The young man who was to become America's most famous figure of World War I had little academic promise. He graduated 30th in his West Point class of 77. However, John J. Pershing of Laclede, Mo., demonstrated an unusual aptitude for leadership. Elected president of the class of 1886, each year he held the highest possible rank in the cadet battalion. Such was his natural military bearing that he was chosen to command the Corps of Cadets when it stood to present arms at Garrison, N.Y., as the funeral train of Ulysses S. Grant rolled slowly by.
Although the Missouri teenager had applied to West Point for an education and had no desire to be a soldier, Pershing's post-academy assignments quickly taught him the Army way of life. In Fort Bayard, N.M., Lt. Pershing scouted hostile Indians and commanded a detachment that set up a heliograph line 160 miles through the mountains -- no small feat. He was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in 1898 after the fighting at San Juan Hill in Cuba.
In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt promoted Capt. Pershing to brigadier general. Although his achievements and record might have merited such a leap, critics believed he had received the promotion because his wife was the daughter of prominent Sen. Francis E. Warren, chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs. Perhaps chafing at this charge, Pershing worked harder than ever, even after a horrible fire at his San Francisco Presidio quarters claimed the lives of his wife and three young daughters.
On March 15, 1915, Pershing led an expedition into Mexico to capture rebel leader Pancho Villa, routing the revolutionaries and severely wounding Villa himself. After the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, Pershing sailed to Europe with the nucleus of a general staff as commander of the American Expeditionary Force. The training programs and methods he implemented for the AEF formed the basis for the mobilization of 1941 to 1945, in which the U.S. Army became known as the finest and most far-flung the world had ever seen.
Although Pershing resisted integrating his soldiers with European troops during World War I, in the spring of 1918 he recognized the importance of a united front and placed his troops under the command of France's Marshall Ferdinand Foch, along with the other Allied armies. Having crushed the enemy, Pershing and his AEF returned home in victory.
Pershing retired from active duty in 1924 with the title of "General of the Armies of the United States" bestowed on him by Congress. Rather than enter politics, this old soldier chose to fade from view, although his exploits assured that he would never fade from memory.
Links:
Brief biography of Pershing with links
Pershing Rifles National Headquarters
World War I Trenches on the Web, An Internet History of the Great War
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