General Clifton Bledsoe Cates

Cates's reputation was made in France in 1918. At Bouresches on June 6, his company commander was mortally wounded and Cates, not knowing the attack's objective, gathered his men and others nearby, took the village and held it until mustard gas nearly wiped out the company. At Soissons on July 19 most of his company was destroyed, and he reported having only two men left, calling any attempt to bring support "almost suicide." He won two Distinguished Service Crosses, one of only nine Marines to earn two in the war, as well as the Navy Cross.

What the plaque says

General Clifton Bledsoe Cates 1893-1970 - United States Marine Corp- (Front): Clifton B. Cates, born on August 31, 1893, in Cates Landing, Tennessee, attended school in Lake County and the Missouri Military Academy in Mexico, Missouri. A graduate of the University of Tennessee's School of Law, Cates served as a Marine in both the First and Second World Wars. His service included combat duty in five operations in World War I and four operations in World War II. After service in China with the fabled Fourth Marines, he commanded the Second Battalion, Sixth Marines in 1937. Then Colonel Cates led the First Marine Regiment, First Marine Division, on Guadalcanal during World War II. (Back): As a Major General, Cates commanded the Fourth Marine Division during the conquest of Tinian and Iwo Jima in 1944. Cates was the first Tennessean to achieve the rank of full general. From 1948 to 1952, he served as the 19th Commandant of the Marine Corps. Wounded seven times, General Cates received many American and foreign medals. A marine for thirty-seven years, General Cates died on June 4, 1970. His remains are interred in Arlington National Cemetery.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carl Perkins Visitors Center — 1.0 mi
  A restored caboose in Tiptonville telling the story of Carl Perkins, the sharecropper's son from Lake County who wrote Blue Suede Shoes.
• Reelfoot Lake State Park — 3.0 mi
  A shallow cypress lake in the northwest corner of Tennessee, left by the 1811-12 New Madrid earthquakes and fought over by the Night Riders in 1908.
• Island No. 10 and Tiptonville — 4.6 mi
  A roadside marker north of Tiptonville for the 1862 river battle that opened the Mississippi toward Memphis, on an island the river has since erased.
• Reelfoot National Wildlife Refuge — 11 mi
  The federal refuge around Reelfoot Lake, with a visitor center, a 3.5-mile auto tour, viewing towers and canoe trails, on land the Chickasaw gave up in 1818.

More markers nearby

• New Madrid — 14 mi
• Caruthersville — 16 mi
• Otho French Strahl — 19 mi
• WW II Mid-Air Collision — 23 mi