The convoy followed the planned Lincoln Highway, a right-of-way that eventually became U.S. Highway 30 and in places Interstate 80. In the absence of accurate maps and reliable road signs, a detachment of cavalry scouts mounted on motorcycles pioneered the convoy’s route.
Eisenhower had no responsibilities on the motor march other than to prepare a report for the tank corps. The drivers and vehicles had been hastily assembled, and march discipline was initially poor. “The Expedition Train Commander,” he advised, “should pay more attention to disciplinary drills for officers and men, and all should be intelligent, snappy soldiers.”7 Ike’s solemnity belies the devil-may-care pranksterism he resorted to on the journey. “We were a troupe of traveling clowns,” he confessed fifty years later. “Perhaps our finest hour was in western Wyoming.” Eisenhower and a companion convinced the convoy that an Indian attack was imminent. Sentinels were posted that evening, while Ike and his friend took concealed positions outside the perimeter and exchanged warrior yelps in the best tradition of the Old West. They were sufficiently convincing to induce a young officer on guard not only to discharge his weapon but report the encounter with hostile Indians to the War Department.
The Army’s first transcontinental motor convoy, Washington, D.C., to San Francisco, 1919. (illustration credit 3.1)
“Faster than any vehicle in the convoy,” Eisenhower recalled, “we shot off in all directions to find the man who was carrying that message to the telegraph office. We found him, took the story to the commanding officer, and pointed out that if such news reached the Adjutant General, he was unlikely to understand our brand of humor. The commanding officer went along with the gag, crossed out the Indian part of the telegram, [and] thereby a number of us were saved lengthy explanations in original and three or more carbons.”8
All along the route the convoy was greeted by well-wishers. In Akron, Ohio, tire manufacturer Harvey Firestone welcomed the troops to his estate and staged a lavish picnic. From Fort Wayne, Indiana, Ike dropped Mamie a postcard with a picture of the convoy. “Dearest, I’m not in this picture—but I thought you’d like to see it. Love you heaps and heaps. Your lover. Ike.”9
When the column reached Boone, Iowa, Mamie’s aunt and uncle gave Eisenhower a personal welcome. In North Platte, Nebraska, the midpoint of the journey, Ike was joined by Mamie and her father, John, who had driven two hundred miles over prairie trails from Denver. Mamie had not seen her husband since their parting at Harrisburg in November. “Quarters or no quarters,” she said, she was going to join him at Camp Meade, “if I have to live in a tent.”10 Eisenhower agreed, provided she left Ikey in Denver with the Douds until they found suitable housing. Mamie and her father followed the convoy until it reached Laramie, Wyoming, at which point they turned back to Denver.
For Eisenhower, who thirty-seven years later would sign the interstate highway act into law, the firsthand knowledge of the condition of the nation’s roads stayed with him. “When we finally secured the necessary congressional approval, we started the 41,000 miles of super highways that are already proving their worth,” he wrote after the bill had passed. “The old convoy had started me thinking about good two-lane highways, but Germany had made me see the wisdom of broader ribbons across our land.”11
When Eisenhower returned to Camp Meade in the autumn of 1919, he found the AEF tank corps back from Europe. The augmented corps was now commanded by Brigadier General Samuel D. Rockenbach, a hard-bitten Virginian (VMI, 1889) who had led American armor in France, and who was several years senior to Colonel Welborn. Rockenbach integrated the returning troops with those from Camp Colt and formed two brigades: a light brigade (the 304th) equipped with French Renaults, and a heavy brigade (the 305th) deploying new American-made Mark VIIIs that had come off the assembly line too late for service in France. Colonel George Patton, fresh from the battlefield, commanded the light brigade; Eisenhower became executive officer of the heavies and later assumed command. From the beginning, Eisenhower and Patton were a mismatched pair. Patton was monumentally egotistical, flamboyant, and unpredictable. Eisenhower was self-effacing and steady. Yet they formed an enduring friendship that lasted until shortly before Patton’s death in 1945.
