Frederick Funston

Frederick Funston grew up in Kansas, tried botany and filibustering before the war with Spain, then raised and led the 20th Kansas Volunteer Infantry when McKinley called for volunteers in 1898. The regiment shipped to the Philippines as the Spanish–American War bled into the Philippine–American War. As a colonel of volunteers Funston earned the Medal of Honor for leading troops across the Rio Grande de la Pampanga under fire near Calamba, Luzon, on April 27, 1899 — the action written into the official citation. He later helped plan the 1901 capture of Emilio Aguinaldo, an episode of the longer Philippine conflict that grew directly out of 1898.

Newspapers called him "Fighting Fred." This register places him under Spanish–American War because that is the conflict that put the Kansas volunteers in federal service and opened the Luzon campaign in his MoH file. He rose to major general, commanded the Department of California during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake relief, and died of a heart attack at San Antonio in February 1917 while preparing forces that might have gone to Europe.

The Bain News Service portrait from the Library of Congress is public domain. Funston is not missing.