His father was a Union veteran, and his mother was from a Confederate family

One of the interesting facts about Douglas MacArthur is that his father was a Union veteran, and his mother was from a Confederate family. Douglas MacArthur was born on January 26, 1880, at Little Rock Barracks, Arkansas, to US Army captain Arthur MacArthur Jr. and his wife, Mary Pinkney Hardy MacArthur. Arthur MacArthur Jr. was the son of Scottish-born lawyer and politician Arthur MacArthur Sr. During the American Civil War, Arthur Jr. was awarded the Medal of Honor for his services with the Union Army at the Battle of Missionary Ridge, and he was raised to the rank of lieutenant general. Pinkney was born into a distinguished Norfolk, Virginia family. Two of her brothers had served in the Civil War for the South and had declined to attend her wedding.

MacArthur is also distantly related to Matthew Perry, a Commodore in the United States Navy. Arthur and Pinky had three sons, the youngest of them were Douglas, born on August 1, 1876, after Arthur III, and Malcolm, born on October 17, 1878. The family lived in a series of Army stations across the American West. Malcolm died of measles in 1883 due to primitive conditions. MacArthur stated in his memoir, Reminiscences, that he learned to ride and shoot before he could read or write.