Until 1873, John Pershing went to school and worked on his father's farm. During this time he showed those characteristics which have always been paramount in his life; self-possesion, competence, level-headedness, dependability, and the ability to see a task to completion.
In the spring of 1882, he was an announcement of a competitive examination for an appointment to West Point. He had no desire to become a soldire, however it was an excellent chance at a splendid education. Acting upon the advice of his sister, he went to Trenton, took the exam, and secured the appointment.
General Pershing was not a brilliant scholar. He graduated 30th in a class of 77. The officers and his classmates recognized that he already had the rare quality of leadership. His classmates elected him president of the class of 1886. Each year he held the hightest rank possible in the Cadet Battalion. He was known among his classmates as a strict, but humane disciplinarian. General Merritt, then superintendent of West Point, said that Pershing gave early promise of becoming a superb officer.
After his graduation from West Point, Pershing was assigned to Troop L. 6th Gavalry, Fort Bayard, New Mexico. He reported for duty September 30 1886. Here he scouted hostile Indians, and commanded a detachment which set up a heliograph line 160 miles through the mountains. This latter accomplishment was not small feat. The detachment was out for a month and lived off the country, which was inhabited by hostile Indians.
In 1877, he was trasnferred to Fort Stanton, where he took part in maneuvers. In 1889, he stood second in pistol marksmanship in the California and Arizona divisions of the Cavalry and 22nd in rifle marksmanship in the Army. In 1891, he stood 2nd in pistol and 5th in rigle marksmanship. I 1890, during an uprising of the Sioux, he served in South Dakota, in charge of the Indian scouts.
On September 16, 1891, Pershing took up his duties as Professor of Military Schience and Tactics at the University of Nebraska. During the four years he held this post, he showed qualities of character that were prophetic of the was he would acquit himself should the Army call him to a bigger role on a bigger stage. This statement is based entirely upon statements and letters contemporaneous with his service at Nebraska when he was still an unknown Second Lieutenant.
When Pershing went to Nebraska, the sentiment of the community, faculty, and student body (in fact that of the whole nation) was pacifistic. No one thought there would ever be another war. The accepted recipe for making an army, shich turned out to be utterly incorrect, was the one made famous by William Jennings Bryan, "A million men will spring to arms overnight."
Upon his arrival at Nebraska, General Pershing found a few men, the interest in the battalion was weak, the discipline next to nothing, and the instincts of the faculty and president of the university were against the Cadet Corps. He could have drawn his pay and courted popularity by drifting with the tide, but he was not that way. Here, as everywhere, he was a strict disciplinarian.
In 1892, the National Competitive Drill were held in Omaha. Pershing, after much opposition, entered a company. Using Company A as a nucleus, he built up his drill company. This company drilled from seven to nine and then again for four to seven. In 1892, Chancellor Canfield requested that Pershing be permitted to remain at the University another year. This request was granted by the War Department. While at Nebraska, Pershing studied law and graduated with the class of 1893.
In June, 1897, he was assigned to West Point as an assistant instructor in tactics. At West Point, he was not a popular officer because the cadets felt his discipline was too strict. It was here he acquired the nickname, "Black Jack." After his service at West Point, he seved in Cuba through the Santiago Campaign (1898), where he earned from his commander the tribute, "Pershing is the coolest man under fire I ever saw."
On August 17, 1899, he was ordered to Manila to report to the commander of the Eighth Army Corps for duty. On December 1, he was assigned to the Department of Mindanao and Jolo. In cleaning up the Moro insurrections, Pershing, as Adjutant General of his department, was in active service from November 27, 1900 to March 1, 1901. He participated in the advance up the Cagayan River to destrow the stronghold of Macahambo.
On February 2, 1901, Pershing was made Captian and was trasferred to the 1st Cavalry. In august of that year it was ordered stateside. Pershing applied for transfer to the 15th cavalry, then, taking up its station in the Philippines. The request was granted and he served in various departmental roles until October 11, when he took charge of the post at Iligan.
