and from this year forward, by a joint resolution of the Congress approved April 24, 1972, that custom carries the weight of law. Let each American make this Father’s Day an occasion for renewal of the love and gratitude we bear to our fathers, increasing and enduring through all the years.
Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby request that June 18, 1972, be observed as Father’s Day.”
On May 20, 1981, in a Proclamation of Father’s Day, President Ronald Reagan stated:
“‘Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it,’ Solomon tells us (Proverbs 22:6). Clearly, the future is in the care of our parents. Such is the responsibility, promise, and hope of fatherhood. Such is the gift that our fathers give us.”
Dr. Ben Carson explained:
“The more solid the family the more likely you are to be able to resist peer pressure. Human beings are social creatures. We all want to belong, we all have that desire, and we will belong, one way or another. If the family doesn’t provide that, the peers will, or a gang will, or you will find something to belong to.”
On Father’s Day, 1988, Ronald Reagan said:
“Children, vulnerable and dependent, desperately need security, and it has ever been a duty and a joy of fatherhood to offer it. Being a father requires strength and more than a little courage to persevere, to fight discouragement, and to keep working for the family.”
Reagan ended:
“Let us express our thanks and affection to our fathers, whether we can do so in person or in prayer.”
U.S. Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall commented on Marxist social deconstruction (20 Centuries of Great Preaching Vol. 12 Waco: Word, 1971 p. 11-19):
“The history of the world has always been the biography of her great men. There was a time in these United States when youth was inspired by (heroes), when a picture of Washington or Lincoln adorned every school room wall, along with the ponderous Family Bible on the Victorian table and the hymn books on the old-fashioned square piano, there looked down from the walls the likenesses of our national heroes.
Those were the days of great beliefs, belief in the authority of the Scriptures, belief that prayer was really answered, belief in marriage and the family as permanent institutions, belief in the integrity and worth of America’s great men. These beliefs laid the groundwork for producing more great men, for many a boy figured, “If that man could do it, get an education, make his life count for something, then I can too'”
Marshall continued:
“Then there dawned the day when the pictures of Washington and Lincoln did not fit in with our concept of modern décor. The old Family Bible looked embarrassingly out of place. So, the pictures and the Bible were often relegated to the Attic of Forgotten Things. There went with them some of the most stabilizing influences of American life. We had become a more sophisticated people, somewhat cynical of the cherished beliefs of our ancestors, rather blasé, frankly skeptical of old-fashioned sentimentalism.
Along with our higher education came a debunking contest. This debunking became a sort of national sport. It was smarter to revile than to revere, more fashionable to depreciate than to appreciate. In our classrooms at all levels of education, no longer did we laud great men, those who had struggled and achieved. Instead, we merely took their dimensions and ferreted out their faults.
We decided that it was silly to say God sent them for a special task. They were merely products of their environments. The Constitution, that hitherto cherished charter of American liberties, was drawn up by men who never spoke on a telephone or flew in a plan therefore, we should change the Constitution to suit modern ways.”
Senate Chaplain Marshall added that sons and daughters need courageous fathers to defend them against predatory agendas:
“We failed to realize that when we were denying the existence of great men, we were also denying the desirability of great men. So now, many of our children have grown up without the guiding star holding in their hands, only a bunch of question marks, with no keys with which to open the doors of knowledge and life. The young no longer had any particular ambition to become heroes. Their ambition now was to make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, in whatever way was most convenient.
Thus, our debunking is a sign of decaying foundations of character to the individual and in the national life. We who are Christians, believe that God gives the world a few great men to lead the rest of us closer to Him, that to depreciate or to deny their greatness is to deny one of God’s revelations of Himself to mankind. The heroes the Christian cherishes were (or are) human. They have their weakness. Their faults are well-known to their friends, better known to themselves. But the point is that with God and His guidance, they can provide the moral leadership that our nation so sorely needs.
America needs heroes on the battlefield of everyday life, in our homes, in our schools, on college campuses, in offices and factories, who can lead us towards a return to idealism. For time is running out for us.”
U.S. Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall concluded:
The call today is for Christian heroes and heroines who are willing to speak a good word for Jesus C”hrist, who are willing to live by the undiluted values of Christian morality in the pagan atmosphere of our society surrounded by lewdness, pornography, and profanity. This may be a higher bravery than that of any battlefield: to face ridicule, sarcasm, sneering disdain for what one believes to be right. To fight for goodness and right, fighting the battle first in our own hearts and souls, seeking God’s help to overcome our particular temptations for the sake of peace, for the sake of America, for our own sake, and yes, for God’s sake.”
In 1942, General MacArthur was named Father of the Year. He stated:
“By profession I am a soldier and take pride in that fact. But I am prouder. infinitely prouder to be a father.
A soldier destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys. The one has the potentiality of death; the other embodies creation and life.
And while the hordes of death are mighty, the battalions of life are mightier still.
It is my hope that my son, when I am gone, will remember me not from the battle but in the home, repeating with him our simple daily prayer, ‘Our Father Who Art in Heaven.'”
MacArthur composed “A Father’s Prayer”. Please read it while thinking of yourself and your father:
“Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.
Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee — and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.
Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail …
Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.
And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously.
Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength.
Then, I, his father, will dare to whisper, ‘I have not lived in vain.'”
The Communists of Korea were pushing the Non-Communists and Liberty loving Koreans off that peninsula in early June of 1950. In that June the United States declared war on those Korean Communists and went there with our military to oppose them. We were very tired of war. We had no taste for doing that, but we did it.
On this anniversary of our doing it, I think it is very important for us to remember why we did it, especially with things that are happening again this June. Please remember it here with me this June!
Ron
The Korean War started June 25, 1950.
Communists from the north invaded the non-communists, killing thousands.
Outnumbered, the liberty loving non-Communists and American troops who went to help them, as part of a U.N. police action, fought courageously against the Communist Chinese and North Korean troops, who were supplied with arms and MIG fighters from the Soviet Union.
Five-star General Douglas MacArthur was Supreme U.N. Commander, leading the United Nations Command from 1950 through1951.
MacArthur made a daring landing of troops at Inchon, deep behind Communist lines, and recaptured the city of Seoul.
MacArthur Watching the Dangerous Invasion of Inchon Korea
With temperatures sometimes forty degrees below zero in the Korean mountains, and Washington politicians limiting the use of air power against the Communists, there were nearly 140,000 American casualties:
• in the defense of the Pusan Perimeter and Taego;
• in the landing at Inchon and the freeing of Seoul;
• in the capture of Pyongyang;
• in the Yalu River where nearly a million Communist Chinese soldiers invaded;
• in the Battles of Changjin Reservoir, Old Baldy, White Horse Mountain, Heartbreak Ridge, Pork Chop Hill, T-Bone Hill, and Siberia Hill.
Harry S Truman contrasted communism and democracy in his Inaugural Address, January 20, 1949:
“We believe that all men are created equal because they are created in the image of God. From this faith we will not be moved. Communism is based on the belief that man is so weak and inadequate that he is unable to govern himself, and therefore requires the rule of strong masters. Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice.
Communism subjects the individual to arrest without lawful cause, punishment without trial, and forced labor as a chattel of the state. It decrees what information he shall receive, what art he shall produce, what leaders he shall follow, and what thoughts he shall think. Democracy maintains that government is established for the benefit of the individual, and is charged with the responsibility of protecting the rights of the individual and his freedom.”
Truman continued:
“These differences between Communism and Democracy do not concern the United States alone. People everywhere are coming to realize that what is involved is material well-being, human dignity, and the right to believe in and worship God.”
The word “democracy” has two main definitions:
• the first is a political form of government where every citizen votes on every issue and the majority rules. This only successfully worked on a small city-state basis, like Athens, where every citizen had to physically be present at every meeting;
• the second definition of “democracy” is simply a general reference to a “popular” government, where the population participates in ruling themselves.
It was the second definition that came into common use.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published their Communist Manifesto in 1848.
That same year, after France’s 1848 Revolution, Alex de Tocqueville wrote in his “Critique of Socialism”:
“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. Democracy allows for individual capitalism, where a person can own private property and engage in business to improve his or her life.”
Forbes, July 27, 2020, published Rainer Zitelmann’s article “Anyone Who Doesn’t Know The Following Facts About Capitalism Should Learn Them,” in which he wrote:
“In 1820, 94% of the world’s population was living in extreme poverty. By 1910, this figure had fallen to 82%, and by 1950 the rate had dropped yet further, to 72%. However, the largest and fastest decline occurred between 1981 (44.3%) and 2015 (9.6%).
Reading these figures, which were compiled by Johan Norberg for his book Progress, is enough to make anyone rub their eyes in disbelief. For according to leftist anti-capitalists, these were the very decades in which so much went so wrong in the world.”
Zitelmann continued:
“200 years ago, at the birth of capitalism, there were only about 60 million people in the world who were NOT living in extreme poverty. Today there are more than 6.5 billion people who are NOT living in extreme poverty. Between 1990 and 2015 alone 1.25 billion people around the world escaped extreme poverty —- 50 million per year and 138,000 every day.”
Friedrich Engels explained in Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, 1844, how the middle-class must be eliminated so that the socialist planners can rule without opposition:
“Every new crisis must be more serious than the last, ruin more small capitalists and increase the number of the unemployed. In the end commercial crises will lead to a social revolution.”
Karl Marx had attended the University of Berlin, where he became involved with a radical anti-religious student group — the Young Hegelians. After being refused a university post because of his extreme views, Karl Marx began publishing a paper in 1842, which was banned in Germany.
He fled to Paris, then Brussels, and finally to London.
Marx founded the International Workingmen’s Association and the Social Democrat Labor Party.
Karl Marx
Marx’s philosophy influenced:
• Adolph Hitler in starting the National Socialist Workers Party;
• Vladimir Lenin in starting the Social-Democrat Party;
• Joseph Stalin in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; and
• Mao Zedung in the Chinese Communist Party.
Lenin explained:
“The goal of socialism is communism.”
Lenin wrote in State and Revolution, 1917:
“The dictatorship of the proletariat will produce a series of restrictions of liberty in the case of the capitalists. We must crush them. Their resistance must be broken by force. There must also be violence, and there cannot be liberty or democracy.”
