Black Jack

During his last years the old soldier was stooped and weak. His cheeks were sunken and his once-square chin, below his clipped mustache, was bony and sharp. At times he was petulant. He fumed at being photographed, once cried: "To hell with the War Department--they can't make me have my picture taken."

He grew weary of his austere suite at Walter Reed Hospital, sometimes threatened to move to a Washington hotel. He often demanded sedatives which he did not need. But he clung to life with remarkable tenacity. For years he took a daily drive--usually through Rock Creek Park. Famous visitors to Washington made a point of calling on him. During World War II General George Marshall dropped in almost every fortnight to keep him informed on the progress of the war.

Last year, after his 87th birthday, he began growing steadily weaker. One day last week he fell into a deep coma and his only son was called to his bedside. A few hours later President Harry Truman announced the death of John Joseph ("Black Jack"*) Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I.

Fortune's Smile. Pershing entered the Army almost by accident. The son of a section foreman from Laclede, Mo., he hoped to become a lawyer, entered West Point only to get a free education. He talked of leaving because promotion was slow. At 40, after service in Indian battles, Cuba and the Philippines, he was still only a first lieutenant.

But fortune finally smiled on him. He caught the eye of President Theodore Roosevelt by subduing the fierce Moros of Mindanao. The President praised him publicly, attended his wedding to Helen Frances Warren, daughter of Wyoming's Senator Francis E. Warren. In 1906 Roosevelt caused a sensation by promoting him from captain to brigadier general over the heads of 862 other officers.

His marriage ended in tragedy. One night when he was on the Mexican border --on a tour of duty during which he later pursued "Pancho" Villa--his house in San Francisco's Presidio caught fire. His son Warren was saved, but his wife and three daughters were burned to death. His severity and ramrod correctness simply seemed to increase.

Beau Ideal. He was the Beau Ideal of the Regular Army. As A.E.F. commander he was governed by an unshakable belief in two fixed ideas: 1) that wars could be won only by mobility, and 2) that the separate identity of the U.S. Army had to be preserved.

He was under enormous pressure from the British and French to allow the U.S. Army to be broken up and used piecemeal under Allied commanders. He refused--and his position was vindicated.

U.S. forces helped stem the last great German offensive at Chateau-Thierry. Three months later--under orders not to dig holes--they took the offensive at Saint-Mihiel, won back a salient the Germans had held since 1914. Fourteen days after that, the U.S. First Army attacked on the Meuse-Argonne line, broke through the enemy trench systems, routed their way through the weary defenders. Pershing advocated driving on to Berlin. But his wish was thwarted by the Armistice.

Six Grey Horses. This week that Army honored him with the most impressive military funeral Washington had witnessed since the burial, in 1921, of the Unknown Soldier. While silent crowds massed in a drenching rain along Washington streets, a caisson bearing his flag-draped casket was drawn by six matched grey horses to Arlington Cemetery. Thousands of troops, armored cars, and howitzers followed to the beat of muffled drums; the procession entered the cemetery to the slow booming of a 19-gun salute.

The President, Cabinet members and virtually every top-ranking general of the Army were present. The old soldier's coffin was borne to a grave near that of the Unknown Soldier. A squad of riflemen fired their sharp volleys. A staff sergeant sounded the slow, sweet notes of taps.

* The nickname stemmed (according to the most persistent story) from his period as a West Point instructor (1897-98). A cadet from the South whispered it angrily after hearing his frequent-praise of one of his early commands, the 10th Cavalry, a Negro regiment.

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