On Wisconsin!

I watched the news in 2010 when the labor unions were occupying the Wisconsin State Capitol, then turning in vast numbers of bogus recall petitions and I thought, “this governor is toast.”  Sad, because it didn’t seem right that a bunch of union thugs should be able to throw a tantrum when an election didn’t go their way.  Sad, because they destroyed the ability of the state to do business.  Sad, but as sociologists note, a few really ballistic people can eventually turn public opinion (Just think of the anti-war protests over Vietnam). And that, it seemed would be Walker’s fate.  But somehow Wisconsin seems to be the Unlikely State.  Fightin’ Bob LaFollete, a dominant pro football team in a small town, McCarthy and MacArthur. 

As a kid I studied maps.  There seemed to be a MacArthur street in every town--Gen. Douglas MacArthur, they told me.  But those streets were in old parts of towns that were around long before WW II.  I asked a guy from Wisconsin where that song “On Wisconsin!” came from.  He thought it was just an old football cheer.  Weird, since that is the name of a John Phillip Sousa march that surely predates football.

 November 25, 1863.  Arthur MacArthur was colonel for the 24^th regiment of Wisconsin and fought in the battle of Chattanooga.  Wisconsin was way out northwest and the 24^th was hastily trained.  MacArthur was just 18 years old and had been installed as colonel of a unit that would probably not be trusted for heavy combat. Chattanooga was crucial since it is a rail center. Capture that city and the Union could track their way across the Appalachians to the center of rails and commerce in the South, Atlanta.  But Chattanooga was surrounded by mountain ridges.  Lookout Mountain to the west is a cliff 2400 feet above the city and to the east is 1300’ Missionary Ridge where the Confederates had dug in fortifications.  Take the city and you are still a sitting duck until you take the ridge above it.  Gen. Grant ordered the Wisconsin 24^th to act as a decoy by taking the area beneath Missionary Ridge while he would try to flank the hill with cavalry.  Arthur MacArthur and his men did just that, then realized they were sitting ducks with the Rebs shooting down on their heads.  The Confederates read Grant’s strategy perfectly and realized that the soldiers in front of the ridge were inexperienced.  What they hadn’t counted on was MacArthur.  Realizing their situation was hopeless, Wisconsin soldiers began to run up the ridge partway to hide behind brush and trees.  MacArthur made a snap judgment and led a group up the hill.  Grant watching from afar, asked who the hell told these guys to try to charge up that impossible hill? Nobody had; it was entirely spontaneous.  Infantry in those days always had a flag-bearer who was front and center.  Otherwise there was a chance that in the chaos of battle soldiers would disperse.  The standard-bearer of the 24^th was killed and MacArthur grabbed the flag.  Out of breath from charging up a hill, he could only manage a loud “On Wisconsin!”  And on came Wisconsin.  Strangely the strategy of the entire battle became inverted.  The main cavalry had become the decoys and the Wisconsin 24^th was now the main charge.  Up the hill they scrambled and took the Confederates by storm.  And once the ridge was taken, the Southerners could only retreat to Georgia.  Grant was promoted to the main generalship in the East for his huge victory in taking Chattanooga. Johnson’s Confederates left a rail line unguarded and the Yankees swept into Atlanta cutting the South in half.  The war was essentially over at that point. Lincoln went from surely defeated in the election of 1864 to surprisingly a winner. 

Those old streets are named MacArthur for Arthur MacArthur. The “boy colonel” went on to a 45 year career in the army, 3-star general, and won the battle for the Phillipines in the Spanish-American War.  Oh, yeah, and he was Doug’s dad.

The market has been up almost every day since last Tuesday.  The election proved to be the death of the idea that the citizenry would pay for anything public unions demanded.  Now when those bankrupt states come to the rest of us and demand we bail them out, people will say, “Do like Wisconsin.  Get your spending in order.” I wonder if we could rename a street, Walker Street?