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Talk:General of the Armies/Pershing's four gold stars debate

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Latest comment: 3 years ago by Billmckern in topic Pershing's four gold stars

Pershing's four gold stars

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Latest comment: 3 years ago10 comments3 people in discussion

Okay, another unfortunate question, which makes me think every single thing in this article needs to be verified from scratch.

Chronology of Pershing's four gold stars in Wikipedia

TLDR: in 2007 Eguler says Pershing's stars were gold and then vanishes without providing a source, everyone just runs with it for 9 years, and not until 2016 does Billmckern become the first and so far only person to try to confirm it with actual references, which I'll discuss in the next section.

Pershing was authorized to create his insignia for the new rank but declined, wearing the four stars of a regular General for the rest of his career
to
Pershing was authorized to create his insignia for the new rank, and chose to wear four gold stars for the rest of his career, which separated him from the four (temporary) silver stars worn by Army Chiefs of Staff, and even the five star General of the Army insignia
This is one of a number of interesting, often opinionated, generally accurate but almost always unsourced snippets Eguler contributes to mostly military or Boy Scout-related articles, for about two weeks before mostly vanishing from Wikipedia. Eguler is clearly informed but not infallible, as when he claims that Commodore Matthew Perry was advanced to rear admiral to reward his Far East service; Perry died in 1858 and rear admirals were not created until 1862.
  • 2 Jun 2007 Citing only the John J. Pershing article, Caerwine edits the General of the Armies article to change
General Pershing was offered the option to create his own insignia for the new position, but chose to continue to wear the four stars of a General....[In 1944,] Army Regulations 600-35 were changed to prescribe that Generals of the Army would wear five stars. Although General Pershing continued to wear only four, he remained preeminent among all Army personnel...until his death in 1948.
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General Pershing was offered the option to create his own insignia for the new position. He chose to continue to wear the four stars of a General, but in gold, instead of the four silver stars used by a regular general....[In 1944,] Army Regulations 600-35 were changed to prescribe that Generals of the Army would wear five silver stars. Although General Pershing continued to wear only four gold stars, he remained preeminent among all Army personnel...until his death in 1948.
  • 25 Jun 2007 Snake bgd adds insignia images to the list of dates of rank in the John J. Pershing article, including a conjectural six-star image for General of the Armies with the caption
This is todays conjectured design of General of the Armies, at that time design for John J. Pershing were four gold stars
  • 1 Aug 2007 MrDolomite creates an PNG image of Pershing's four gold stars and adds it to the General of the Armies article without any further citation. MrDolomite replaces the conjectural six-star image in the John J. Pershing article with the four-gold-star image and changes the caption to
As there was no official insignia, General Pershing wore four gold stars.
Pershing wore four stars during his tenure as General of the Armies
to
Pershing wore four gold stars during his tenure as General of the Armies
  • 24 Oct 2008 Officer781 converts MrDolomite's four-gold-star PNG into the SVG image currently used in most articles.
  • 24 Feb 2010 As part of a major article revamp, OberRanks revises the General of the Armies article to say
General Pershing was authorized to create his own insignia for the position General of the Armies and chose to wear the four stars of a General, but in gold. Army regulations of the time did not recognize this insignia, and Pershing's gold stars were never formalized as an offical insignia at any point during his life. With Pershing's appointment to General of the Armies in 1919, the general officer rank structure of the United States Army appeared as follows: [table of general officer insignia ending with four gold stars for General of the Armies]
This is all unsourced synthesis, except for the negative fact that Army regulations don't list this insignia, which cites the 1921 revision of Army Regulations 600-35.
  • 9 Jul 2011 Whoop whoop pull up adds the four-gold-star SVG to the U.S. officer ranks template, which is included in a number of military articles.