George Patton, five years older than Eisenhower, six years his senior in the Regular Army (Patton was Class of 1909), was born on the family ranch near Pasadena, California, on November 11, 1885. His maternal ancestors had been among the first American settlers to reach California, owned a vast Spanish land grant, and donated the acreage on which the city of Pasadena now stands to encourage immigration to the region. His paternal forebears hailed from Virginia and traced their lineage to English nobility, including sixteen barons who signed the Magna Carta.12 Patton’s grandfather, a colonel of Confederate infantry, was killed facing Philip Sheridan at Cedar Creek. His father attended VMI, moved to California, undertook the practice of law, and became a successful member of the bar and district attorney of Los Angeles County. The Pattons had a housekeeper, a dozen Mexican servants, a European cook, and a governess. They raised purebred cattle and blooded horses, owned a vacation house on fashionable Catalina Island, and counted themselves among California’s established aristocracy. George went to private schools and attended VMI for a year before receiving a senatorial appointment to West Point. Ike won his appointment through competitive examination; Patton benefited from family influence.a
Throughout his military career Patton traveled with his own stable of horses (at Leavenworth’s Command and General Staff School he was excused from the course on equitation so he could exercise his mounts), and drove the finest cars. His uniforms and civilian clothes were tailored on London’s Savile Row and his boots came from Ugo Ferrini in Rome. Ike drove a Model T, his uniforms were made in the United States, and he bought his civilian clothes off the rack. Patton’s pistols were custom-made Colt .45s with ivory grips; Eisenhower’s sidearm was standard government issue.
Unlike Ike, Patton was a loner: highly opinionated, ultraconservative, bigoted, and racist. Eisenhower was more nuanced. He tended to qualify his statements and had no particularly strong views on race or politics.13 Both married into money, but whereas the Douds were merely wealthy, Patton’s wife, Beatrice Ayer, was heiress to an immense textile fortune that derived from her father’s ownership of the American Woolen Company. For Patton, his Army income was incidental; for Eisenhower, it was essential. More significantly, Patton—who won the Distinguished Service Cross for valor in France and who had been seriously wounded leading his men during the Meuse-Argonne campaign—was already a legend in the tank corps. His contemporaries believed there was no limit to the heights he might attain. Eisenhower missed the war and fretted about his future. No one assumed he would rise to the top. Perhaps Eisenhower should have envied Patton, but there is no evidence that he did so.14
“From the beginning he and I got along famously,” Ike said. “Both of us were students of current military doctrine. Part of our passion was a strong belief in tanks—a belief derided at the time by others.”
George and I and a group of young officers … believed that tanks could have a more valuable and spectacular role. We believed they should attack by surprise and in mass. We wanted speed, reliability, and firepower. We wanted armor that would be proof against machine guns and light field guns, but not so heavy as to damage mobility.15
Eisenhower and Patton spent weeks and months at Camp Meade testing their theories in the field. “George was not only a believer, he became a flaming apostle,” remembered Ike.16 Both published articles in their respective service journals touting their findings. Writing in the Infantry Journal (“Tanks in Future Wars”), Patton brashly called for armor to act independently on the battlefield. “The tank corps grafted on Infantry, cavalry, artillery, or engineers will be like the third leg to a duck, worthless for control, for combat impotent.”17 Eisenhower, writing more circumspectly for the Infantry Journal (“A Tank Discussion”), spoke of tanks “as a profitable adjunct to the Infantry.
