"What a great book that covers a great soldier and general." --
Huntington B. "Hunt" Downer, Jr., Major General, USA, Retired
Winner of the 2016 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing
Award.
Fox Conner presents the portrait of the quintessential man behind the
scenes in U.S. military history. John J. Pershing considered Fox Conner
to have been "a brilliant solider" and "one of the finest characters our
Army has ever produced." During World War I, General Conner served as
chief of operations for the American Expeditionary Force in Europe.
Pershing told Conner: "I could have spared any other man in the A.E.F.
better than you."
Dwight D. Eisenhower viewed Fox Conner, as "the outstanding soldier of
my time." In the early 1920s, Conner transformed his protégé Eisenhower
from a struggling young officer on the verge of a court martial into one
of the American army's rising stars. Eisenhower acknowledged Fox Conner
as "the one more or less invisible figure to whom I owe an incalculable
debt." This book presents the first complete biography of this
significant, but now forgotten, figure in American military history.
In addition to providing a unique insider's view into the operations of
the American high command during World War I, Fox Conner also tells the
story of an interesting life. Conner felt a calling to military service,
although his father had been blinded during the Civil War. From humble
beginnings in rural Mississippi, Conner became one of the army's
intellectuals. During the 1920s, when most of the nation slumbered in
isolationism, Conner predicted a second world war. As the nation began
to awaken to new international dangers in the 1930s, President Roosevelt
offered Fox Conner the position of army chief of staff, which he
declined. Poor health prevented his participation in World War II, while
others whom he influenced, including Eisenhower, Patton, and Marshall,
went on to fame.