After three and a half years of active service, Pershing was ordered home in June 1903. Before his departure, a movement was on among the officers in the Army to have Pershing made a Brigadier General as a due recognition of his services and his demonstrated military ability. The movement was started and given impetus by the men with whom and under whom he had served. Men such as Major Generals George W. Dacis, Samuel S. Summer, Arthur Murray, and Leonard Wood; Brigadier Generals J.P. Sanger, A.S. Burt, and George M. Pandal. In short, these men were best qualified to pass judgement on his fitness and abilities to hold such rank of General Officer.
While in Washington, after his return from the Philippines, Pershing met Miss Helen Frances Warren, whom he later married. Miss Warren's father was a senator form Wyoming.
When Congress met on 7 December 1903, President Roosevelt in his message to Congress mentioned Pershing by name. It was in connection with that portion of his message dealing with the promotion system of the Army. He said, "When men render such a service as Captain Pershing did (in the Philippines), it ought to be possible to reward him without at once jumping him to the rank of Brigadier General." This is one of the few occasions when an Army officer has been mentioned by name in the President's message to Congress.
When Congress met in December, the Warrens were again in Washington. Pershing was assigned as a Military Attache in Tokyo. This assignment brought his long courtship of Miss Warren to a close. They were married on 26 January 1905, and sailed for Tokyo the following day. After their arrival in Tokyo, Pershing went to Manchuria and reamined there as a military observer until September.
Shortly after Pershing's first child, Helen Elizabeth, was born, President Roosevelt made him a Brigadier General. Immediately,a storm of indignation and denunciation was aroused. A Captain had been made a Brigadier General. His long years of service, his splendid record, and his achievements in the Philippines were all forgotten. The critics also forgot that three years had passed since President Roosevelt had urged Congress to remove the necessity of doing just this thing to reward merit. They also overlooked the precedents on which the promotion was based.
The many critics only remembered that Pershing was the son-in-law of francis E. Warren, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs. "His promotion", they declared, "was a flagrant example of pull."
In answer to such criticism, Roosevelt said, "To promote a man because he married a Senator's daughter would be an infamy; to refuse him promotion for the same reason would be an equal infamy."
Shortly after his promotion, General Pershing was asked whether he would prefer an assignment in the Philippines or to command the Department of the Gulf. He replied that he preferred active service and to leave the assignment to the War Department.
Upon reaching the Philippines, Pershing was placed in command of Fort McKinley, which is near Manila. On 24 March 1908, Perching's second child, Anne, was born at Baguio.
In the fall of 1908, war weemed imminent in the Balkans. Pershing was directed to proceed to Paris, and if was came, to go as military observer. He and his family proceeded to Paris by way of Vladivostok and Siberia. Pershing remained in Paris for two months, as hostilities in the Balkans did not materialize, he returned to the United States with his family in January 1909.
Meanwhile, the Moro situation in Mindanao and the Sulu Islands had again become troublesome. Governor Smith of the Philippines had recommended that Genereal Pershing be sent there. Pershing was ordered to go but was unable to do so because of complications due to the malaria that he had contracted in Cuba and the Philippines. He went to the hospital and requested that no one be assigned to the place permanently.
On 24 June 1909, a son, Francis Warren, was born at Cheyenne, Wyoming. He was the only one of Pershing's children born in the United States.
In October of the same year, Pershing, now recovered from his illness, sailed for the Philippines to take charge of the Moro Province as Military Governor. Uder his leadership, the hostile Moro were disarmed by peaceful methods when possible, and by force when necessary. As the Moro were disarmed, peace was gradually restored.
On 20 may 1912, Pershing's last child, Mary Margaret, was born. Soon afterwards, the entire Pershing family was baptized into the Episcopal Faith by Bishop Brent, a warm friend of Pershing.
On 15 December 1913, General Pershing, his work in the Islands now done, sailed for the united states. A civilian Governor, Frank W. Carpenter, was appointed in his stead.
