Pershing, John J

Pershing, John J(oseph)

John J. Pershing, 1917.

(credit: Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

(born Sept. 13, 1860, Laclede, Mo., U.S.—died July 15, 1948, Washington, D.C.) U.S. army officer. He graduated from West Point and served on the western frontier (1886–98), in the Spanish-American War, in the Philippines (1899–1903, 1906–13), and as commander of a punitive raid against Pancho Villa (1916). During World War I he was appointed commander in chief of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF). He maintained the AEF as an independent army of two million men and resisted Allied efforts to use U.S. forces as replacement units for French and British troops. He led the successful assault of the St. Mihiel salient in September 1918 and helped defeat German forces in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. He was promoted to general of the armies in 1919 and was army chief of staff from 1921 to 1924. His nickname, “Black Jack,” derived from his service with an African American regiment early in his career (see buffalo soldier). His memoirs, My Experiences in the World War (1931), won a Pulitzer Prize.