Frederick was born on the 9th of November, 1865, in New Carlisle, Ohio, and his family moved to Allen County Kansas when he was two years old. His father, Edward, was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1884 to which he served five terms. Frederick applied to the US Military Academy in 1886 and records show that he was only 5’ 4” and 120 pounds. He graduated high school in 1886 and was rejected from the Military Academy the same year, to which he then attended the University of Kansas.

After college, Frederick worked as a trainman with the Santa Fe Railroad before becoming a reporter in Kansas City, Missouri. He was a reporter for a year and then decided to take up botany and went on to be a part of a exploration and surveying expedition in Death Valley, and later traveling to Alaska with the US Department of Agriculture. In 1896, Frederick was inspired by General Daniel Sickles’ speech at Madison Square Garden, which led him to join the Cuban Revolutionary Army. This was short lived though when he came down with malaria and causing him to drop down to 95 pounds. The Cubans let him return to the States where he received a commission to the US Army with the 20th Kansas Infantry on the 13th of May, 1898. Frederick met Eda Blankart at a patriotic gathering and they were soon wed, just two weeks before deploying to the Philippines in support of the Philippine-America War.

In the Philippines, Frederick was a Colonel in command during several engagements and his actions on the 27th of April, 1899, earned him a promotion to Brigadier General of Volunteers and the Medal of Honor. The citation reads:

Crossed the river on a raft and by his skill and daring enabled the general commanding to carry the enemy's entrenched position on the north bank of the river and to drive him with great loss from the important strategic position of Calumpit.

Frederick went on to both plan and help carry out a mission to capture the Filipino President, Emilio Aguinaldo, on the 23rd of March, 1901. This ended up making Frederick a national hero as well as promoting him to Brigadier General in the Regular Army at the age of 35. When he returned to the States, he found himself at the center of criticism by Mark Twain and poet Ernest Crosby. Both were very against the war and wrote pieces of sarcasm and satire against Frederick’s actions specifically. Frederick was considered to be an American Expansionist but he ended up making some insulting remarks about Senator George Frisbie Hoar, which resulted in President Theodore Roosevelt denying his furlough request, ordering him silenced, and officially reprimanded.

This is where the story of Frederick ends up not looking that great. In 1906, he was commander of the Presidio of San Francisco (the Fortress of Saint Francis) when the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake hit. Even though he did not have the authority to do so, he declared Martial Law, which was never officially implemented. Frederick also ordered the demolition of buildings with black powder, artillery charges, and dynamite in order to create firebreaks to stop the spread of other fires throughout the city. He also ordered that any looters were to be shot on sight. These orders resulted in more fires and the shooting of numerous innocent people. At the time he was praised for his actions but later, many would take issue with his use of military force during a peacetime emergency.

Frederick went on to serve as the Commandant of the Army Service School in Fort Leavenworth, and then as the commander of the Department of Luzon and later the Hawaiian Department. When the Spanish-American War began, he was the commanding General of the US Army’s Southern Department and he occupied the city of Veracruz, where he commanded all forces that were involved with the hunt for Pancho Villa. Frederick was promoted to Major General in November of 1914 and he was favored by President Wilson to head the American Expeditionary Force. Unfortunately, the amount of stress he put on his work led to some health problems and it was first reported as indigestion in January of 1917. On the 19th of February, 1917, Frederick was relaxing in the lobby of the St Anthony Hotel in San Antonio. He was listening to an orchestra play The Blue Danube waltz and he suddenly collapsed from a massive heart attack, just moments after saying, “how beautiful it all is”. Douglas MacArthur was a Major at the time and was the one that had to break the news to President Wilson and Secretary of War Newton Baker. Who knows how World War 1 would have turned out if Frederick was the one in command of the American Expeditionary Force instead of his subordinate, Major General John Pershing.

Frederick Funston Sr was 51 when he died and his casket was put on display both at the Alamo and at the San Francisco City Hall Rotunda. The Lake Merced military reservation was renamed Fort Funston, a training camp was built in 1917 next to Fort Riley and was named Camp Funston, as well as many other roads, and parks bear his name. He is buried in the San Francisco National Cemetery: OS, Plot 3, Grave 68, where his wife Eda and their three sons, one daughter, and one grandson also lay with him.