The Atlantic Bookshelf: A Guide to Good Books

JOHN JOSEPH PERSHING graduated from West Point in 1886, and like his famous allies to be, Haig and Allenby, was commissioned in l’arme blanche. As a young cavalry officer he campaigned against the Apache and the Sioux; he rode against the Spaniards in the Santiago campaign and was commander of the military operations which finally subdued those recalcitrant Americans, the Moros. As a military attaché he witnessed the Russo-Japanese struggle. He was the logical leader of the border patrol in Mexico, and on the strength of his record was one of the two most conspicuous candidates for high command when we declared war on Germany. In 1917 he went to France in command of the A.E.F., and in 1919 his nomination by President Wilson to the permanent rank of general was confirmed unanimously by the United States Senate — a grade held previously only by Washington, Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan.

He was never spared in the school of hard experience, In 1915 his wife and three young daughters lost their lives in the burning of the Presidio. As his steel was forged he became known to his regulars as ’Black Jack,’ a sobriquet, not unfriendly, that was taken up later by the A.E.F. His resolution, his confident use of American man power, his utter lack of military vanity, are qualities for which he is remembered overseas.