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Palmer, Frederick. Pershing: General of the Armies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. [ REF F508.1 P43p]
Smith, Gene.

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Why We Need To Know What Still Makes Him Relevant Today?
Out of all of his numerous military campaigns, Genera Pershing's leadership of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I was his greatest accomplishment. The introduction of the AEF troops helped end World War I, and without the American soldiers, the European allies would have faced an uncertain outcome. Many can take notes from Pershing,on what could work and may not be a good idea.

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Many criticized Pershing's tactics, by commanders of the past and of modern day. His reliance on costly frontal assaults, long after other Allied armies had abandoned such tactics, has been blamed for causing unnecessarily high American casualties.

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In the final decade of his life, Pershing's health began to decline due to heart problems. On July, 1948, while recovering from a stroke, Pershing died in his sleep. His body lay in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol as an estimated 300,000 people came to pay their respects. He was buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC.

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Pershing was married to Helen Frances Warren 1905-1915

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Pershing was married to Helen Frances Warren 1905-1915

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Unfortunately, he lost his wife and 3 daughters to a house fire in 1915, while away on an assignment. His son was the only survivor, he was six years old at the time. He could never fully recover from the tragedy, he allowed his sister Mary to take care of his son Warren.

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John J. Pershing was born in Laclede, Missouri, on September 13, 1860. He graduated from West Point Academy  and went on to fight in the Indian wars as well as the Spanish- American War and the Philippines insurrection. In World War !, he commanded the American Expeditionary Force in Europe, helping bring an end to the war. he quietly retired after the war and was buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
(Early Life)
John J Pershing was the first of eight children born to John F. Pershing and Anne Elizabeth Thompson Pershing of Laclede, MO. John's father was a prosperous businessman, working as a merchant during the Civil War and later owning a general store in Laclede and serving as postmaster. The family lost most of its assets during the panic of 1873, and John's father was forced to take a job as a traveling salesman while John worked on the family farm. After high school graduation, John J. Pershing took a job teaching African American students at Prairie Mound School. He saved his money and then went to Missouri Norman School for two years. Though he grew up in an era of Civil War heroes, young John had no desire for a military career, bur when an invitation to take the exam for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point came his way, he applied and received the top grade. Though not a great student he was elected class president, and his superiors noticed his leadership qualities.

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U.S. Army general John J. Pershing (1860-1948) commanded the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in Europe during World War I. The president and first captain of the West Point class of 1886, he served in the Spanish- and Philippine-American Wars and was tasked to lead a punitive raid against the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson selected Pershing to command the American troops being sent to Europe. Although Pershing aimed to maintain the independence of the AEF, his willingness to integrate into Allied operations helped bring about the armistice with Germany. After the war, Pershing served as army chief of staff from 1921 to 1924.

A mediocre student but a natural leader, John Joseph Pershing was president and first captain of the West Point class of 1886. Returning to the military academy as a tactical officer in 1897, he was nicknamed "Black Jack" by cadets who resented his iron discipline. The second of these nicknames, derived from his frontier service with the African-American Tenth Cavalry, stuck. In 1898, he went up San Juan Hill with his Black troopers, proving himself "as cool as a bowl of cracked ice" under fire from Spanish sharpshooters who killed or wounded 50 percent of the regiment's officers. Next came three tours in the Philippines, mostly in Mindanao, where Pershing displayed an ability to combine force and diplomacy to disarm the island's fierce Moro warriors.

In 1905 Pershing married Helen Frances Warren, daughter of the chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee. Pershing's friendship with President Theodore Roosevelt combined with this marital connection to vault him from captain to brigadier general in 1905, over the heads of 862 more senior officers. Eleven years later, his Philippines experience made him a natural choice to command the Punitive Expedition that President Woodrow Wilson dispatched to Mexico in 1916 to pursue Pancho Villa and his marauding army after they attacked American border towns along the Rio Grande. Although Pershing never caught Villa, he thoroughly disrupted his operations. Thus he became the president's choice to command the American Expeditionary Force when Wilson's neutrality policy collapsed in the face of German intransigence and America entered World War I in April 1917.

