February 2021

Editor's Note: Harlow Giles Unger is the author of 28 books, including more than a dozen biographies of America’s Founding Fathers. He adapted this essay for American Heritage from his best-selling book The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness. 

“You infernal scoundrel,” Secretary of War William Crawford shook his cane menacingly at the president. James Monroe reached for the tongs by the fireplace to defend himself, as Navy Secretary Samuel Southard leaped from his seat and intercepted Crawford, pushing him away from the president’s desk and out the door. It was a terrifying scene: the president — the presidency itself — under attack for the first time in American history. 

Jim Duffy is author of the recent book, War at the End of the World: Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight for New Guinea, 1942-1945. He has also written books about FDR and Lindbergh, Lincoln's Navy, and the Czars of Russia.

Soldiers in the Imperial Army of Japan had a saying: “Heaven is Java; hell is Burma; but no one returns alive from New Guinea.”