  • 7 Oct 2013 Pdfpdf adds the four-gold-star SVG to the top of the General of the Armies article, with the caption
General of the Armies insignia chosen by John J. Pershing in 1919
  • 2 Sep 2015 OberRanks again rewrites the General of the Armies article, which now says
General Pershing chose to wear the four stars of a general, but in gold, to signify his new position. A bureaucratic loophole in Army regulations did not recognize this insignia, however, thus Pershing's gold stars did not appear on Army rank precedence charts and were considered an unofficial rank insignia. The matter was not resolved until after Pershing's retirement when the Army declared that the four gold stars worn by Pershing were the official insignia for General of the Armies of the United States, thus creating the following hierarchy of Army general officer ranks.
This is a massive amount of synthesis and speculation to try to reconcile the assumed existence of the four gold stars with their verifiable absence from Army regulations. Again, the only citation is to the 1921 revision of Army Regulations 600-35, which say nothing of the sort since Pershing retired in 1924.
  • "Welfare of Soldiers and Graves of heroes Claim Pershing Time". The Daily Notes. Canonsburg, PA. November 10, 1934. p. 1.
  • "Pershing to Attend Coronation in Snappy Attire of Own Design". Gettysburg Times. Gettysburg, PA. Associated Press. April 28, 1937. p. 2.
  • Perrenot, Preston B. (2009). United States Army Grade Insignia Since 1776. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-4486-5687-5.
  • "The Legion's "Second A. E. F."". The Literary Digest. XCV. New York, NY: Funk & Wagnalls: 11. October 1, 1927.
  • The Caduceus of Kappa Sigma. Vol. 40. 1924. p. 27.
This appears to be the first time anyone tries to confirm the color of Pershing's rank insignia, more than 9 years after Eguler first made the unsourced claim that the stars were gold.
  • 12 Mar 2016 Billmckern adds another source to the John J. Pershing article:
  • 24 Mar 2016 An IP edits the General of the Armies article to add a "citation needed" tag to OberRanks' claim that the Army declared four gold stars to be official insignia after Pershing retired.
  • 7 Feb 2018 Billmckern adds another source to the John J. Pershing article:
  • 4 Sep 2018: OberRanks is banned indefinitely for systematically fabricating sources across a decade of activity.
  • 18 Oct 2019 Garuda28 removes most of OberRanks' speculation about Pershing's gold stars as well as his general officer rank chart from the General of the Armies article, citing WP:SYNTH, and reduces it to the current sentence which nevertheless still lacks any citation:
General Pershing chose to wear the four stars of a general, but in gold, to signify his new position.
Sources for Pershing's four stars being gold
  • Let's first review the sources Billmckern added to the John J. Pershing article. I want to emphasize that this is no criticism of Billmckern -- he is basically the hero in all this as the only editor who actually hunted down any sources to try to confirm that the stars were gold.
1) "Program of Gen. Pershing Today; Many Interesting Events are Planned". Atlanta Constitution. Atlanta, GA. December 11, 1919. p. 7. Immediately before the parade starts the general will be presented with a handsome general's flag, bearing four gold stars, by the Girls' Overseas club.
The color of stars on a general's flag do not necessarily reflect the color of his insignia. Army general officer flags use white stars, including Pershing's official General of the Armies flag: "Headquarters of Gen. Marshall May Display Flag Designed Here". The Culver Citizen. Culver, Indiana. October 6, 1943. p. 1. This flag, authorized on the occasion of Gen. Pershing's visit here, December 7, 1922, is a banner with four white stars on a red background, the stars separated by an eagle....In making arrangements for the ceremony, Col. Chambers...was aware that Pershing as General of the Armies had no flag except the four-star banner then used by all generals. Wiring the War Department General Staff, he received the reply from Capt. G. M. Chandler, authorizing for the occasion "A red flag, two stars, an eagle, and two stars in white along the center line."