” He spelled out the merits of the tank in close combat and noted the deficiencies of existing models. But he did not advocate massing tanks as Patton had done. “The clumsy, awkward and snaillike progress of the old tanks must be forgotten, and in their place we must picture this speedy, reliable and efficient engine of destruction.”18 The articles, both of which challenged existing doctrine, brought down the wrath of the Army establishment. Eisenhower was summoned to Washington by the chief of infantry, Major General Charles S. Farnsworth. “I was told my ideas were not only wrong but dangerous and that henceforth I would keep them to myself. Particularly, I was not to publish anything incompatible with solid infantry doctrine. If I did, I would be hauled before a court-martial. George, I think, was given the same message.”19
Eisenhower and Patton spent many hours together riding and hunting. Both relished sports. Eisenhower coached the Camp Meade football team; Patton led the equestrian and pistol teams.b When the Eighteenth Amendment mandating Prohibition became law, Ike distilled gin in the bathtub and Patton brewed beer. When they wanted excitement they would arm themselves like modern vigilantes, climb into Patton’s Pierce-Arrow, and drive slowly down dark country roads hoping to be waylaid by bandits. “We wanted to see what a fellow’s face looked like when he’s looking into the other end of a gun,” said Ike.20 But they never encountered any bandits.
Unlike their husbands, who forged an abiding friendship, Mamie Eisenhower and Beatrice Patton were never close. A noted sportswoman who excelled at riding and sailing, Beatrice had been educated in Europe, spoke flawless French, wrote music and poetry, and published two books about Hawaii, one of which was written in French.21 She traveled widely, moved easily in society, and was considered a gifted conversationalist. Mamie’s interests were more restricted. She loathed outdoor activity and had little patience for abstract discussion. A more typical Army wife, Mamie dwelled on the surface of popular culture. She enjoyed cards and mah-jongg, hit tunes, Hollywood fashions, and pulp fiction. Mamie and Beatrice lived in different realms, united only in their determination to further their husbands’ careers.
Mamie returned with Ike to Camp Meade following the motor march in September 1919. Because no quarters were available, they lived for a time in a furnished room in nearby Laurel, Maryland, and Ike commuted. Ikey was left with the Douds in Denver. After less than a month, Mamie had had enough. “Ike, I can’t live my life this way,” she said.22 Eisenhower begged her to stay, but Mamie packed up and took the train back to Denver. “I threw in the sponge,” she said later.23
While she was away, Mamie wrote rarely. In desperation, Ike wrote to Mrs. Doud, his mother-in-law:
Dear Mother:
I hear from Mamie so infrequently that I have no idea how you are getting along.… Would you mind, when you have time, writing me about Ikey and Daddy, and yourself. I try to be patient and cheerful—but I do like to be with people I love.
Devotedly,
YOUR SON24
Mamie did not return to Camp Meade until May 1920, after the Army agreed to convert some abandoned barracks into family quarters. Ike and Patton were assigned adjacent sets. The quarters were rough and required considerable renovation. This time Ikey was left with Mamie’s aunt in Boone, Iowa, until work was complete. “For her trouble and his keep, we paid her $100,” Eisenhower remembered.25
Ikey was three years old in the autumn of 1920 when he finally joined his parents at Camp Meade. Eisenhower doted on the child, determined to be the father David had never been. According to a friend, Ike would lie on the floor pretending to be a kitten, or growl like a bulldog, playing the clown to make him laugh.26 “For a little boy just getting interested in the outside world, few places could have been more exciting than Meade,” said Eisenhower. “Deafening noises of the tanks enthralled him. A football scrimmage was pure delight. And a parade with martial music set him aglow.”27
To help with Ikey and the household chores, the Eisenhowers hired a young woman from the area who seemed both pleasant and efficient. “When she accepted the job, a chain of circumstances began, linking us to a tragedy from which we never recovered,” Ike recalled.28 Unknown to the Eisenhowers, the young woman had just recovered from an attack of scarlet fever. She exhibited no evidence of the disease, yet she still harbored the bacteria.
