General Clifton Bledsoe Cates 1895-1970 United States Marine Corps

At Belleau Wood on June 6, 1918, Cates took over his company when its commander was mortally wounded and led the attack on Bouresches, earning the Navy Cross and a Distinguished Service Cross with an oak leaf cluster, one of nine Marines to win two Distinguished Service Crosses in that war. At Soissons he sent a message from an abandoned trench ending I will hold, which became a Marine slogan. He later commanded the 1st Marines on Guadalcanal and the 4th Marine Division at Tinian and Iwo Jima.

What the plaque says

General Clifton Bledsoe Cates 1895-1970 United States Marine Corps Side A: Born in Cates Landing, Tennessee, on August 31, 1893, Clifton B. Cates attended school in Tiptonville and the Missouri Military Academy in Mexico, Missouri. While excelling in varsity football and baseball, he received his law degree from the University of Tennessee in 1916. His early Marine service included combat commander duties in World War I and World War II. Wounded seven times in World War I, Cares received over thirty American and foreign medals. In 1942, he led the First Marine Regiment, First Marine Division on Guadalcanal. Side B: Major General Cates commanded the Fourth Marine Division during the conquest of Tinian and Iwo Jima in 1944. From 1948 to 1952, General Cates served as the 19th Commandant of the Marine Corps. The first Tennessean to achieve the rank of full general, he was highly commended for his military service during the Korean War. General Cates died on June 4, 1970 in Annapolis, Maryland. A Marine for thirty-seven years, his body was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blount Mansion — 0.8 mi
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.
• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 2.0 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Green McAdoo Cultural Center — 15 mi
  The 1935 school in Clinton that sent twelve Black students down Foley Hill to desegregate Clinton High School in August 1956, now a museum with bronze statues of the Clinton 12.
• Museum of Appalachia — 17 mi
  John Rice Irwin's 65-acre collection of moved log cabins and mountain objects north of Knoxville, opened in 1969, with a cabin believed to be Mark Twain's father's.

More markers nearby

• James Rufus Agee — steps away
• Fort Byington — steps away
• University of Tennessee — steps away
• Fort Sanders — steps away