Moreover, this flag is being presented by a community volunteer club to Pershing, not by Pershing to the club. It's even possible the gold stars do not reference Pershing's rank, but honor local fallen soldiers, and by coincidence there happen to be four of them. Gold stars became strongly associated with the mothers of fallen soldiers during and after World War I, so it's hard to believe Pershing would choose them to differentiate his rank insignia, since it would suggest he was responsible for more dead soldiers than other four-star generals. This might be true, but it would be very odd and tasteless to advertise.
2) The Caduceus of Kappa Sigma. Vol. 40. 1924. p. 27. A fanfare of bugles greeted the great limousine bearing four gold stars that drew up in front of the assembly.
Although published in 1924, this article actually describes a medal ceremony in France on April 1, 1919, before Pershing became General of the Armies. Pershing rode this car before the Armistice, too: "Lest We Forget; "Over There"; The Reduction of the Marne Salient". The Franklin Evening Star. Franklin, Indiana. April 18, 1925. p. 7. But generals, like troop trains, make their own schedules, and the boys stood in formation from noon till evening before the arrival of the automobile bearing the impressive insignia of four gold stars.
3) "The Legion's "Second A. E. F."". The Literary Digest. XCV. New York, NY: Funk & Wagnalls: 11. October 1, 1927. There sat Marshal Foch and General Pershing, side by side -- Foch in the horizon-blue uniform of a marshal of France, and Pershing in khaki, with the gold stars of a General.
4) "Welfare of Soldiers and Graves of heroes Claim Pershing Time". The Daily Notes. Canonsburg, PA. November 10, 1934. p. 1. The general is white-haired now. His shoulders, which once carried the four gold stars of the American Army, are a bit stooped and his bark, which many a doughboy remmbers, is not quite so gruff.
These both look like a civilian journalist either took literary license or simply made a mistake. Similar errors of this type occasionally pop up in other news stories: "MacArthur the Magnificent". The Evening News. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. March 6, 1942. p. 12. The four gold stars on each superbly tailored shoulder had been worn by only seven men before him -- Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Pershing, Bliss, March and Summerall.
5) "Pershing to Attend Coronation in Snappy Attire of Own Design". Gettysburg Times. Gettysburg, PA. Associated Press. April 28, 1937. p. 2. A knee-length coat has gold-embroidered oak leaves along the collar and cuffs, four gold stars on each sleeve and gold epaulets on the shoulders. Down the front are twelve gold buttons on each side, arranged in series of four.
This is a great find about the one time Pershing did design a General of the Armies uniform using four gold stars, for the 1937 coronation of George VI. I'll cover Pershing's coronation uniform in a later section.
6) Perrenot, Preston B. (2009). United States Army Grade Insignia Since 1776. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-4486-5687-5. Initially, Pershing opted to keep the four silver stars but as more officers got promoted to the grade of General, the pressure on Pershing to change the grade insignia increased. Pershing did not want to see a five star grade and finally compromised by changing his four stars from silver to gold.
This looks like WP:SYNTH in a self-published book that was extensively revised in 2011 but still cites no sources for any of these claims. Perrenot (2009) has no footnotes, making it impossible to cross-reference these statements with any of the sources listed in the back of the book, which are all other books or copies of Army Regulations. But Army Regulations say only that the General of the Armies had the option to choose his own insignia, not what he actually did, and the idea that Pershing compromised by switching from silver to gold stars seems to be original to Perrenot and not supported by contemporary coverage, as outlined in the next section. Other books that mention Pershing's gold stars usually attribute the story to this source, either directly or indirectly via Tucker (2014).
7) Tucker, Spencer C. (2014). World War I: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection. Vol. I, A–C. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. p. 1721. ISBN 978-1-85109-964-1. ...never wore more than four stars, although at his own discretion he wore four gold stars rather than the standard silver stars.
This is an entry in a 2011 encyclopedia that cites no source for this claim, but includes Perrenot (2009) as a "Self-published" reference in its bibliography. Tucker (2014) has become a standard World War I reference that is listed in the bibliography of academic books like Zabecki (2018) that claim Pershing wore gold stars instead of silver. Phrased this way, the entry is technically not incorrect if it means Pershing's coronation uniform, but it almost certainly doesn't.