Little Ikey, the Eisenhowers’ first son, one year before his death from scarlet fever. (illustration credit 3.2)
Just before Christmas, Ikey came down with a fever. He was placed in bed, and the post doctor assumed it was simply the flu. When the temperature did not subside, Ikey was hospitalized. A specialist from nearby Johns Hopkins was consulted, and the verdict was scarlet fever. “We have no cure for this,” said the doctor. “Either they get well or you lose them.”29 Ikey was quarantined. “The doctors did not allow me into his room,” Eisenhower remembered. “But there was a porch on which I was allowed to sit and I could look into the room and wave to him. Occasionally, they would let me come to the door just to speak to Ikey. I haunted the halls of the hospital. Hour after hour, Mamie and I could only hope and pray.”30
Ikey held out for ten days. But the scarlet fever turned into meningitis, and he died in the early morning hours of January 2, 1921. “I have never known such a blow,” Eisenhower wrote long afterward. “I didn’t know what to do. I blamed myself because I had often taken his presence for granted.”
This was the greatest disappointment and disaster in my life, the one I have never been able to forget completely. Today when I think of it, even now as I write about it, the keenness of our loss comes back to me as fresh and terrible as it was in that long dark day soon after Christmas, 1920.31
Mamie said, “For a long time, it was as if a shining light had gone out of Ike’s life. Throughout all the years that followed, the memory of those bleak days was a deep inner pain that never seemed to diminish much.”32
Ikey’s death left a permanent scar. Eisenhower, for the rest of his life, sent Mamie a bouquet of yellow roses every year on Ikey’s birthday. Yellow had been Ikey’s favorite color. But the marriage was no longer the same. The youthful romance was gone. Instead of drawing closer together, each retreated into a private world of sorrow. Eisenhower threw himself into his work and was rarely home.33 Mamie tried not to think about the child. Ike blamed himself for hiring the maid; Mamie initially blamed herself. Privately they blamed each other.34 “Half a century later,” wrote Julie Nixon Eisenhower, “Mamie was still unwilling to say much about how Ikey’s death changed her relationship with Ike. The pain is too deep. But there is no doubt that the loss of their beloved son closed a chapter in the marriage. It could never again be unblemished first love.”35
On June 2, 1920, Congress passed the National Defense Act of 1920, one of the most far-reaching pieces of legislation in American history.36 The Army’s authorized strength was set at 288,000 (compared to 2.4 million when the war ended). Subsequent legislation reduced that strength still further. By 1922, fewer than 150,000 men remained on active duty. The United States became a third-rate military power. Army appropriations, which hit $9 billion in 1919, dropped to $400 million—a figure that would remain relatively constant until the late 1930s.37 Officers reverted to their permanent peacetime ranks. On June 30, 1920, Eisenhower and Patton became captains again. In August, after the adjutant general sorted things out, they were promoted to major. Patton’s date of rank was set at July 1, 1920; Eisenhower’s one day later—an important distinction. Eisenhower would remain in the grade of major for the next sixteen years; Patton for fourteen. “There was no reason to get excited,” said Lucius D. Clay, who was also demoted. “It happened to everyone.” What was important is that salaries were not reduced. Eisenhower, Patton, and Clay continued to draw the pay and allowances of their previous ranks.38
The National Defense Act also established separate branches for the air service, the chemical corps, and the finance department. The tank corps was abolished and returned to the infantry. During hearings on the bill, Secretary of
War Newton D. Baker and the Army’s chief of staff, General Peyton March, advocated retaining the tank corps as an independent branch. But when General Pershing testified a week later, he suggested that it “ought to be placed under the Chief of Infantry as an adjunct of that arm.”39 Not surprisingly, Congress took Pershing’s word. The animosity between Pershing and Wilson’s War Department was palpable (Pershing and March were not on speaking terms) and Pershing—the only person to hold the rank of “General of the Armies”—was considered the nation’s military oracle.40 When the tank corps was abolished, Patton decided to return to the cavalry and became executive officer of the 3rd Cavalry at Fort Myer, across the Potomac from Washington. Eisenhower chose to remain with the infantry.
Eisenhower in War and Peace Page 7
