John Joseph Pershing

Shortly after the United States entered World War I in 1917, General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing (a nickname derived from his command of black troops in the Tenth Cavalry) took command of the American Expeditionary Forces going to Europe. His background and temperament fit with this country's emergence as a world power. Within little more than a year, he transported America's first massive twentieth-century army to the European front, where it contributed substantially to the German defeat in November 1918. Pershing deftly commanded the army and successfully held his soldiers separate from the French and British, who saw them as little more than replacements for their own massive casualties. Upon his return home, Pershing was designated "general of the armies"-a title that no one had held since Ulysses Grant.