  • Other books that say Pershing wore four gold stars all seem to have been written after 2007, and cite either Perrenot (2009), Tucker (2014), or no one, and I don't believe any of them either.
  • So where did Eguler get the idea that Pershing used gold stars to begin with? If I had to speculate, my guess would be Pershing's official Chief of Staff portrait in William Gardner Bell's book, which was fully available online by 2007 (Bell, William Gardner (2005). Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff, 1775-2005: Portraits & Biographical Sketches of the United States Army's Senior Officer. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History. p. 115.). Painted by Richard Seyffert in 1975, the portrait plainly shows four gold stars on Pershing's shoulders, which is especially noticeable when contrasted with the silver stars in the preceding portraits for Bliss and March and the succeeding portraits for Hines and Summerall. But the text says nothing about stars being gold or silver, and each portrait was painted independently by a different artist. Moreover, the Hugh Scott and Dennis Reimer portraits also use gold stars, which are definitely incorrect and suggest that the gold stars in Pershing's portrait are likewise artist error or artistic license.
Sources for Pershing's four stars being silver
  • Now let's look at sources favoring four silver stars, starting with explicit statements that Pershing wore the same color stars as other generals, and only customized his collar insignia.
  • "Five-Starrers May Not Carry 5-Star Insignia". Daily News. December 17, 1944. p. 55. At least two factors entered the situation. One was that Gen. John J. Pershing, by special act of Congress a "General of the Armies" and still the highest ranking Army officer in the country, wears only four stars. The other was that Admiral George Dewey, who...was granted the highest naval rank ever held by an American -- "Admiral of the Navy" -- wore only four stars. Pershing made only one change to designate his super-title. In place of the "U. S." customarily worn on an officer's collar, he wears a miniature of the Great Seal of the United States. Dewey designated his extra rank by adding two anchors to his four stars.
  • Wiener, Frederick B. (November 1945). "Three Stars and Up: Part Five". Infantry Journal. LVII: 51–55. Pershing, Bliss, and March all went back to the earlier insignia of four stars. Pershing and Bliss both wore the arms of the U. S. in gold on their collars--everything else, except badges of rank, was bronze at the time--while photographs of March show that he wore the U. S. and the GSC insignia. The uniform regulations were changed to make the insignia for a general, on the collar as well as on the shoulder loop, "such as he may prescribe....When peace came once more and the pamphlet regulations were adopted, AR 600-35, October 14, 1921, prescribed one, two, three, and four stars for the several grades of general officers, but continued the provision permitting the General of the Armies and generals to wear such collar insignia as they might prescribe, an authority which was extended to lapels when the standing collar was rolled down.
  • Roth, Joseph P. (June 1966). "How High Are The Stars?". Military Review. XLVI (6): 95–100. Contrary to popular belief, this was not designated as a six-star rank, and Pershing never wore any insignia other than the four silver stars of a general.
  • Emerson, William K. (1996). Encyclopedia of United States Army Insignia and Uniforms. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. p. 133. Effective July 1903 and for two years thereafter, officers wore eagles of this type, instead of the letters US, on their collars. General Pershing selected the 1903-1905 collar eagle as his insignia when he became General of the Armies.
  • Contemporary news articles also describe four silver stars, as do semi-official references for draftees to learn officer rank insignia.
  • "Commander Of American Army Shown How Warm The Arizona Greeting Can Be". Arizona Republic. Phoenix, Arizona. January 31, 1920. p. 1. The general wore the regular service uniform of a mounted officer and save for the four silver stars on his shoulder, designating the rank of a full general, none of the honors and decorations which have been bestowed upon him by a grateful government and appreciative allies were in evidence.