Vladimir Lenin
Karl Marx wrote:
“The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: ‘Abolition of private property.’ Take away the heritage of a people and they are easily destroyed.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt explained that communism is nothing more than dictatorship, as he stated in his address to the Delegates of the American Youth Congress, Washington, D.C., February 10, 1940:
“I disliked the regimentation under Communism. I abhorred the indiscriminate killings of thousands of innocent victims. I heartily deprecated the banishment of religion. I, with many of you, hoped that Russia would work out its own problems, and that its government would eventually become a peace-loving, popular government. That hope is today shattered. The Soviet Union, as everybody who has the courage to face the fact knows, is run by a dictatorship as absolute as any other dictatorship in the world.”
President Harry S Truman spoke at the laying of the cornerstone of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Washington, D.C., April 3, 1951:
“The international Communist movement is based on a fierce and terrible fanaticism. It denies the existence of God and, wherever it can, it stamps out the worship of God. Our religious faith gives us the answer to the false beliefs of Communism. fOur faith shows us the way to create a society where man can find his greatest happiness under God. Surely, we can follow that faith with the same devotion and determination the Communists give to their godless creed.
Every day our newspapers tell us about the fighting in Korea. Our men there are making heroic sacrifices. They are fighting and suffering in an effort to prevent the tide of aggression from sweeping across the world. Our young men are offering their lives for us in the hills of Korea. and yet too many of us are chiefly concerned over whether or not we can buy a television set next week. This is a failure to understand the moral principles upon which our Nation is founded.”
Conrad Hilton, founder of the hotel chain, spoke at a Prayer Breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel, following addresses by Congressmen, Senators, and Vice-President Nixon.
Hilton stated:
“It took a war to put prayer at the center of the lives of our fighting men. It took a war, and the frightening evil of Communism, to show the world that this whole business of prayer is not a sissy, a counterfeit thing that man can do or not as he wishes. Prayer is a part of man’s personality, without which he limps. Men grope in darkness unless they believe that God, in His kindness, is willing to lift the shadows if we ask Him in prayer.”
Truman stated while lighting the National Christmas Tree, December 24, 1952:
“Shepherds, in a field, heard angels singing: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men’. We turn to the story of how ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'”
Truman continued:
“Tonight, our hearts turn first of all to our brave men and women in Korea. They are fighting and suffering and even dying that we may preserve the chance of peace in the world.
Actual Picture of the Fighting and Suffering in Korea
And as we go about our business of trying to achieve peace in the world, let us remember always to try to act and live in the spirit of the Prince of Peace. He bore in His heart no hate and no malice, nothing but love for all mankind. We should try as nearly as we can to follow His example. We believe that all men are truly the children of God.
As we pray for our loved ones far from home, as we pray for our men and women in Korea, and all our service men and women wherever they are, let us also pray for our enemies. Let us pray that the spirit of God shall enter their lives and prevail in their lands.”
Truman concluded:
“Through Jesus Christ the world will yet be a better and fairer place.”
Fighting in Korea was halted July 27, 1953, with the signing of an armistice with North Korea at Panmunjom.
On December 24, 1953, Dwight Eisenhower stated at the lighting of the National Christmas Tree:
“The world still stands divided in two antagonistic parts. Prayer places freedom and communism in opposition one to the other. The Communist can find no reserve of strength in prayer because his doctrine of materialism and statism denies the dignity of man and consequently the existence of God. But in America religious faith is the foundation of free government, so is prayer an indispensable part of that faith. The founders of this, our country, came first to these shores in search of freedom to live beyond the yoke of tyranny.”
So, my friends, 36,000 U.S. service men died in Korea to protect us from Communism. However, I hope you are as disgusted as I am on this anniversary of that war, that miss-led professors across America are teaching Communism to our young people.
And as I have shown above, it is in opposition to the God of most all of their parents, and certainly in oppositionto the Mighty God of the Universe!
My fellow Americans, this is the anniversary of D-Day. It was such a momentous event in American history and World history, please, let’s remember it again together. Following, let’s go through the events together:
Ron
After World War I, Germany’s economy suffered from depression and a devaluation of their currency.
On January 30, 1933, Adolph Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany by promising hope and universal healthcare. Less than a month later, on February 27, 1933, a crisis occurred. The Rheichstag, Germany’s Capitol Building, was suspiciously set on fire, with evidence pointing to Hitler’s supporters. Hitler, though, blamed the attack on his political opponents and used the power of the state to falsely accuse and arrest them.
Hitler used the panic of the “crisis” as an opportunity to suspend citizens’ rights and systematically undermine Germany’s Weimar Republic.
He had radical homosexual activist Ernst Röhm and his feared Brownshirts, called “Sturmabteilung” (storm troopers), to storm into the meetings of his political opponents, disrupting and shouting down speakers.
Brownshirts organized protests and street riots, similar to modern day BLM/Antifa-style protests, smashing windows, blocking traffic, setting fires, vandalizing, and even beating to death innocent bystanders to spread fear and panic. Nazis implemented boycotts of Jewish businesses. The riots destabilized the country and led to the overthrow old political leaders.
On Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), they broke windows, looted and set on fire over 7,500 Jewish stores and 200 synagogues.
Once securely in power, Hitler had his SS and Gestapo secret police kill the Brownshirts in the Night of the Long Knives, thus eliminating competition and giving the public impression that he was cracking down on lawbreakers.
Hitler at Height of His Power
Hitler then confiscated weapons from law-abiding citizens. An SA Oberführer warned of an ordinance by the provisional Bavarian Minister of the Interior: “The deadline set for the surrender of weapons will expire on March 31, 1933. I therefore request the immediate surrender of all arms. Whoever does not belong to one of these named units (SA, SS, and Stahlhelm) and keeps his weapon without authorization or even hides it, must be viewed as an enemy of the national government and will be held responsible without hesitation and with the utmost severity.”
Heinrich Himmler, head of Nazi S.S. (“Schutzstaffel” Protection Squadron), announced: “Germans who wish use firearms should join the S.S. or the S.A. Ordinary citizens don’t need guns, as their having guns doesn’t serve the State.”
In 1938, when a suspected homosexual youth shot a Nazi diplomat in Paris, it was used as an excuse to confiscate all firearms from Jews. German newspapers printed, November 10, 1938: “Jews Forbidden to Possess Weapons by Order of SS Reichsführer Himmler, Munich ‘Persons who, according to the Nürnberg law, are regarded as Jews, are forbidden to possess any weapon. Violators will be condemned to a concentration camp and imprisoned for a period of up to 20 years.'”
“The Berlin Police announced that the entire Jewish population of Berlin had been ‘disarmed’ with the confiscation of 2,569 hand weapons, 1,702 firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammunition. Any Jews still found in possession of weapons without valid licenses are threatened with the severest punishment.”
Of the Waffengesetz (Nazi Weapons Law), March 18, 1938, Hitler stated at a dinner talk: “The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. So, let’s not have any native militia or native police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order.”
Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, pioneered the use of fake news to sway public opinion so that the entire nation accepted the lies of the deep-state: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The truth is the greatest enemy of the state.”
In socialist countries, a person’s life is only of worth if it benefits the state: “No life still valuable to the state will be wantonly destroyed.” (German Penal Code, October 10, 1933)Those not promoting the deep-state narrative were driven from their jobs, publicly ridiculed, and eventually removed from society and sent to labor and concentration camps.”
Jews at Concentration Camp about to be Gassed
Anti-socialist John Basil Barnhill stated in a debate with Henry M. Tichenor, 1914 (National Rip Saw Publishing Co., St. Louis, MO): “Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.”
This is similar to thoughts of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who warned at Hillsdale College, April 11, 2023: “1. Any power that government takes from the people, it will never return voluntarily;2. Every power that government takes, it will ultimately abuse to the maximum extent possible;3. Nobody ever complied their way out of totalitarianism. The only thing we can do is resist.”
The National Socialist Workers Party operated over 1,200 concentration camps where millions of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, handicapped, and others were experimented, tortured, or were killed in gas chambers.
German churches were silent, as they had for centuries taught pietism – a version of separation of church and state where Christians were instructed to only focus on their own personal spiritual life and withdraw from involvement in worldly politics. As a result, the church stood by silent as the National Socialist Workers Party usurped power, leaving the work of stopping Hitler to be done by the sacrifice of millions of courageous Allied soldiers.
By the time a few courageous Germany church leaders spoke out, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it was too late — the government had grown so powerful it simply arrested and executed them.
Hitler’s National Socialist Workers’ Party used diplomatic intimidation, deception, and Blitzkrieg “lightning war” attacks to take control of:
Bohemia,
Moravia,
Poland,
Denmark,
Norway,
Luxembourg,
Belgium,
Holland,
France,
Monaco,
Greece,
The Channel Island (UK),
Czechoslovakia,
Baltic states,
Serbia,
Italy,
Hungary,
Romania,
Bulgaria,
Slovakia,
Finland,
Croatia,
Austria,
and more.
Other Axis Powers were also aggressively expanding: • Italy had invaded Ethiopia in 1935, and • the Empire of Japan had invaded China in 1937.
The United States entered World War II on December 7, 1941, when Pear Harbor was bombed by Imperial Japan, a Tripartite Pact partner with Nazi Germany and Italy’s Benito Mussolini.
The turning point in the Pacific War was the Battle of Midway, June 4, 1942. The turning point in Europe was D-Day, JUNE 6, 1944.
Over 160,000 troops from America, Britain, Canada, free France, Poland, and other nations landed along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast of France.
In his D-Day Orders, JUNE 6, 1944, Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight Eisenhower sent nearly 100,000 Allied troops marching across Europe to defeat Hitler’s National Socialist Workers Party with these instructions: “You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you. You will bring about the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe.Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle hardened; he will fight savagely. Let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”
It was the largest seaborne invasion force in world history, supported by 13,000 aircraft, 5,000 ships with 195,700 navy personnel.
Prior to the invasion, Allies attempted to mislead the Nazis as to where the attack would take place.
The invasion was supposed to take place June 5, but the weather was so bad aircraft could not fly. General Eisenhower gave the risky order to delay the attack 24 hours to allow the weather and tide to improve.
