Frederick Funston - United States and Overseas Again

United States and Overseas Again

In 1906, Funston was in command of the Presidio of San Francisco when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake hit. Funston took command of the city, although martial law was never officially declared. In the immediate aftermath of unthinkable disaster, Funston assumed the role of protecting the population of San Francisco from anarchy. His most immediate concerns were defending the city from fire and provisioning its citizens with water while lacking a functional water system, as the water mains had all ruptured. He therefore directed the targeted demolition of buildings using the only available resource, dynamite, in order to create fire breaks to stop the fires consuming the city. This desperate, last-ditch strategy finally worked at the wide avenue of Van Ness, where a successful fire break was created after the residences of many city elite were demolished by dynamite to enhance its width.

Funston also needed to prevent anarchy. Immediately after the earthquake, he ordered that looting be punished summarily with execution. It soon became necessary that these orders be carried out, as the shady denizens of the "Barbary Coast" emerged to pilfer what they could, even to defile the dead:

"At the corner of Market and Third Streets on Wednesday I saw a man attempt to cut the fingers from the hand of a dead woman in order to secure the rings which adorned the stiffened fingers."

"One man made the trooper believe that one of the dead bodies lying on a pile of rocks was his mother, and he was permitted to go up to the body. Apparently overcome by grief, he threw himself across the corpse. In another instant the soldiers discovered that he was chewing the diamond earrings from the ears of the dead woman ... The diamonds were found in the man's mouth afterward."

"The soldiers do all they can, and while the unspeakable crime of robbing the dead is undoubtedly being practiced, it would be many times more prevalent were it not for the constant vigilance on all sides, as well as the summary justice."

- from survivors' accounts immediately following the 1906 Earthquake.

Funston's actions were later assessed with a mixture of criticism and praise, but most criticism of his methods has occurred after the fact. Those who experienced and survived the tragedy first-hand were nearly universal in hailing him as a hero who did what was necessary in the face of utter chaos.

That same year, Funston successfully negotiated peace in Cuba.

From December 1907 through March 1908, he was in charge of troops at the Goldfield mining center in Esmeralda County, Nevada, where the army put down a labor strike by the Industrial Workers of the World.

Then, after two years as Commandant of the Army Service School in Fort Leavenworth, he served three years as Commander of the Department of Luzon in the Philippines, then was briefly shifted to the same role in the Hawaiian Department (3 April 1913 to 22 January 1914).

Funston was active in the conflict with Mexico in 1914 to 1916. He occupied the city of Veracruz, and later took part in the hunt for Pancho Villa, becoming a Major General in November 1914.