  • "Pershing Grows in Favor in France; New Boulevard Named in His Honor". The Lincoln Star. Lincoln, Nebraska. September 3, 1931. p. 6. His soldierly figure, unbent by the approach of his 71st birthday on Sept. 13, was a familiar one about the Paris streets, although he donned his olive drab uniform, with the four silver stars, only on ceremonial occasions.
  • Ingersoll, W. L. (October 24, 1940). "Good Evening". Bradford Evening Star and Daily Record. Bradford, Pennsylvania. p. 12. Four silver stars--General of the Armies, Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
  • New Soldier's Handbook. New York, New York, and Washington, D.C.: Penguin Books, Inc. and The Infantry Journal, Inc. 1943. p. 259. The insignia of rank worn by officers on each shoulder loop of the coat, the overcoat, and the olive drab shirt worn without the coat, are as follows: General of the Armies, Four silver stars; General......Four silver stars
  • Descriptions of Pershing's funeral have him wearing four silver stars all the way to his grave.
  • "In Death as in Life, Pershing Signifies Valor". Long Beach Independent. Long Beach, California. July 18, 1948. p. 12. The great soldier reposed in a simple mahogany casket. His uniform was of old fashioned olive drab. The tunic, open at the collar, was of the type he wore when he retired as chief of staff a quarter century ago. Four silver stars gleamed on each shoulder.
  • Mossman, B. C.; Stark, M. W. (1991). The Last Salute: Civil and Military Funerals, 1921-1969. Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army. p. 33. A proposal that a six-star insignia be affixed to General Pershing's uniform was dropped in favor of the four stars the general had always worn.
  • Prior to 2007, discussions of General of the Armies insignia are only about the appropriate number of stars, whose color is never up for debate.
  • Full Committee Consideration of H.J. Res. 519 to Provide for the Appointment of George Washington to the Grade of General of the Armies of the United States, Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, Ninety-Fourth Congress, Second Session. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. August 3, 1976. p. 3. Mr. STRATTON. General of the Army is a rank that has five stars. We have the appropriate insignia for it. But have we ever developed any specifications for this particular rank, or what form six stars takes, or is it just kind of a paper honor as distinguished from the five-star rank which was actually worn and still is by General Bradley? Mr. LALLY. Mr. Stratton, there never was an insignia established for General Pershing's rank. As you say, all he ever wore was four stars. In fact, there is some question as to whether General Pershing was anything more than a four-star general....So far as an insignia, there has never been any established for this rank of General of the Armies.
  • "House Panel to Promote Washington". The Tennessean. Nashville, Tennessee. August 4, 1976. p. 11. One Pentagon expert, having researched his files, said Congress authorized Pershing to design his own uniform and his own insignia without limitation to the numbers of stars that normally distinguish officer grades. Pershing chose to wear the uniform of a four-star general, he said. "But implicit in this," he said, "is that if a General of the Armies wants to wear six stars, he can. Or seven. Or 10, I guess."
  • Oliver, Raymond (August 1983). Why is the Colonel Called "Kernal"?. McClellan Air Force Base, California: Office of History, Sacramento Air Logistics Center. p. 20. As to the question of Pershing being a six-star general, there can be no answer unless Congress creates the General of the Armies rank again and specifies the insignia. Pershing does rank ahead of the Five-star Generals, he comes right after Washington, but he chose his own insignia and he never wore more than four stars.
  • "How many U.S. Army five-star generals have there been and who were they?". U.S. Army Center of Military History. Retrieved December 22, 2020. When General Pershing was appointed General of the Armies, he continued to wear the four stars that he, as well as Generals Tasker H. Bliss and Peyton C. March, had adopted under the provisions of then current uniform regulations, which permitted them to prescribe the insignia denoting their grade. Army Regulations 600-35, Personnel: The Prescribed Uniform, October 12, 1921, and all subsequent editions during General Pershing's lifetime, made no mention of insignia for General of the Armies but prescribed that generals would wear four stars. General Pershing at no time wore more than four stars.