The night before, Allied aircraft launched an enormous air assault on Nazi defenses, batteries, and bridges.
Then paratroopers were sent in behind enemy lines to cut off their supplies. President Ronald Reagan stated at the 40th Anniversary of D-Day: “Something else helped the men of D-day: their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause.
And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer he told them: ‘Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we’re about to do.’
Also that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness thought of the promise God made to Joshua: ‘I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.'”
Then elite Army Rangers went in to scale the cliffs and take out Nazi gun positions. President Reagan stated: “40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon.
At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance. The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers along the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. But the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing.
Rangers Climbing Point-du-Hoc
Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After 2 days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.” At 6:30am, Allied forces began landing. Troops ran across the heavily fortified beaches of: • Utah Beach• Pointe du Hoc• Omaha Beach• Gold Beach• Juno Beach• Sword Beach
Ocean water ran red with the blood of almost 9,000 killed or wounded.
In the next two and a half months, over two million soldiers arrived on the shores.
Paris was liberated on August 25, 1944, and the Nazi war machine was pushed back over the Seine River. It was a major turning point in World War II.
Reagan continued: “The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next.
It was the deep knowledge (and pray God we have not lost it) that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest.”
Shortly after D-Day, on July 20, 1944, a courageous German resistance movement was formed which attempted to assassinate Hitler, but he survived. Hitler retaliated by killing over 7,000 Germans.
President Franklin Roosevelt stated JUNE 6, 1944: “My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation.
I now ask you to join with me in prayer:
Almighty God, Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization. Give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard.
For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. We know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.”
FDR concluded his D-Day Prayer: “Help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.
Give us strength and, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee. With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy, and a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil. Thy will be done, Almighty God. Amen.”
McArthur was born January 26, 1880 to parents who both had military backgrounds. His mother who most called Pinkey, was from well to do Virginia parents. His father was already a rather famous U.S. Army officer. Compared to most famous people, Douglas McArthur lived what I would call four whole lives. He was a commander in three major wars. Therefore, in relating to you his amazing life, it will be necessary to convey it to you in sections or posts. Following is the Fourth one.
Ron
The Rainbow Division was now moving into the lines in strength. They scheduled three raids for the night of March 9. With Menoher’s blessing MacArthur decided to join a battalion of Iowan’s against a section of German trench on the Salient du Feys for these raids.
As zero hour approached, the enemy, anticipating visitors, opened up with forty batteries of heavy artillery, and American casualties began to mount before the attack had even begun. To steady his men, MacArthur walked the line in his eccentric apparel, now augmented by a sweater bearing the big black “A” he had won at the Point by playing on its football team. An Iowan said: “I couldn’t figure what a fellow dressed like that could be doing out there. When I found out who his was, you could have knocked me over with a feather.”
Five minutes before zero, sixty French batteries began their protective barrage, and as the minute hands crept upright, MacArthur mounted a scaling ladder and went over the top as fast as he could. He scrambled forward. He said the blast was like a fiery furnace. He wondered if any of the Rainbow guys were following, but quickly saw that they were all around him and some even ahead, a roaring avalanche of glittering steel and cursing men.
And they carried the enemy position.
Menoher reported: “He accompanied the assault wave of the American companies engaged with the sole view of lending his presence where it was reassuring to the troops who were then unaccustomed to this manner of warfare. On this occasion, in the face of the determined and violent resistance of an alert enemy, he lent actual service on the spot to the unit commanders and by his supervision of the operation not only guaranteed its success, but left the division with the knowledge of the constant attention of their leaders to their problems in action and the sense of security which the wise and courageous leadership there impressed on the engaged companies.”
This time MacArthur received the distinguished Service Cross for his “coolness and conspicuous courage.”
MacArthur with his long muffler and squashed down hat.
A few days later, MacArthur, who was strict about his men carrying their gas masks but often neglected to bring his own, was gassed.
He was in bed with a mask covering his eyes since the gassings could make one go blind. He Heard that the U.S. Secretary of War Baker was coming to survey the front lines. He ripped off his blindfold in time to show Secretary Baker around the area on 19 March.
Upon the recommendation of Menoher, MacArthur was awarded his first general’s “star” when he was promoted to brigadier general on 26 June. At the age of just thirty-eight, this made him the youngest general in the AEF.
Promoted, but still wearing crushed down hat, with riding crop, and cavalry boots
The Germans decided to now mobilize a push so massive that it would end the war. They had not been successful at Verdun or other offences. But they were sure they would now. They even erected a high wooden observation platform behind the lines for the Kaiser to be able to view this offensive.
It started with an artillery barrage so massive that the Allied observers said it was the largest ever seen in any war. MacArthur’s division was charged with stopping it on their southern sector, the spearhead of it. He devised an unusual plan to try to stop it, though the Germans were sure that they would be able to proceed right on to Paris. He set up a front line of suicide, shock troops that the Germans were to fight through first. After they were tired out and somewhat disorganized, they would meet the main line of defense manned by the Rainbow Divisions main troops.
This plan was unusually risky, but it succeeded gloriously. The German troops were thrown back with massive losses and never caught site of Paris.
MacArthur was determined to know the real result of this massive battle. He and his staff had no real intelligence to know. Hearing reports that the enemy may have withdrawn, MacArthur went forward on 2 August to see for himself. He later wrote:
“It was 3:30 that morning when I started from our right at Sergy. Taking runners from each outpost liaison group to the next, moving by way of what had been No Man’s Land, I will never forget that trip. The dead were so thick in spots we tumbled over them. There must have been at least 2,000 of those sprawled bodies. I identified the insignia of six of the best German divisions. The stench was suffocating. Not a tree was standing. The moans and cries of wounded men sounded everywhere. Sniper bullets sung like the buzzing of a hive of angry bees. An occasional shellburst always drew an angry oath from my guide. I counted almost a hundred disabled artillery guns of various sizes and several times that number of abandoned machine guns.”
MacArthur reported back to Menoher and Lieutenant General Hunter Liggett, the commander of I Corps (under whose command the 42nd Division fell), that the Germans had indeed withdrawn. He was amazed to personally observe that the hilltop German Command center was empty, and there was a massive empty sector in the German lines. He knew that if the AEF forces attacked immediately, they could push on at will and the war would be over. He knew that it must be done, but no one in Pershing’s staff or the other primary officers would listen. Later his insistence was acknowledged, but got no traction at the time, and thousands and thousands of allied troops were later lost as a result.
As a result of his heroic personal observations, he was awarded a fourth Silver Star. He was also awarded a second Croix de guerre and made a commandeur of the Légion d’honneur. MacArthur’s leadership during the Champagne-Marne offensive and counter-offensive campaigns was noted by General Gouraud when he said MacArthur was “one of the finest and bravest officers I have ever served with.”
MacArthur receiving the French Croix de Guerre medal from General Bazelaire
The 42nd Division earned a few weeks rest, returning to the line for the Battle of Saint-Mihiel on 12 September 1918. The Allied advance proceeded rapidly, and MacArthur was awarded a fifth Silver Star for his leadership of the 84th Infantry Brigade.
In his later life he recalled:
“In Essey I saw a sight I shall never quite forget. Our advance had been so rapid the Germans had evacuated in a panic. There was a German officer’s horse saddled and equipped standing in a barn, a battery of guns complete in every detail, and the entire administration and music of a regimental band.”
He received a sixth Silver Star for his participation in a raid on the night of 25–26 September. The 42nd Division was relieved on the night of 30 September and moved to the Argonne sector where it relieved the 1st Division on the night of 11 October. On a reconnaissance the next day, MacArthur was gassed again, earning a second Purple Heart.
The 42nd Division’s participation in the Meuse–Argonne offensive began on 14 October when it attacked with both brigades. That evening, a conference was called to discuss the attack, during which Major General Charles P. Summerall, commander of V Corps, was present and demanded that Châtillon be taken by 18:00 the next evening. An aerial photograph had been obtained that showed a gap in the German barbed wire to the northeast of Châtillon. But Chatillon was the center and strength of the German forces.
General Summerall said that Chatillon must be taken or a casualty list of
5,000 casualties sent. MacArthur said: “It will be taken by that deadline of 6:00 tomorrow evening or a casualty list of 6,000 dead with my name at the top will be sent.” Summerall was so moved that he just left.
MacArthur enveloped the hill, mounting a frontal assault and, simultaneously, sending a battalion let by Major Lloyd Ross around it, snaking from hole to hole, cleaning out ravines and Machine-gun nests.
It was a bloody business. In McArthur’s words: “Officers fell and sergeants leaped to the command. Companies dwindled to platoons and corporals took over. At the end, Major Ross had only 300 men and 6 officers left out of 1,450 men and 25 officers. That is the way the Cote-de-Chatillon fell.
Lieutenant Colonel Walter E. Bare—the commander of the 167th Infantry—proposed an attack from that direction, covered by a machine-gun barrage. MacArthur adopted this plan. He was wounded, but not severely, while leading a reconnaissance patrol into no man’s land at night to confirm the existence of the gap in the barbed wire. As he mentioned to William Addleman Ganoe a few years later, the Germans saw them and shot at MacArthur and the squad with artillery and machine guns. MacArthur was the sole survivor of the patrol, claiming it was a miracle that he survived. He confirmed that there was indeed an enormous, exposed gap in that area due to the lack of enemy gunfire coming from it.
At last the Americans had pierced the main German line. Pershing called it “a decisive blow” and said: “The importance of this operation can hardly be overestimated”
Summerall recommended that MacArthur be promoted to major general and awarded the Medal of Honor. However, neither happened. He did receive a second distinguished Service Cross. Its citation read: “For the manner to which he personally led his men, displaying indomitable resolution and great courage in rallying broken lines and reforming attacks, thereby making victory possible.” The citation concluded, “on a field where courage was the rule, his courage was the dominant force.
