Home > World War I > John Joseph Pershing Biography

September 13, 1860
Laclede, Missouri
July 15, 1948
Washington, D.C.

Military leader

General John Joseph Pershing is most famous for something he never said. The story goes that when he arrived in France in 1917, at the head of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), he dramatically declared, "Lafayette, we are here!" This was a reference to the Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834), the French general who crossed the Atlantic during the American Revolution (1775–83) to fight alongside George Washington. More than a hundred years later, Pershing and the American forces were returning the favor—but it wasn't Pershing who made the stirring statement of this fact; it was one of his colonels, Charles Stanton. Indeed, such a statement would have been quite out of character for Pershing, who was noted for being a soldier and an administrator, but not one for having a way with...