  • If anyone would have known about Pershing wearing gold stars instead of silver, it was George Adamson, who served continuously as Pershing's secretary from 1917 to 1949, when he closed Pershing's office after the general's death. And if ever there was a time to mention it, it was in 1945 when Pershing was in declining health and people were asking if he still outranked the new five-star generals or did he need a sixth star? Yet even Adamson spoke only about the number of stars Pershing should wear, never raising their color.
  • "Pershing's Aide Says General Could Wear Six Stars". Palladium-Item. Richmond, Indiana. April 11, 1945. p. 3. Confusion has arisen over whether General Pershing, who wore four stars when he last appeared in public, is now outranked by the new generals of the army....The six-star proposal was intended to put an end to that confusion. Pershing's aide, Col. G. E. Adamson, told International News Service: "It would be only logical for the general to wear six stars. He should wear six if he wears any at all. He could put on as many stars as he wanted to. He can design his own uniform and always has." But Adamson said he was not pressing the proposal because he thought it "ill-advised." He explained that General Pershing is "quite sick and feeble."
Pershing's coronation uniform
  • In 1937, Pershing was selected to represent the United States at the coronation of George VI and needed something fancy to wear. The Army's classic 1902 full dress uniforms had been discontinued in 1917, so Pershing exercised his authority as General of the Armies to design his own, which is depicted in a 1938 portrait by Leopold Seyffert. Unlike the 1902 uniforms, which embroidered silver stars on the sleeves, the four stars on the sleeves of Pershing's coronation uniform were gold. Mocked by the press for inventing his own uniform, Pershing retorted that he had simply added his current rank to the regulation 1902 uniform, and did not mention the gold stars at all, let alone claim that their color was meant to differentiate the General of the Armies rank from other four-star generals (i.e. the Chief of Staff).
  • "Court Uniform Dates to 1917, Pershing Says". Daily News. New York, New York. April 29, 1937. p. 3. 'The description has been very, very much exaggerated,' he eventually informed the press. It's simply an adaptation of the old Brigadier-General's full dress uniform that I wore 20 years ago. It is just changed to correspond to my present rank. It's a correct regulation uniform.'
  • The General of the Armies was not the only officer allowed to design his own uniform. Current and former Army chiefs of staff could also wear whatever they wanted, per AR 600-40: "All articles of uniform for wear by the General of the Armies, the Chief of Staff, and a former Chief of Staff are such as each may prescribe for himself." Under this authority, Chief of Staff Summerall designed his own full dress uniform to wear at receptions, and Chief of Staff Craig designed another uniform in 1938. Like Pershing's coronation uniform, Summerall's and Craig's self-designed uniforms were merely variants of the 1902 full dress uniform, but unlike Pershing they left their stars silver.
  • Johnson, Hugh S. (April 20, 1937). "Will MacArthur Have 'Peacock' Army Suit?". The Pittsburgh Press. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. p. 2. According to a recent Army order, the General of the Armies (Pershing), the Chief of Staff (Craig), and the Field Marshal of the Philippine Islands (MacArthur), may prescribe and design their own uniforms.
  • Wiener, Frederick B. (November 1945). "Three Stars and Up: Part Five". Infantry Journal. LVII: 51–55. Circular 23 of 1933 introduced a new wrinkle--"All articles of uniform for wear by the General of the Armies, the Chief of Staff, and former Chiefs of Staff shall be such as each may prescribe for himself." This is the authority, incidentally, for General Douglas MacArthur's famous gold-leaf embroidered service cap. This was also the authority under which Generals Pershing, Summerall, and Craig prescribed proper dress uniforms for themselves on the traditional pattern when blues came in again in 1936.
