On Nov. 18, 2000, the Medal of Honor Memorial was dedicated on the southeastern lawn of the state Capitol. This memorial honors Arkansas natives who were awarded the nation's highest military honor, such as Nicky Bacon, Maurice "Footsie" Britt, Pompey Factor, Nathan G. Gordon and many more. However, several Medal of Honor recipients performed their deeds of heroism before they ever settled in Arkansas. This includes two European-born men who came to Hot Springs, seeking medical care in the last years of their lives, and are buried there.
The first, Christian Steiner, was born in Wurttemberg, Germany, in 1843. By 1860, he had immigrated to the United States and was living in St. Louis, working as a saddler. As the Civil War broke out, Steiner joined many of St. Louis's citizens of German descent in enlisting in the Union army. He enrolled as a drummer in Company B, Second Missouri Infantry Regiment on July 6, 1861, and was mustered in with the regiment at the St. Louis Arsenal on Sept. 10, 1861. During its service, the Second Missouri would see battle in Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia.
Military life must have appealed to the young immigrant, as he enlisted as a saddler in Company G of the Eighth U.S. Cavalry at St. Louis on May 12, 1868. Steiner was part of a 61-man contingent of Company G, under the command of Capt. Reuben Frank Bernard, pursuing Cochise's band of Apache warriors in the Chiricahua Mountains in late October 1869. As a six-man patrol ascended Chiricahua Pass, it was ambushed by as many as 200 Apaches. After several attempts to outmaneuver the Apaches were repulsed, Bernard decided to withdraw, later claiming that the action cost Cochise 18 dead warriors and several wounded. Thirty-one of the enlisted men in Company G were awarded the Medal of Honor for "gallantry in action" in the Oct. 20, 1869, fight at Chiricahua Pass, including Steiner.
Steiner re-enlisted at Allegheny Arsenal on Aug. 1, 1874, serving as an ordnance sergeant, and then re-enlisted on Aug. 19, 1879, at Buffalo, N.Y., this time in Company A, Fifth U.S. Cavalry. However, by 1880, he was in the military hospital in Hot Springs suffering from chronic rheumatism. He died of congestion of the lungs at age 37 on Aug. 5, 1880. Steiner is buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Hot Springs.
John King, meanwhile, was born on Feb. 7, 1862, in Ballinrobe in County Mayo in western Ireland. He moved to the United States in 1886 and enlisted in the U.S. Navy on July 20, 1893. King served his career below decks, beginning as a coal passer, before receiving promotion to fireman, oiler, water tender and chief water tender, the latter being the petty officer commanding the boiler room. On May 29, 1901, when he was serving aboard the USS Vicksburg, an Annapolis class gunboat, near Port Isabella during the Philippines War, a boiler exploded and King "shut off the main stop of the boiler and smothered it up with blankets and towels," averting a more serious accident. King received a Medal of Honor seven months later "for heroism in the line of his profession."
On Sept. 13, 1909, King was serving in the Atlantic Ocean on the USS Salem, a scout cruiser outfitted with some of the navy's earliest turbine engines. Following an explosion in the boiler, King turned on the blowers full-force to dissipate the steam, adding, "I was badly scalded on the arms, but went back to the fire-room and stayed until the engineer of the watch found me, and sent me to sick bay. We got all the men out of the fire-room and no one was injured."
King was promoted to chief water tender, his highest rank, on Oct 1, 1909, and received his second Medal of Honor that December. King became a naturalized citizen of the United States in November 1912 and retired from the U.S. Navy on Sept. 24, 1916. Two days after the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917, however, he was called back to active duty, serving until August 20, 1919.
The Kings moved back to Ireland in 1921 and lived there until his wife's death in 1936, after which King returned to the United States to stay at the Naval Home in Philadelphia. After breaking his leg, he was sent to the Army-Navy General Hospital in Hot Springs in February 1937. He died of pneumonia there on May 20, 1938, and is buried in Calvary Cemetery.
In 1961, a guided-missile cruiser, the USS John King (DDG-3), was commissioned in his honor, and a full-sized bronze statue of King was unveiled in Ballinrobe in 2010. -- Mark Christ
This story is adapted by Guy Lancaster from the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas, a project of the Central Arkansas Library System. Visit the site at encyclopediaofarkansas.net.
Gravesite of Medal of Honor recipient Christian Steiner at the Hollywood Cemetery in Hot Springs (Photo by Guy Lancaster)