MacArthur receiving Distinguished Service Cross from General Pershing
Following all this action there was a rest and then a council of war in an old farm house in late October. With Menoher presiding, he asked this two Brigade commanders whether they thought the Rainbow, which had lost four thousand men in penetrating the Hindenburg Line, would be fit to play a role when the American advance resumed in November. According to the divisional history, “MacArther jumped from his chair and started walking up and down, as he always did when talking about something in which he is greatly interested. In his brilliant way he soon showed that there was no phase of the matter which he had not thoroughly considered from every possible point of view. His discussion was such a comprehensive and competent analysis that his two auditors regretted then and afterwards that there was no stenographer present to take it all down and preserve it.”
There was more action by the Rainbow Divion, but by now the Germans had become demoralized. There was news that there were insurrections back in Germany, and that the German fleet had mutinied when ordered to go out to sea and attack the British in a last ditch suicide raid.
MacArthur got word that there was an officer from Pershing’s staff snooping around divisional headquarters, asking the staff what they thought about their leader. MacArthur interpreted this that they were out to get him on the ground “that I failed to follow certain regulations prescribed for our troops, that I wore no helmet, that I carried no gas mask, that I went unarmed, that I always had a riding crop in my hand, that I declined to command from the rear.”
Actually, this was not really the case. Menoher was being promoted to corps commander, and MacArthur was designated his successor. He was now the Commander of the 42nd Division. At age thirty-eight he was the leader of twenty-six thousand men—the youngest divisional commander of the War. At the same time, Persing wrote him that “it gives me great pleasure to inform you that on Oct. 17, I recommended you for promotion to the grade of Major General, basing my recommendation upon the efficiency of your service with the American Expeditionary Force.”
Finally, on 9 November, 1919 Armistice was declared. That horrible, bloody war was over. There was massive celebration all over the world, especially in America.
There would be no more promotions in the ranks, so MacArthur was not made Major General at that point. However, for his service in WW I he received two Distinguished Service Crosses (just below the Congressional Medal of Honor), a Distinguished Service Medal (for exceptionally meritorious service in a duty of great responsibility), and seven Silver Stars (for gallantry in action against an enemy of the United States while engaged in military operations), as well as two Purple Hearts. He was also awarded all manner of medals, citations, and military honors by other countries, especially the French, from whom MacArthur received two Croix de Guerre medals (awarded for extraordinary feats of bravery in Military action).
The Rainbow Division did not go home immediately. It was chosen to participate in the occupation of the Rhineland in Germany. It occupied the Ahrweiler District of the Rhineland in April of 1919 for 5 months.
Finally, the 42nd Division entrained to Brest and Saint-Nazaire where they boarded the ships to return to the United States. MacArthur traveled on the ocean liner SS Leviathan, which reached New York on 25 April 1919.
You hear a lot about Douglas MacArthur for his exploits in WW II, and the Korean War and afterwards, but his exploits in WW I were enough to fill a lifetime for most people!
Though it may seem hard to believe, but considering the absolute facts, one has to concur that God was preserving the life of Douglas MacArthur during Word War I.
So, my friends, this is Memorial day in America. Join me in reflecting on it.
Memorial Day in America, as an annual observance, can be traced back to the end of the Civil War, a war in which over a half-million died. Southern women scattered spring flowers on graves of both northern Union and southern Confederate soldiers.
Ron
On June 6, 1944 President Franklin Roosevelt offered a D-Day Prayer (as we readied for the great attack on Hitler’s Nazis), which is now part of the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.: “My fellow Americans, I ask you to join with me in prayer: Almighty God, Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization.
“Give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces.
We know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.”
In 1958, President Eisenhower placed soldiers in the tomb from World War II and the Korean War. In 1968, one hundred years after the first observance, Memorial Day was moved to the last Monday in May.
In 1984, President Ronald Reagan placed a soldier from the Vietnam War in that tomb. DNA tests later identified him as pilot Michael Blassie, whose 37B Dragonfly was shot down near An Loc, South Vietnam. He had graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970.
In 2000, Congress passed The National Moment of Remembrance Act (Public Law 106-579), whereby on each Memorial Day, at 3:00 pm, citizens should pause for a moment of prayer: “Congress finds that it is essential to remember and renew the legacy of Memorial Day to pay tribute to individuals who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the United States.
“Greater strides must be made to demonstrate appreciation for those loyal people whose values, represented by their sacrifices, are critical to the future of the United States and to encourage and to dedicate themselves to the principles for which those heroes of the United States died.
“A symbolic act of unity to honor the men and women of the United States who died in the pursuit of freedom and peace as a day of prayer for permanent peace.”
In his Memorial Day Address, May 31, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge said: “Settlers came here from mixed motives. Generally defined, they were seeking a broader freedom. They were intent upon establishing a Christian commonwealth in accordance to the principle of self-government. It says in the Bible that ‘God sifted the nations that He might send choice grain into the wilderness.'”
“The persecutions of the Puritans in England for non-conformity, and the religious agitations and conflicts in Germany by Luther, in Geneva by Calvin, and in Scotland by Knox, were the preparatory ordeals for qualifying Christian men for the work of establishing the civil institutions on the American Continent.
“God sifted’ in these conflicts a whole nation that He might send choice grain over into the wilderness’; and the blood and persecution of martyrs became the seed of both the church and the state. It was in these schools of fiery trial that the founders of the American republic were educated and prepared for their grand Christian mission.
“They were trained in stormy times, in order to prepare them to establish the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty and of just systems of civil government.”
Concluding in his Memorial Day Address that America’s republic is worth preserving, President Calvin Coolidge stated May 31, 1923:
“They had a genius for organized society on the foundations of piety, righteousness, liberty, and obedience of the law. Who can fail to see in it the hand of destiy? Who can doubt that it has been guided by a Divine Providence?”
Douglas MacArthur told West Point cadets, May 1962:
“The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training-sacrifice.
“In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those Divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image.
“No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of Divine help which alone can sustain him.
However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.”
McArthur was born January 26, 1880 to parents who both had military backgrounds. His mother who most called Pinkey, was from well to do Virginia parents. His father was already a rather famous U.S. Army officer. Compared to most famous people, Douglas McArthur lived what I would call four whole lives. He was a commander in three major wars. Therefore, in relating to you his amazing life, it will be necessary to convey it to you in sections or posts. Following is the Third one.
Ron
MacArthur returned to the War Department, where he was promoted to Major on 11 December 1915. In June 1916, he was assigned as head of the Bureau of Information at the office of the Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker. MacArthur has since been regarded as the Army’s first press officer.
As you probably know, the National Guard was composed of soldiers from each individual state. MacArthur suggested sending a division organized from units of different states, so as to avoid the appearance of favoritism toward any particular state.
MacArthur described it as a rainbow of colors from each state flag, and as a result it was named the Rainbow Division because of MacArthur’s description. Baker approved the creation of this formation, which became the 42nd (“Rainbow”) Division and appointed Major General William Abram Mann, the head of the National Guard Bureau, as its commander. MacArthur was its chief of staff, and with his new role came the rank of colonel, skipping the rank of lieutenant colonel.
At MacArthur’s request, this new Division was placed in the infantry rather than the engineers.
From its formation atMacArthur receiving the French Croix de Guerre medal from General Bazelairein August 1917, MacArthur was the division’s key sparkplug, prime motivator, and individual most responsible for its creation. Competent, efficient, innovative, highly intelligent, and tirelessly energetic, as division chief of staff MacArthur appeared everywhere, at all hours – badgering, cajoling, inspiring, intervening, and attending to every detail, large and small.
It sailed in a convoy from Hoboken, New Jersey, for the Western Front on 18 October 1917. On 19 December the 42nd’s commander, the 63-year-old Mann, was replaced by 55-year-old Major General Charles T. Menoher, after Mann–who was “ill, old, and bedridden”–[41] failed a physical examination. The new division commander and his chief of staff “became great friends”, in MacArthur’s words, who further described Menoher as “an able officer, an efficient administrator, of genial disposition and unimpeachable character”.
In 1917 Fance’s most striking geographic feature was a double chain of snakelike trenches which began on the English Channel and ended 466 miles away on the Swiss border. Facing one another across the no-man’s land between these earthworks the great armies squatted in the western front amid the stench of urine, feces, and decaying flesh, living lives in candlelit dugouts and sandbagged ditches hewn from chalk or clay, or scooped from the porridge of swampy Flanders.
They had been there since the summer of 1914 when the gray tide of the German army had swept through Belgium and lapped at the very gates of Paris. The titanic struggles which followed had been called battles, but although they had been fought on a fantastic scale, with nearly two million men lost at Verdun and on the Somme, strategically they were only siege assaults. Every attack found the defenses of the Kaiser’s troops stronger. The Tommies who crawled out of their filthy trenches, lay down in front of the jump-off tapes, and waited for their officers’ zero-hour whistles, would face as many as ten aprons or sections of barbwire with barbs thick as a man’s thumb, and then the multitude of German water-cooled machine guns.
A few trenches would be taken at shocking cost. In one typical attack, one gain of seven hundred mutilated yards cost 26 thousand men, and then the sieges back and forth would start again.
It was a weird, grimy life, unlike anything in their sheltered upbringing. Most sounds and colors on the front were unearthly. Bullets cracked and ricochets sang with an iron ring; overhead, shells warbled endlessly. There were saffron shrapnel puffs, shaky yellowish mists of mustard gas souring the ground, and spectacular Very flares of all hues.
Arriving draftees were shipped up in boxcars to their new homes in the earth, where everything revolved around the trench—you had a trench knife a trench cane, a rod-shaped trench periscope and, if you were unlucky, trench foot, trench mouth, or trench fever.
Even in uncontested sectors there was a steady toll of shellfire casualties. The methodical British called it “normal wastage.” Such shellings were symbolic of the whole conflict—grotesque, impersonal, obscene, ghastly. The war was, quite simpley the worst thing that had ever happened.
Despite the unparalleled horror—the insanities of World Was II, Korea, and Vietnam never quite matched the madness of World War I.
After it was all over, in 1919 a colonel who hadn’t been overseas wrote of MacArthur that it was “hard for me to conceive of this sensitive, high-strung personage slogging in the mud, enduring filth, living in stinking clothing and crawling over jagged soil under criss-crosses of barbed wire to have a bloody clash with a bestial enemy.” The explanation was that men like MacArthur, raised to believe in Victorian heroism, invested even the nightmare of trench warfare with extravagant thoughts of fantastic glory.
