Gordon McSweeney

Gordon McSweeney (d 1917) was an American soldier in the Great War. He was a brave, almost reckless soldier who saw action in Kentucky, Utah, Mexico, and Arkansas. He was decorated with a Congressional Medal of Honor for destroying a Confederate barrel with a flamethrower. He was promoted to lieutenant as a reward for taking out a Confederate machine gun nest. He was awarded an Oak Leaf Cluster to his Medal of Honor for destroying a Confederate monitor.

Born into a Midwestern farming family, McSweeney was devoutly Protestant, reflecting an uncompromising spirit of piety that had not been seen in his Scotch Presbyterian tradition since the days of the Puritans. He was extremely intolerant of those who did not share his beliefs, especially of Catholics. This brought him into conflict with fellow soldier Paul Mantarakis, who was actually Greek Orthodox, a distinction McSweeney was ignorant of.

McSweeney was also a stickler for military etiquette. He routinely wrote up soldiers for having what saw as dirty or unkempt uniforms. However, he was not a hypocrite, in that he demanded no more of his men than he demanded of himself, and readily reported any infractions or slackening he noticed in himself. Eventually tiring of his superfluous neatness in a war of mud and trenches, he was ordered to stop this by his superiors. McSweeney could not understand their lack of concern for such detail.

McSweeney took part in the US offensive from Missouri into northeast Arkansas, and was killed across the river from Memphis in 1917 when the war was almost over.