John Joseph Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, purchased a home in Lincoln in 1920, expecting to live there in retirement. Pershing had lived in Lincoln from 1891-1895 while he was a professor at the University of Nebraska.
John J. Pershing was born in Missouri in 1860. He attended Normal School and taught school in Missouri before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point. Upon graduation in 1886 he was commissioned a second lieutenant.
Pershing's first assignment was with the Sixth Cavalry in New Mexico where he served under General Nelson Miles in the Apache Campaign. His regiment was on the Sioux reservation in South Dakota in the winter of 1890-91 during the Wounded Knee episode.
He came to Lincoln in 1891 and became cadet instructor at the University of Nebraska. His title was "Professor of Military Science and Tactics." He started drill teams which grew into a national organization known as the "Pershing Rifles." While teaching mathematics at the University he studied law, and received his law degree in 1893. Later, in 1897-98, he was an instructor in tactics at the U.S. Military Academy.
As a first lieutenant in the 10th Cavalry, Pershing was sent in 1895-96 to Fort Assinboine, Montana, near Cree Indian Territory. After action there with a Negro unit of the Tenth Cavalry, he received his nickname, "Black Jack Pershing." Pershing served with the Tenth Cavalry in the Spanish American War and in 1898 fought in the Battle of San Juan Hill.
The desk job which followed at the war department in Washington, D.C., was not to his liking, so with the help of the assistant secretary of war, George Meiklejohn of Fullerton, Nebraska, Pershing received an assignment in the Philippines. He became a captain in 190l and in 1906 was made a brigadier general by President Theodore Roosevelt in recognition of his service fighting Philippine nationalists.
Pershing was a military attache with Kurohi's Army in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. His military service from 1899 to 1913 was mainly in the Philippines, culminating at the
Battle of Mt. Bagsak in 1913 in the Moro Campaign, for which he later received the Distinguished Service Cross. Later that year he was sent to Presidio in San Francisco, where he was made commander of the Eighth Cavalry Brigade. In 1916 President Woodrow Wilson put him in command of forces assigned to capture Francisco "Pancho" Villa, head of Mexican revolutionaries who were raiding United States towns on the Mexican border. Villa avoided capture and after eleven months, Pershing was ordered to withdraw.
Now a major general, Pershing was chosen in 1917 to command American Expeditionary Forces in Europe when the United States
entered World War I. Pershing's firm stand in a disagreement with other allied commanders led to the United States Army's fighting as an independent army under its own officers, rather than as mere replacements for British and French armies. At the end of the war, when Pershing wanted to march into Berlin, other allied commanders voted against it.
By an act of Congress, Pershing was made General of the Armies of the United States in 1919. After returning to the United States, Pershing was appointed Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, in 1921 and succeeded in reorganizing the army in spite of peacetime opposition to maintaining a large force.
He retired from the Army in 1924 and was involved in special assignments until his health began to fail in 1933. In 1931 he wrote a book, My Experiences in World War I. Although in frail health, Pershing was concerned about the war situation in Europe, and addressed the nation by radio in 1940 to warn of the dangers of impending war.
Pershing lived at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. from 194l until his death on July 15, 1948. Burial was at Arlington National Cemetery. Although Pershing didn't return to his retirement home in Lincoln, his sisters lived in Lincoln and made a home for his son, Warren. Pershing's wife and three daughters had perished in a fire at The Presidio in 1915.
Pershing received an honorary degree from the University of Nebraska in 1917. He also received honorary degrees from Cambridge, Oxford, Pennsylvania Academy, Yale, and St. Andrews University in Scotland. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and gold medals for leadership, military achievement, and for a "life of outstanding service to his country."
In 1954 the newly built armory on the agricultural campus of the University of Nebraska was named Pershing Memorial Armory. Pershing Municipal Auditorium, Pershing Elementary School and Pershing Road, all in Lincoln, were named for him. When he was named to the Nebraska Hall of Fame for 1963-64, a bust of General Pershing was placed in the state capitol.