With General Charles Meneher as its ranking officer, the 42nd (Rainbow) division was sent immediately to the Western Front upon its arrival in France. Everyone knew that the Germans were planning a big Spring offensive. American units were desperately needed. Pershing ordered the 42nd into the Luneville sector on the Lorraine plain.
With MacArthur as its Chief of Staff, he was second in command and, with some of the Division already going into the trenches, of course he was there with them instead of being back of the lines with the other ranking officers. MacArthur was meticulous in organization and consummate in planning. More and more he was delegating authority for operations, intelligence, and administration to majors and lieutenant colonels. There was a kind if madness in his method: he wanted the staff to be self-sufficient so that he would be free to cross no-man’s-land with assault troops.
One of the first things that he heard was that a group of French commandos were planning and excursion or raid across no-man’s-land to the German trenches on February 24, 1918. Knowing that he needed experience in this type of warfare and anxious to get into the fight, he asked for permission to accompany them from General Georges de Bazelaire. He was turned down but when he argued: “I cannot fight them if I cannot see them,” he was finally given permission.
Next morning at daylight he is right there, ready for the excursion. However, to the amazement of the other participants he is not dressed in the required uniform like the rest. Typical of MacArthur, he is dressed in his cavalry riding britches, his scrunched-down cap instead of the steel helmet, his riding boots polished to a mirror finish, a four foot muffler knitted by his mother, a turtle neck sweater, and only a riding crop instead of any other weapon.
Captain Thoms Hardy, one of General Menoher’s aids asked to go along with him. When he asked about MacArthur’s outlandish attire, MacArthur remembered his father and told him “It’s the orders you disobey that make you famous.”
The French soldiers were daubing sticky black mud on their faces. MacArthur and Handy followed their example, and also accepted the loan of wire cutters and trench knives from a French lieutenant
Upon the signal to advance, a tossed grenade, he started across no-man’s-land in front of those French commandos, leading them through all the barbed wire, machine gun fire and across and around the plethora of shell holes.
He got to the edge of the German trenches first and peered down. Then the French soldiers caught-up and peered down also. They wondered what should be their next move. They did not have long to wait, for MacArthur jumped down into the German trench and yelled for them to follow. They shot the surprised Germans right and left. However, MacArthur rounded up a group of Germans as prisoners, including a high ranking German Colonel in his fancy German officer’s uniform.
When they had done about all the damage they could do there, MacArthur led them back across no-man’s-land. He was standing upright and prodding the German colonel along in front of him with his riding crop. When he approached the allied trenches, with that German officer still being prodded along, a huge cheer went up from the Rainbow division men that were already there as well as an equally rousing cheer from the French soldiers. In his words, Frenchmen “crowded around me, shaking my hand, slapping me on the back , and offering me cognac and absinthe.”
General de Bazelaire pinned a Croix de Guerre on him and kissed him on both cheeks. This was the first ever Croix de Guerre awarded to a member of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF).Menoher, awarded him the silver star afterward, and told a New York Times war correspondent: “Colonel MacArthur is one of the ablest officers in the United States Army and one of the most popular.
MacArthur receiving the French Croix de Guerre medal from General Bazelaire
McArthur was born January 26, 1880 to parents who both had military backgrounds. His mother who most called Pinkey, was from well to do Virginia parents. His father was already a rather famous U.S. Army officer. Compared to most famous people, Douglas McArthur lived what I would call four whole lives. He was a commander in three major wars. Therefore, in relating to you his amazing life, it will be necessary to convey it to you in sections or posts. Following is the Second one.Ron
Lt. MacArthur spent his graduation furlough with his parents at Fort Mason, California, where his father, now a major general, was commanding the Department of the Pacific.
Afterward, he joined the 3rd Engineer Battalion, which departed for the Philippines in October 1903. He did survey work around many of the islands. In November 1903, while working on Guimaras, he was ambushed by a pair of Filipino brigands or guerrillas; he shot and killed both.
He was promoted to first lieutenant in Manila in April 1904. In October 1904, his tour of duty was cut short when he contracted malaria during a survey on Bataan.
He returned to San Francisco, where he was assigned to the California Commission that was to regulate streams that had been devastated by being clogged from all the gold mining runoff, and in July 1905, he became chief engineer of the Division of the Pacific.
Lt. MacArthur served on his father’s staff for several years. He did intelligence work all over the world. He was transferred to Washington where he served as “an aide to assist at White House functions” at the request of President Theodore Roosevelt.
He was then transferred to Leavenworth. He was stuck there for several years, but eventually was stationed in Washington under the Chief of Staff of the Army, Major General Leonard Wood who had served with his father years ago.
By now Douglas had advanced to the rank of Captain.
In this year of 1913 the United States and Mexico had drifted close to war with each other. Mexican General Huerta had insulted the American Flag and was showing great belligerence. President Wilson in and unusual move had ordered the U.S. Navy to seize the Mexican town of Vera Cruz. A contingent of U.S. soldiers and marines was holding the town, but were surrounded by 11,000 of Mexican General Huerta’s troops.
The U.S. Secretary of War had alerted General Wood to be prepared to send an expeditionary force there if hostilities were to break out between the two countries.
Wood desperately needed intelligence to be ready for such. Vera Cruz was being held by Brigadier General Frederick Funston with just a small circle around the town, and he had orders to not go beyond the lines of that circle.
General Wood decided that the ideal way to solve his lack of intelligence for his needs was so send Captain Douglas MacArthur down there in the role of a one-man spy operation to find out all that he could without telling anyone, even General Funston who was holding the town with his small contingent of U.S. forces.
Captain MacArthur sailed down there on the U.S.S. Nebraska and arrived in Vera Cruz on Friday, May 1. What he found there called for both courage and skill. As I mentioned, the small U.S. brigade was surrounded by 11,000 of Huerta’s forces. And if it ever became known the U.S. was contemplating an attack against Mexico, Huerta would proceed to attack and destroy that American brigade.
The night before a U.S. soldier had gotten lost and wandered across the line into Huerta’s side. He was promptly executed, and this showed what danger Captain MacArthur faced if he went across the line to gather the intelligence that was so needed.
After sizing-up the situation, Douglas determined that the primary need that the U.S. needed was transportation from the port inland. Vera Cruz lacked horses or mules or trucks. However, there was a railroad, and it was obviously the best transportation that was available. Douglas found that there was a large number of rail cars, but not a single engine to pull them in the town. He knew that he must find some engines.
Operating as a one-man force he first found an engineer and two firemen who had worked on that train previously. He promised each man $150 in gold if they could find him engines. He searched the engineer and confiscated his 38 caliber pistol. He then showed the engineer that he had no money or anything of value on himself other than a small derringer pistol.
These three dudes swore that they could show Douglas where to find those engines.
Douglas sent the two firemen on ahead, and he and the engineer followed. They confiscated a railroad handcar and started off inland. They got about 15 miles and then were stopped by a bridge that was down over a river. They camouflaged the rail car and found a canoe to cross the river. They mounted some ponies that they found tied to a small shack and took off down the tracks.
Eventually they came upon the two firemen who had another handcar ready for them. Deeper and deeper they penetrated Huerta country. Since MacArthur was in uniform and obviously Anglo-Saxon he left the car as thy approached each settlement, lashing one man to him as a guide while he circled the village and met the car with the other two men on the other side.
At 1:00 A.M. they reached Alvarado, thirty-five miles beyond Funston’s outpost. There they found five locomotives. Two of them were useless switch engines, but three were just what he needed—fine big road pullers in excellent condition. He made a careful inspection of them and then started back.
According to Douglas, the return trip was a “bloody affair”. At Salinas five armed men opened fire on them. MacArthur dropped two of them with his little derringer. At Piedra they ran into 15 mounted gunmen. The horsemen put three bullet holes through MacArthur’s clothing and wounded one of the Mexicans. Douglas shot four of the assailants. Near Laguna, three more mounted men fired at them. Again, lead tore through MacArthur’s uniform, and again he brought an attacker down.
{All those bullet holes through his clothing without a single one ever touching his skin was the start of the “idea” that Douglas MacArthur could face any enemy fire without ever being hit. Many believed it, and considering the multitude of his later actions, it seems that he must have believed it also.}
Again, they crossed the Jamapa river and even though the canoe sank they carried the wounded Mexican up and at daybreak found the camouflaged handcar. Later in the morning they reentered American lines.
War was never declared, but they now had the intelligence needed if it were. The Vera Cruz incident disclosed much about MacArthur: his ingenuity, his eye for terrain, and his personal bravery.
General Wood recommended him for the Medal of Honor, noting the expedition, which had been undertaken “at the risk of his life” and “on his own initiative,” showed “enterprise and courage worthy of high commendation.” It was turned down by the rather prejudiced review committee, but was noticed across the U.S. army.
If you would like to know the real, accurate history of how we got Mother’s Day, please read the following words:Ron
After the Civil War, abolitionist Julia Ward Howe, author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, led a Mother’s Day for Peace march in New York on June 2, 1872, to promote peace, national healing and reconciliation.
She composed a proclamation to “appeal to womanhood throughout the world.”
She personally sponsored a Mothers’ Day celebration in Boston for the next ten years till interest dwindled.
In the following decades, Protestant churches and schools observed Decision Day for committing to Christ, Roll Call Day for church membership, Missionary Day, Temperance Sunday, and Children’s Day.
Numerous efforts arose for observing a Mother’s Day, but taking the day from a suggestion to a reality was Anna Jarvis. She is the person most responsible for making Mother’s Day a nationally observed event.
Anna was from Grafton, West Virginia, the granddaughter of a Baptist minister. She was a member of Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church, where she taught Sunday school.
In 1876, after one of her Bible lessons, Anna Jarvis closed with a prayer: “I hope and pray that someone, sometime, will found a memorial mothers day commemorating her for the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life. She is entitled to it.”
Similar to Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, Anna Jarvis’ mother worked during the Civil War to organize Mothers’ Day Work Clubs to care for wounded soldiers, both Union and Confederate.
Anna’s mother raised money for medicine, inspected bottled milk, and improved sanitation. She arranged in 1868 a “Mother’s Friendship Day to reunite families that had been divided during the Civil War.”