In France, Pershing rejected French and British demands to amalgamate his troops into their depleted armies. He insisted on forming an independent American army before committing any U.S. troops to battle and stuck to this position in spite of enormous diplomatic pressure from Allied politicians and generals-and awesome gains made by the German army in the spring of 1918. In June and July, however, he permitted his divisions to fight under French generals to stop the Germans on the Marne. But on August 10, Pershing opened First Army headquarters, and on September 12, 500,000 Americans attacked the St.-Mihiel salient and quickly erased this bulge in the French lines, which the Germans had already planned to abandon.

The Meuse-Argonne offensive of September 26 was a very different battle. There, Pershing's doctrine of "open warfare," which was supposed to break the Western Front's stalemate with the American rifleman's superior marksmanship and rapid movements, collided with the machine gun, a weapon Pershing badly underestimated. The battle became a bloody stalemate, compounded by massive traffic jams in the rear areas as green American staffs floundered. On October 16, Pershing tacitly admitted failure and handed over the First Army to Hunter Liggett, who revamped its tactics and organization. Renewing the offensive on November 1, the Americans joined the advancing British and French armies in forcing the Germans to accept an armistice on November 11. Pershing was the only Allied commander who opposed the armistice, urging continued pressure until the Germans surrendered unconditionally.

In France, Pershing remained a disciple of iron discipline and constantly tried to shape the American Expeditionary Force to West Point standards. He ruthlessly relieved division officers who faltered under pressure. In a toast on armistice night, he paid honest tribute to how he had emerged from the cauldron of the Argonne a victorious general. "To the men," he said. "They were willing to pay the price."

Pershing served as army chief of staff from 1921 to 1924. He assisted in making his prot[eacute]g[eacute], George C. Marshall, chief of staff in 1940. "If he was not a great man," wrote one journalist who knew Pershing well, "there were few stronger."

The Reader's Companion to Military History. Edited by Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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U.S. Army general John J. Pershing (1860-1948) commanded the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in Europe during World War I. The president and first captain of the West Point class of 1886, he served in the Spanish- and Philippine-American Wars and was tasked to lead a punitive raid against the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa.

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Who is General John J. Pershing & Why We Need to Know What Makes Him Still Relevant Today?

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1. Second lieutenant, 6th Cavalry; took part in New Mexico and Arizona Apache campaigns (1886-1890)
2. Served in Sioux campaigns in South Dakota ( 1890-1891)
3.  Military instructor, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb; promoted to first lieutenant (1891-1895)
4.In charge of roundup of Cree Indians who deported to Canada (1896)
5. Instructor in tactics, United States Military Academy, West Point, N.Y. (1897-1898)
6.Served with 10th Cavalry, Santiago, Cuba; appointed chief officer of volunteers (1898)
7.Organized Bureau of Insular Affairs and was its chief until August 1899.
8.Served in the Philippine Islands
9.Captain, 1st Cavalry; later transferred to 15th Cavalry in order to remain in Philippines (1901)
10. Resumed staff duty I Washington, D.C., and studied at Army War College
11. Member, general staff of the army 1903-1906
12. Military attach, Tokyo, Japan; with Tamemoto Kuroki's army in Manchuria, Mar.- Sept 1905
13. Promoted from captain to brigadier general 1906
14. Commander, Fort McKinley, Philppines
15. Governor, Moro Province, Philippines 1909-1908
16. Took command of 8th Cavalry Brigade, Presidio, San Francisco, California; ordered to El Paso, TX 1913
17.Commanded troops sent to Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa (1916-1917
18. Commanded-in-chief, American Expeditionary Forces 1917-1919
19.Confirmed by Senate as general of the armies of the United States 1919
20.Chief of staff, United States Army (1921-1924)
21. Died, Washington, D.C.

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General John J. Pershing

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May 18, 2019
HS315 Leadership Great Commanders