In 1913, General Huerta sezed the reins of the Mexican Government. The United States refused to recognize the new government and diplomatic relations were severed. General Pershing, about to sail home after four years of active service, applied to the War Department for assignment to active service, in the even of hostilities with Mexico. When he arrived in Honolulu, 20 December 1913, he received orders to report to the Eighth Brigade at San Francisco, it being the first brigade on the roster in case of hostilities.
On 20 January 1914, the Eight Brigade began their patrolling of the Mexican border. After a year's stay at Fort Bliss, Pershing decided to bring his family there. The arrangements were almost complete, when on the morning of 27 August 1915, he received a telegram telling him of a fire in the Praesidio at San Francisco, which had killed his wife and his three daughters.
After the funerals at Cheyenne, he returned to Fort Bliss with his son Warren and his sister Mae, and took up his duties of Commanding Officer again. He sought and found solace in hard work. He finally regained mastery of himself, though it was feared for a while that he would lose his mind.
On 15 March 1916, Pershing led the Expedition into Mexico. This expedition, which was dispatched to capture Poncho Villa, was ill-equipped and was hampered by lack of supplies, all due to the collapse of the Quartermaster Corps. Although there had been talk of war on the border for years, it had taken no steps to provide for the handling of supplies for an expedition.
On 25 September 1916, Pershing was made a Major General. By 5 February 1917, the expedition was completely withdrawn form Mexico. It had penetrated some 500 miles into Mexico combating both Mexican troops and bandits.
On 3 April 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. On 7 May 1917, Pershing was ordered to Washington, and later in the same month sailed to Europe.
Fifty-five days after America entered the war, Pershing and the nucleus of a General Staff sailed for Europe. Pershing was now entering upon the most difficult task of his entire career. It would take months, possibly a year, to get an american Army in the field. He soon found out that the English and French did not want an American Army; they wanted men.
This fact made Pershing's task doubly difficult. He had to deny the allies the men that they wanted, and yet depend upon them for supplies. The first divisions that arrived in France were trained by the French, who expected this to be a permanent arrangement, and that the American troops would be brigaded with their troops, and would be commanded by French divisional officers. This, Pershing would not permit.
He was one of the leaders in the movement for a supreme commander in preference to a Supreme War Council. He also demendd and secured that the American Army (then still in the process of building) should be included in the agreement.
In spite of great pressure, diplomatic, official, and otherwise, Pershing assembled an American Army of 500,000, reduce the St. Mihiel Salient, and forced the Argonne.
America's position in the world's affairs today is largely the result of Pershin's activities in Europe. If he had less firmly insisted upon an American Army; if he had yielded to the urgent and forceful demands of the French and English that the American troops be incorporated in the ranks of their armies, the power of the American governament at the peace conference would have been. nil.
By July 1918, Pershing's force had increased to nearly a half-million troops. In the springt of the year, the Germans began their last desperate drive on Allied positions. Realizing that a united front was necessary to stem the attack, Pershing placed the American troops under General Foch of France, who assumed the supreme command of Allied armies in Europe. Under the weight of the brilliantly led, and superiror fighting force, German forces were crushed. Celebrations and decorations heralded the return of General Pershing and his Army to the United States of America.
In 1921, Pershing was appointed Chief of Staff of the United States Army. In 1924, at the age of sixty-four, he retired from active duty, with the title "General of the Armies" bestowed upon him by Congress.
General Pershing can not be too hightly commended for his attitude and actions since the war. He did not make the mistake of trying to tell how the nation should be run, and above all, he did what few, if any, victorious Generals have ever done, he stayed out of politics.
Ill health forced the famous soldier to retire from all public service soon after his retirement. Held in highest esteem by contemporary members of his profession, his advice was sought on military matters, despite his retirement. He advocated a program of military preparedness for his country, and throughout the remaining years of his life, he kept in close contact with military developments.
On 15 July 1948, John joseph Pershing Passed away at Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C.. Tributes of the greates men of our time were his on the days following his death. But men of the Army will always pay tribute to General John J. Pershing. A life such as his is a challenge to his followers in the military profession, and they have accepted that challenge. John Joseph Pershing, soldier and citizen, will live forever in the memory of the men of America.