Inspired by her mother’s self-sacrifice and generosity, Anna Jarvis wanted to honor her, and all mothers. On May 12, 1907, Anna persuaded her church, Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church, to have a small Mother’s Day service.
The next year, May 10, 1908, Anna organized a Mother’s Day in two places: Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church, and in Philadelphia, where she gave a moving speech in the auditorium of the 12-story Wanamaker Department Store.
Wanamaker, who had paintings of Christ throughout his store, stated: “There is a power in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep uppermost the profound conviction that it is the Gospel that is to win the heart and convert the world. The things that were sweet dreams in our childhood are now being worked out. The procession is being made longer and longer; the letters of Christ’s name are becoming larger and larger.”
John Wanamaker was a retail pioneer and founder of one of the first department stores.
With the financial backing of John Wanamaker and H.J. Heinz, maker of “57 varieties” of ketchup, Anna Jarvis began a letter-writing campaign to ministers and politicians to establish a “national” Mothers’ Day.
Then, a suggestion for honoring motherhood was made by University of Notre Dame’s first athletic director, Frank Hering. He proposed “setting aside one day in the year as a nationwide memorial to the memories of mothers and motherhood,” stating: “Throughout history the great men of the world have given their credit for their achievements to their mothers.”
Due to the overwhelming support of pastors and churches, by 1909, forty-five states observed Mother’s Day. People wore white and red Carnations on Sunday to pay tribute to their mothers.
On May 8, 1914, Congress designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
On MAY 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first National Mothers’ Day as a: “public expression of love and reverence for the mothers of our country.”
English Poet Robert Browning wrote: “Motherhood: All love begins and ends there.”
Mothers have the role of imparting values into children, as American poet William Ross Wallace wrote: “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.”
This was echoed by historians Will and Ariel Durant in The Lessons of History, 1968: “Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted, civilization would die, and we would be savages again.”
On February 3, 1983, at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, President Ronald Reagan stated: “I have a very special old Bible. And alongside a verse in the Second Book of Chronicles there are some words, handwritten, very faded by now. And believe me, the person who wrote these words was an authority. Her name was Nelle Wilson Reagan. She was my mother.”
Reagan explained: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
MacArthur was born January 26, 1880 to parents who both had military backgrounds. His mother who most called Pinkey, was from well to do Virginia parents. His father was already a rather famous U.S. Army officer.
Compared to most famous people, Douglas MacArthur lived what I would call four whole lives. He was a commander in three major wars. Therefore, in relating to you his amazing life, it will be necessary to convey it to you in sections or posts. Following is the first one.
Ron
As I mentioned above, he was born on January 26, 1880. During the first years of his life his father was stationed as Commander of different forts along the frontier of West Texas and the deserts of New Mexico.
Young Douglas and his brother grew up with those U.S. Army horse soldiers at those forts where he was home-schooled by his mother. Having been a woman of substance and culture of the Old South, the frontier life in those forts was really tough on her.
Douglas and his brother both had Navaho spotted ponies at a really early age. They would ride great distances across the prairies hunting rabbits from horseback, but always watching for Indians. And they were immersed in the military customs and lives of those soldiers where they lived. My first recollection McArthur was fond of saying later “was that of a bugle call.”
In his mother’s lap he learned the virtue of physical courage and the disgrace of cowardice. Once she told Doug that men do not cry. He protested that his father’s eyes were often moist at the retreat ceremony. That was different, she quickly explained; that was from love of country; that was allowed. But tears of fear were forbidden.
Douglas was age seven when their Company K was posted to Leavenworth and he could be around youngsters his own age for the first time, and where he started the second grade in a real school for the first time.
One afternoon in the autumn of 1893, when he was thirteen, he overheard his father remark to his mother: “I think there is the material of a soldier in that boy.” Many fathers say such things about their sons, hoping they follow in their footsteps. What mattered was that his son swore never to forget it—and never did.
In that same fall of 1893 Commander Arthur brought home the news, welcome to his younger son if not to his wife, that after four years away from troops they would head westward again, to San Antonio.
There Douglas entered West Texas Military Academy. Douglas was dark, wiry and already handsome. He crossed the Fort Sam Houston’s lower parade ground at 8 o’clock each morning wearing a braided gray cadet uniform and carrying, as required: a Bible, Prayer book, and a hymnal. Chapel was held every day in the ivy-covered stone Church of Saint Paul, where the boy was confirmed the following April.
His last year was an unbroken series of triumphs. Both the football and baseball teams were undefeated. He was chosen first seargent of A Company, the highest rank he could attain. He organized and led a prizewinning drill squad and was one of four cadets to achieve perfect marks in deportment. With an academic average of 97.33 he won the Academy Gold Medal and became valedictorian of the class of 1897.
Douglas and his mother both were determined that he go to West Point. But to do so, one must be nominated by a Congressman who is allowed very few nominations. Pinkey thought that she had persuaded a Congressman friend to get Douglas in. In that first year it did not happen. Also, he flunked the physical due to curvature of the spine. He worked extremely hard with a famous medical doctor named Pfister and got the problem cured.
Finaly Pinkey found a Congressman named Otjen who had thirteen applicants. To solve his problem of who to send to the Point he decided to hold an examination. He got 3 school principals to conduct it in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin City Hall. Douglas worked extremely hard under another Principal that Pinkey hired as a tutor. The Milwaukee Journal reported on the contest’s outcome on its first page: Under the headline HE WILL GO TO WEST POINT. The 1898 paper reported that Douglas had placed first among the thirteen applicants. The paper went on to say “young MacArthur is a remarkably bright, clever, and determined boy. His standing was 99.5 against the next man’s 77.9. He scored 700 points out of a possible 750. In his case preparedness is the key to success and victory.”
So, on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 13, 1899 , a West Shore Railroad train three hours out of Weehawken paused at West Point to discharge a youth wearing a light gray Stetson, and his small, severely dressed mother. Yes, she went to West Point with him.
They were standing on the U.S. Military Academy “plain,” a broad shelf of land overlooking the Hudson which was itself was overlooked by towering, thickly forested heights. Facing the plain were various buildings and monuments. The superintendent’s mansion gleamed whitely. Gothic walls of gray granite, as grim as those of a penitentiary, enclosed the cadet barracks. A walkway wended itself downward to the river to an antebellum structure of yellow brick with a broad green wooden veranda where stood Craney’s Hotel. Here Mrs. Arthur MacArthur would live for the next four years. Like Franklin Roosevelt at Harvard and Adlai Stevenson at Princeton, Douglas MacArthur would share much of his collegiate experience with an alert mother-in-residence.
The Corps at that time had only 332 cadets. It had its own nomenclature all of which I won’t go into here, but the leader of the entire corps, the one who best embodied the Military ideal, was the “First Captain.”
The first three weeks there are the worst. The plebes live in tents across the parade grounds, and are subjected to unbelievable hazing. It was so bad in MacArthur’s first year that one Cadet died, and a Congressional Hearing was conducted, and young Douglas was required to appear and testify.
Since the other cadets knew that Douglas’s father was a U.S. Army General fighting in the Philippines he was observed very closely. Many years later some of the cadets of that time were interviewed. I was able to read some of their remarks. One said “to know MacArthur is to love him or to hate him—you can’t just like him.”
Robert E. Wood, who became a first classman that June, said that the older members of the corps “recognized intuitively that MacArthur was born to be a real leader of men.” Wood also wrote later that he was “without a doubt the handsomest cadet that ever came into the academy.” Various other cadets thought he seemed to be
“brave as a lion and smart as hell, a youth with a mind like a sponge, and one who would be flogged alive without changing his mind once it had been make up.” Robert C Richardson wrote: “He had style. There was never a cadet quite like him.”
Douglas was number one in academics in each years’ class, an amazing accomplishment. West Point had classes that were not present at other schools, such as horsemanship, and military deportment.
However, he displayed other talents. He was so good at football and so well liked by the team that he was voted in as its Captain. All his life he was very proud of his letter “A” that was earned. He even wore it on his bathrobe at the Inchon Invasion way later.
Yet, at that time, football was still in its infancy. Baseball was the most popular game, both nationally and at West Point. And young MacArthur was really good at baseball. On Saturday, May 18, 1901 Army and Navy played each other for the first time. The Navy cadets sang a song ridiculing Douglas’ father, fighting as the General in the Philippines. However, Army won 4 to 3 and Douglas scored the winning run.
He led another exploit there at the Academy that was never proved or publicized. A small group of cadets
snuck across the parade grounds and brought over the cannon that was used in all the ceremonies. They hoisted it to the top of the academic building. It took an outside construction crew a whole week to get it down. All the cadets knew that only Douglas had the ability to accomplish such a marvelous fete.
Not only did Douglas MacArthur finish first in his class of Cadets, but he compiled a record that has not been surpassed but twice since the Academy was founded in 1802—by an 1884 graduate and by Robert E. Lee of the class of 1829. MacArthur scored a perfect 100 in law, history, and English. He led his classmates in Mathematics, drill regulations, and ordinance and gunnery.
Wearing a First Captain’s gold stripes, he served as the superintendent’s representative, inspected the mess hall daily, and “drove the corps” to barracks wih with sharp, ringing commands each evening.
On Thursday, June 22,1903, that year’s class became full-fledged Members of “the Long Gray Line”— the procession of academy graduates which had begun with the first class in 1802. “MacArthur” the adjutant bawled, and the twenty-three-year-old head of the Corps, the cadet whose classmates had voted man likeliest to succeed, received his certificate of graduation. He in turn handed it to his father, who had arrived from San Francisco for the occasion, and smiled down at his beaming mother.
Most folks know that Andrew Jackson’s picture is on our $20 dollar bill, that he won the Battle of New Orleans, that he was the 7th president of the United States, and that he was considered rough and rowdy in Washington, but little else about him. I hope you will read the following, and learn what an amazing man that he really was. And how useful it would be to have a man like him back there again today!
Ron
Beginning in 1606, England’s King James I transplanted large numbers of Presbyterians from Scotland into Ulster, a province in Northern Ireland. They were mostly tenant farmers who grew flax for the linen industry and grazed sheep for the wool industry.
