When one thinks about World War I, the biggest name that comes to mind is General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing; for World War II, it’s General Dwight D. Eisenhower, at least in the European theater. These two leaders represented distinctly different generations: Pershing graduated from West Point in 1886 as First Captain of the Corps of Cadets, and Eisenhower graduated from the same institution in 1915.
Ike served under Black Jack only once, and curiously that was not on the field of battle. It is well known that Eisenhower was sorely disappointed not to have been able to serve in combat during World War I, where Pershing was legendary. Instead, Eisenhower spent much of the war training members of the fledgling Tank Corps at Camp Colt in Gettysburg. In 1922, Eisenhower applied for transfer to the Panama Canal Zone while Pershing was Army Chief of Staff. General Fox Conner, a warm friend of Pershing, had informed the chief that he wanted Eisenhower as his staff officer. “The red tape was torn to pieces,” Eisenhower noted, “orders were issued, and I was to arrive at the new station by January of 1922.”
Eisenhower always viewed Conner as his most influential mentor in the early part of his career, and, if nothing else, Conner got Eisenhower onto Pershing’s radar screen. It was while working in the War Department, after graduating first in his class at the Command and General Staff School, that Eisenhower was assigned to the new agency Pershing would head while still on active duty, the Battle Monuments Commission in Paris.
Eisenhower’s primary task was to prepare A Guide to the American Battlefields of France, one of Pershing’s pet projects. When the guidebook was published, according to biographer Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower deemed it routine staff work, but Pershing thought otherwise and praised him effusively in a letter to the Chief of Infantry.
Eisenhower’s short stay in Europe from 1928 to 1929 gave him a belated chance to see the terrain he had fervently wished he had fought upon a decade earlier, but the Eisenhowers did not stay long. In At Ease, Eisenhower confided, “I had been in the job hardly long enough to do any damage when word was sent that I had been selected as a student for the War College.”
Later in his association with Pershing, Eisenhower was asked to review a section of the general’s war diaries in preparation for publication as a memoir. Eisenhower immersed himself in the notes and told Pershing that sections dealing with the crucial battles would be best written narratively, departing from the diary form. Pershing conferred with a trusted aide, Colonel George Marshall. Marshall read the passages and preferred Pershing’s original approach. Eisenhower was surprised and predicted that Pershing’s version would be hard to decipher. No matter; Pershing’s memoir won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. What mattered most about the literary squabble between Eisenhower and Black Jack was that, even though it was resolved in Pershing’s favor, Marshall recognized the talent behind Eisenhower’s work.
Interestingly, while serving as Army Chief of Staff in 1921–24, Pershing created what was known as the Pershing Map, a proposed network of military and civilian highways. The Interstate Highway System instituted in 1956 under the impetus of President Eisenhower (and later named in his honor) bore considerable resemblance to the Pershing Map. Perhaps unwittingly, Pershing planted a seed in Eisenhower’s mind many years before he acted upon it, leaving one of his most enduring legacies.
Dr. Spracher, a retired Army colonel who formerly taught at West Point, the National Defense University, and the National Intelligence University, is a Dwight D. Eisenhower Society trustee. The Eisenhower Society is dedicated to promoting the memory and legacy of Dwight D. Eisenhower through educational programs, scholarships, grants, and special events. Learn more at dwightdeisenhowersociety.org or visit us at the Adams County Community Foundation Giving Spree on November 6.
The Dwight D. Eisenhower Society is dedicated to promoting the memory and legacy of leadership of
Dwight D. Eisenhower through educational programs, scholarships, grants, and special events.
Caption: Pershing’s statue at the World War I Memorial in Washington, D.C.