In the first half of the 1700s, Ulster farmers suffered from rising rents and a famine. This led to a great Ulster migration of over 250,000 Scots-Irish Protestants to America.
One of these families was the Jackson family. Andrew Jackson’s Scots-Irish parents emigrated to America two years before his birth, March 15, 1767. A month before he was born, his father died in a log-hauling accident in Waxhaw hills of North Carolina.
At age 13, Andrew Jackson joined a local militia to fight during the Revolutionary War.
His eldest brother, Hugh Jackson, died during the Battle of Stono Ferry, June 20, 1779.
Andrew and another brother, Robert, were taken prisoner and nearly starved to death. Robert contracted smallpox in prison and died.
A British officer ordered young Andrew Jackson to polish his boots.
When Andrew refused, the officer drew his sword and slashed him across the head, arm and hand, leaving Andrew with permanent scars.
On May 29, 1780, British forces, numbering 14,000, laid siege to Charleston, South Carolina. After six weeks, American Major General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered. Nearly 6,000 Americans were taken captive, the largest number of Americans taken captive prior to the Civil War. Buildings were converted into prisons, and many prisoners were put on British starving ships where they contracted diseases.
Andrew Jackson’s mother, Elizabeth, along with other women, volunteered to care for the sick American prisoners. Tragically, Elizabeth Jackson contracted “ship fever” and died, being buried in an unmarked grave.
Andrew Jackson was an orphan at age 14.
Jackson supported and educated himself, eventually becoming a frontier country lawyer. In 1788, at the age of 21, was appointed prosecutor of the Western District.
In 1796, at the age of 29, Jackson was elected as a delegate to the Tennessee constitutional convention, where he is credited with proposing the Indian name “Tennessee.”
Tennessee citizens elected Jackson a U.S. Congressman, then U.S. Senator.
In 1798, Jackson served as a judge on Tennessee’s Supreme Court.
Speculating in land, Jackson bought the Hermitage plantation near Nashville and was one of three investors who founded Memphis.
Conflicts with Indians increased, being incited by the British.
The New Madrid Earthquake temporarily reversed the flow of the Mississippi River and the Great Comet of 1811 helped convince Indians to back Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, whose name meant “shooting star.”
Indians were armed by the British during the War of 1812.
British backed Red Stick Creek Indians massacred 500 Americans at Fort Mims, Alabama.
Andrew Jackson was sent to fight the British-backed Red Stick Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. One of Jackson’s soldiers was the young Sam Houston, who was wounded, but kept fighting. Another soldier was Davy Crockett, who later became a Tennessee Congressman. Davy Crockett and Sam Houston helped Texas gain independence from Mexico. (These were the kinds’ of men who were attracted to “Old Hickory”.)
During the War of 1812, at the Battle of Tallasehatchee, a dead Creek woman was found clutching her living baby. The other Indian women refused to care for the infant boy, so Jackson brought him home and raised him as his son, naming him Lincoyer.
Andrew Jackson drove the British out of Pensacola, November 9, 1814, then left the city in the control of the Spanish.
He went on to defend Mobile, Alabama, then New Orleans, Louisiana.
A strict battlefield officer, Jackson was described as being “tough as old hickory,” leading to his nickname “Old Hickory.”
Against overwhelming odds, Andrew Jackson defeated 10,000 British at the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815. Aided by Jean Lafitte’s French pirates, along with Kentucky and Tennessee sharpshooters, over 2,000 British were killed or wounded, as compared to only 71 American casualties.
Considered the greatest American land victory of the war, General Andrew Jackson wrote to Robert Hays, January 26, 1815: “It appears that the unerring hand of Providence shielded my men from the shower of balls, bombs, and rockets, when every ball and bomb from our guns carried with them a mission of death.”
{Now be patient with me, and let me stop and give you a detailed description of this famous Battle of New Orleans:}
In December 1814, even as diplomats met in Europe to hammer out a truce in the War of 1812, British forces mobilized for what they hoped would be the campaign’s finishing blow. Following military victories against Napoleon in Europe earlier that year, Great Britain had redoubled its efforts against its former colonies and launched a three-pronged invasion of the United States.
American forces had managed to check two of the incursions at the Battle of Baltimore (the inspiration for Francis Scott Key’s “Star-Spangled Banner”) and the Battle of Plattsburgh, but now the British planned to invade New Orleans, a vital seaport and the gateway to the United States’ newly purchased territory in the West, procured through the Louisiana Purchase.
If it could seize the Crescent City, the British Empire would gain dominion over the Mississippi River and hold the trade of the entire American South and the West under its thumb.
Standing in the way of the British advance was Major General Andrew Jackson, who had rushed to New Orleans’ defense when he learned an attack by the British was in the works. Nicknamed “Old Hickory” for his legendary toughness, Jackson had spent the last year subduing hostile Creek Indians in Alabama and harassing the redcoats’ operations along the Gulf Coast.
The General had no love for the British, he had spent time as their prisoner during the Revolutionary War, and he was itching for a chance to confront them in battle. “I owe to Britain a debt of retaliatory vengeance,” he once told his wife, “should our forces meet I trust I shall pay the debt.”
After British forces were sighted near Lake Borgne, Jackson declared martial law in New Orleans and ordered that every available weapon and able-bodied man be brought to bear in the city’s defense. His force soon grew into a 4,500-strong patchwork of army regulars, frontier militiamen, free blacks, New Orleans aristocrats and Choctaw tribesmen. The frontier men from Alabama and Tennessee with their long, accurate rifles and their wild lust for action were formidable foes.
After some hesitation, Old Hickory even accepted the help of Jean Lafitte, a dashing pirate who ran a smuggling and privateering empire out of nearby Barataria Bay.
The two sides first came to blows on December 23, when Jackson launched a daring nighttime attack on British forces bivouacked nine miles south of New Orleans. Jackson then fell back to Rodriguez Canal, a ten-foot-wide millrace located near Chalmette Plantation off the Mississippi River.
Using the labor of all those available, he widened the canal into a defensive trench and used the excess dirt to build a seven-foot-tall earthen rampart buttressed with timber. When completed, this “Line Jackson” stretched nearly a mile from the east bank of the Mississippi to a nearly impassable marsh or swamp filled with cypress trees.
Jackson’s ramshackle army was to face off against some 8,000 British regulars, many of whom had served in the Napoleonic Wars, hardened real soldiers of those days.
At the helm was Lieutenant General Sir Edward Pakenham, a respected veteran of the Peninsular War and the brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington.
The two sides first came to blows on December 23, when Jackson launched a daring nighttime attack on British forces bivouacked nine miles south of New Orleans. Jackson then fell back to Rodriguez Canal, a ten-foot-wide millrace located near Chalmette Plantation off the Mississippi River.
Using all available labor, he widened the canal into a defensive trench and used the excess dirt to build a seven-foot-tall earthen rampart buttressed with timber and cotton bales. When complete, this “Line Jackson” stretched nearly a mile from the east bank of the Mississippi to a nearly impassable marsh or swamp filled with cypress trees.
“Here we shall plant our stakes,” Jackson told his men, “and not abandon them until we drive these red-coat rascals into the river, or the swamp.”
Despite their imposing fortifications, Lieutenant General Pakenham believed the “dirty shirts,” as the British called the Americans, would wilt before the might of a British army in formation. Following a skirmish on December 28 and a massive artillery duel on New Year’s Day, he devised a strategy for a two-part frontal assault.
A small force was charged with crossing to the west bank of the Mississippi and seizing an American battery. Once in possession of the guns, they were to turn them on the Americans and catch Jackson in a punishing crossfire. At the same time, a larger contingent of some 5,000 men would charge forward in two columns and crush the main American line at the Rodriguez Canal.
Pakenham put his plan to action at daybreak on January 8. At the sound of a Congreve rocket whistling overhead, the red-coated throngs let out a cheer and began an advance toward the American line. British batteries opened up en masse, and were immediately met with an angry barrage from Jackson’s 24 artillery pieces, some of them manned by Jean Lafitte’s pirates.
While Pakenham’s main force moved on the canal near the swamp, British light troops led by Colonel Robert Rennie advanced along the riverbank and overwhelmed an isolated redoubt, scattering its American defenders.
Rennie had just enough time to howl, “Hurrah, boys, the day is ours!” before he was shot dead by a salvo of rifle fire from Line Jackson. With their commander lost, his men made a frantic retreat, only to be cut down in a hail of musket balls and grapeshot (small caliber round shot packed inside canvas).
Pakenham had counted on moving under the cover of morning mist, but the fog had risen with the sun, giving American rifle and artillerymen clear sightlines. Cannon fire soon began slashing gaping holes in the British line, sending men and equipment flying.
General Pakenham
As the British troops continued the advance, their ranks were riddled with musket shot. General Jackson watched the destruction from a perch near the right side of the line, bellowing, “Give it to them, my boys! Let us finish the business today!” Old Hickory’s militiamen, having honed their aim hunting in the woods of the frontier, fired with terrifying precision.
Red-coated soldiers fell in waves with each American volley, many with multiple wounds. One stunned British officer later described the American rampart as resembling “a row of fiery furnaces.”
Pakenham’s plan was quickly unraveling. His men had bravely stood their ground amid the chaos of the American deluge, but a unit carrying ladders needed to scale Line Jackson was lagging behind. Pakenham took it upon himself to lead the outfit to the front, but in the meantime, his main formation was cut to ribbons by rifle and cannon fire.
When some of the redcoats began to flee, one of Pakenham’s subordinates unwisely tried to wheel the 93rd Highlanders Regiment to their aid. American troops quickly took aim and unleashed a maelstrom of fire that felled more than half the unit, including its leader. Around that same time, Pakenham and his entourage were laced by a blast of grapeshot. The British commander perished minutes later.
At Line Jackson, the British were retreating in droves, leaving behind a huge carpet of crumpled bodies. American Major Howell Tatum later said the enemy casualties were “truly distressing. Some had their heads shot off, some their legs, some their arms. Some were laughing, some crying. There was every variety of sight and sound.”
The assault on Jackson’s fortifications was a fiasco, costing the British some 2,000 casualties, including three generals and seven colonels all of it in the span of only 30 minutes. Amazingly, Jackson’s ragtag outfit had lost fewer than 71 men. Future President James Monroe would later praise the General by saying, “History records no example of so glorious a victory obtained with so little bloodshed on the part of the victorious.” The stunned British army lingered in Louisiana for the next several days, but its remaining officers knew that any chance of taking the Crescent City had slipped through their fingers. The British boarded their ships and sailed back into the Gulf of Mexico.
In 1817, President Monroe charged Jackson with stopping Seminoles in Florida from raiding into Georgia, resulting in the First Seminole War.
With Spain exhausted after Napoleon’s invasion, and with Mexico fighting for Independence, the Spanish government agreed to cede Florida to the U.S. in 1819 in exchange for payment, according to John Quincy Adams’ Adams-Onís Treaty.
This led to Jackson serving as Florida’s first territorial governor. The city of Jacksonville is named for him.
Circuit-riding preacher Peter Cartwright wrote of meeting Jackson, as recorded in the Autobiography of Peter Cartwright the Backwoods Preacher (pp. 192-194): “I then read my text: ‘What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’
After reading my text I paused. At that moment I saw General Jackson walking up the aisle; he came to the middle post, and very gracefully leaned against it, and stood, as there were no vacant seats.
Just then I felt someone pull my coat in the stand, and turning my head, my fastidious preacher whispering a little loud, said: ‘General Jackson has come in; General Jackson has come in.’
I felt a flash of indignation run all over me like an electric shock, and facing about to my congregation, and purposely speaking out audibly, I said, ‘Who is General Jackson? If he don’t get his soul converted, God will damn him as quick as he would anyone.’
Shortly after I met the General on the pavement; and before I approached him by several steps he smiled and reached out his hand and said:
‘Mr. Cartwright, you are a man after my own heart. I am very much surprised at Mr. Mac, to think he would suppose that I would be offended at you. No, sir; I told him that I highly approved of your independence; that a minister of Jesus Christ ought to love everybody and fear no mortal man.
I told Mr. Mac that if I had a few thousand such independent, fearless officers as you were, and a well-drilled army, I could take old England.”
Peter Cartwright continued: “General Jackson was certainly a very extraordinary man. He always showed a great respect for the Christian religion, and the feelings of religious people, especially ministers of the Gospel. I will here relate a little incident that shows his respect for religion.
I had preached one Sabbath near the Hermitage, and, in company with several gentlemen and ladies, went, by special invitation, to dine with the General. Among this company here was a young sprig of a lawyer from Nashville, of very ordinary intellect, and he was trying hard to make an infidel of himself. As I was the only preacher present, this young lawyer kept pushing his conversation on me, in order to get into an argument. I tried to evade an argument. This seemed to inspire the young man with more confidence.
I saw General Jackson’s eye strike fire, as he sat by and heard the thrusts he made at Christian religion. At length the young lawyer asked me this question: ‘Mr. Cartwright, do you really believe there is any such place as hell, as a place of torment?’ I answered promptly, ‘Yes, I do.’
To which he responded, ‘Well, I thank God I have too much sense to believe any such thing.’ I was pondering in my own mind whether I would answer him or not, when General Jackson for the first time broke into the conversation, and directing his words to the young man, said with great earnestness: ‘Well, sir, I thank God that there is such a place of torment as hell.’ This sudden answer made with great earnestness seemed to astonish the youngster, and he exclaimed: ‘Why, General Jackson, what do you want with such a place of torment as hell?’ To which the General replied, as quick as lightning, ‘To put such d—–d rascals as you are in, that oppose and vilify the Christian religion. ‘The young lawyer was struck dumb, and presently was found missing.’”
Jackson’s wife, Rachel, was divorced and abandoned by her first husband, but she was unaware that he had failed to file the paperwork, leaving her still legally bound when she met and married Jackson.
Jackson defended his wife’s honor, even challenging slanderers to duel him.
His many duels left him with so many bullet fragments in his body, that they said he “rattled like a bag of marbles” when he walked.
Jackson described his wife as the most pious person he ever knew.
He wrote to her, December 21, 1823: “I trust that the God of Isaac and of Jacob will protect you, and give you health in my absence, in Him alone we ought to trust, He alone can preserve, and guide us through this troublesome world, and I am sure He will hear your prayers. We are told that the prayers of the righteous prevaileth much, and I add mine for your health and preservation until we meet again.”
During his Presidential campaign, the vicious personal attacks on his wife brought her so much stress that she suffered a stroke and died.
Her last words before collapsing were: “I’d rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to live in that palace in Washington.”
Rachel was buried Christmas Eve,1828, on the Hermitage estate, dressed in the inaugural gown she would have worn in Washington. Weeping profusely, Jackson said: “I know it’s unmanly, but these tears are due her virtues. She has shed many for me. In the presence of this dear saint, I can and do forgive my enemies. But those vile wretches who have slandered her must look to God for mercy.”
Jackson stated: “Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.”
Three months later, Jackson was sworn in as the 7th President, March 4, 1829. In his 2nd Inaugural Address, Andrew Jackson stated: “It is my fervent prayer to that Almighty Being before whom I now stand, and who has kept us in His hands from the infancy of our Republic to the present day, that He will inspire the hearts of my fellow-citizens that we may be preserved from danger.”
Andrew Jackson, as President, made negative and positive decisions,
yet he paid off the national debt the only President to do so,
and curtailed the power of globalist-type bankers in The Bank War.
The Bank War began when Nicholas Biddle sought to have his Second Bank of the United States gain monopoly control over the nation’s financial system.
Twenty percent of the bank was owned by foreign investors.
Andrew Jackson withdrew Federal funds out of the Second Bank of the United States and vetoed a renewal of its charter, stating in 1832:
“Controlling our currency, receiving our public moneys, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence, it would be more … dangerous than the naval and military power of the enemy.”
He continued: “Some of the powers possessed by the existing bank are unauthorized by the Constitution, subversive of the rights of the States, and dangerous to the liberties of the people.”
Andrew Jackson told his Vice-President Martin Van Buren: “The bank, Mr. Van Buren, is trying to kill me, but I will kill it.”
Jackson stated December 5, 1836: “The experience of other nations admonished us to hasten the extinguishment of the public debt …
An improvident (shortsighted) expenditure of money is the parent of profligacy corruption. No people can hope to perpetuate their liberties who long acquiesce in a policy which taxes them for objects not necessary to the legitimate and real wants of their Government.”
He continued: “To require the people to pay taxes to the Government merely that they may be paid back again nothing could be gained by it even if each individual who contributed a portion of the tax could receive back promptly the same portion.”
He added: “Congress is only authorized to levy taxes ‘to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.’
There is no such provision as would authorize Congress to collect together the property of the country, under the name of revenue, for the purpose of dividing it equally or unequally among the states or the people.
Indeed, it is not probable that such an idea ever occurred to the states when they adopted the Constitution. There would soon be but one taxing power, and that vested in a body of men far removed from the people, in which the farming and mechanic interests would scarcely be represented”
Jackson ended: “The states would gradually lose their purity as well as their independence; they would not dare to murmur at the proceedings of the General Government, lest they should lose their supplies; all would be merged in a practical consolidation, cemented by widespread corruption, which could only be eradicated by one of those bloody revolutions which occasionally overthrow the despotic systems of the Old World.”
(These thoughts shown above about the Bank War were composed by liberal professors of history and are accurate, but not how I would describe the “Bank War”. I would say that when Andrew Jackson encountered what we call today “The Deep State” in Washington and that were mostly composed of bankers, he just cleaned out the whole mess. Really, we need him back today for the same purpose.)
On May 6, 1833, Jackson was on his way to lay the cornerstone for the monument to George Washington’s mother, Mary Ball Washington.
Stopping at Alexandria, Virginia, Robert Randolph came up and struck the President, then ran away. He was chased down by those accompanying the President, including writer Washington Irving, but Jackson refused to press charges.
Then, on January 30, 1835, following a funeral in Washington, Richard Lawrence approached Jackson and fired two pistols at him at point blank range, but both misfired, possibly due to a fog dampening the gunpowder.
Davy Crockett wrestled the assailant down.
Senator Thomas Hart Benton wrote how the incident: “irresistibly carried many minds to the belief in a superintending Providence, manifested in the extraordinary case of two pistols in succession so well loaded, so cooly handled, and which afterwards fired with such readiness, force, and precision missing fire each in his turn, when leveled eight feet at the President’s heart.”
King William the Fourth of England heard of the incident and expressed his concern. President Jackson wrote back, exclaiming: “A kind Providence had been pleased to shield me against the recent attempt upon my life, and irresistibly carried many minds to the belief in a superintending Providence.”
Since Andrew Jackson’s wife had died before he took office, his nephew’s wife, Emily Donelson, served as the unofficial First Lady. When Emily Donelson died suddenly, President Jackson wrote to her husband, Colonel Andrew Jackson Donelson, December 30, 1836: “We cannot recall her, we are commanded by our dear Savior, not to mourn for the dead, but for the living. She has changed a world of woe for a world of eternal happiness, and we ought to prepare as we too must follow. ‘The Lord’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.'”
On March 25, 1835, Andrew Jackson wrote in a letter to Ellen Hanson:
“I was brought up a rigid Presbyterian, to which I have always adhered.
Our excellent Constitution guarantees to everyone freedom of religion, and charity tells us and you know Charity is the real basis of all true religion — and charity says judge the tree by its fruit. All who profess Christianity believe in a Savior, and that by and through Him we must be saved.”
Jackson concluded: “We ought, therefore, to consider all good Christians whose walks correspond with their professions, be they Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Baptist, Methodist or Roman Catholic.”
On JUNE 8, 1845, “Old Hickory” died.
Jackson had stated, referring to the Bible: “That book, Sir, is the Rock upon which our republic rests.”
During the War of 1812, General Andrew Jackson penned his 2nd Division Orders, March 7, 1812: “Who are we? And for what are we going to fight?
Are we the titled slaves of George the third? The military conscripts of Napoleon the great? Or the frozen peasants of the Russian Czar?
No, we are the free born sons of America; the citizens of the only republic now existing in the world; and the only people on Earth who possess rights, liberties, and property which they dare call their own.”
True Texan Tales 