  • Meixsel, Richard (July 2005). "A Uniform Story". The Journal of Military History. 69: 791–800. Army regulations had been modified in 1933 to read "[a]ll articles of uniform for wear by the General of the Armies, the Chief of Staff, and a former Chief of Staff are such as each may prescribe for himself" (see AR 600-40, dated 22 June 1931 and change no. 1, dated 21 July 1933). The 12 February 1938 issue of the Army and Navy Journal included an article about special uniforms worn by the army's senior officer. General Charles P. Summerall, MacArthur's predecessor as chief of staff, had designed a unique uniform to wear at receptions. General Malin Craig, MacArthur's successor, wore a self-designed double-breasted blue uniform jacket, with two rows of gold buttons, the sleeves ornamented with gold leaves and silver stars on black velvet. A lemon-colored sash completed the outfit.

Question

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Can anyone find a pre-2007 source that explicitly says Pershing wore four gold stars instead of four silver stars in order to distinguish General of the Armies from other ranks?

  • As best I can tell, Eguler added this unsourced claim to the John J. Pershing article in 2007, and other editors took it on faith and spread it to the General of the Armies article and beyond. It then appeared in Perrenot (2009), a self-published book on U.S. Army uniforms that embellished the claim without citing an explicit source, making me suspect the author got it directly or indirectly from Wikipedia. Perrenot (2009) appears to be the source for Pershing's entry in Tucker (2014), a World War I encyclopedia that has become a standard reference in the bibliographies of recent academic books like Zabecki (2018) that mention Pershing wearing gold stars. Given this potential Wikipedia (2007) -> Perrenot (2009) -> Tucker (2014) -> Zabecki (2018) provenance, I am looking for any solid source for this story that was written before it appeared on Wikipedia in 2007.
  • In 2016 Billmckern became the first (and so far only) person to bolster this story in the Pershing article with any actual sources. These comprise Perrenot (2009); Tucker (2014); the self-designed dress uniform Pershing wore to the coronation of George VI; and four news articles that mention gold stars in passing but never say that Pershing's stars were gold instead of silver, or that this was a deliberate choice to differentiate the General of the Armies rank. All credit to Billmckern for unearthing even this much; I searched for more, but he has pretty well covered the field, and if this is the best either of us could find, then maybe better sources don't exist because the story isn't true.
  • The 1937 coronation of George VI is the one time Pershing did design a General of the Armies uniform that used gold stars instead of silver, although they were embroidered on the sleeves, not insignia on the shoulders. Pershing insisted this was really just the old full dress uniform that had been discontinued in 1917, and never hinted that the gold stars were meant to distinguish his rank from other generals. However, the pre-1917 uniforms used silver stars, as did the custom full dress uniforms designed by contemporary Chiefs of Staff Summerall and Craig, so on this one occasion a General of the Armies uniform did use gold stars when the comparable four-star uniform used silver. But there is no indication this was a deliberate contrast, and post-coronation descriptions of Pershing revert to silver stars.
  • All the pre-2007 sources I could find that directly address Pershing's rank insignia indicate that he always wore four silver stars on his shoulders, up to and including his funeral. All the pre-2007 debate over the General of the Armies insignia is about the number of stars, never their color. In particular:
  • New Soldier's Handbook. New York, New York, and Washington, D.C.: Penguin Books, Inc. and The Infantry Journal, Inc. 1943. p. 259. The insignia of rank worn by officers on each shoulder loop of the coat, the overcoat, and the olive drab shirt worn without the coat, are as follows: General of the Armies, Four silver stars
  • "Five-Starrers May Not Carry 5-Star Insignia". Daily News. December 17, 1944. p. 55. Pershing made only one change to designate his super-title. In place of the "U. S." customarily worn on an officer's collar, he wears a miniature of the Great Seal of the United States.
  • "In Death as in Life, Pershing Signifies Valor". Long Beach Independent. Long Beach, California. July 18, 1948. p. 12. The great soldier reposed in a simple mahogany casket. His uniform was of old fashioned olive drab. The tunic, open at the collar, was of the type he wore when he retired as chief of staff a quarter century ago. Four silver stars gleamed on each shoulder.
  • Roth, Joseph P. (June 1966). "How High Are The Stars?". Military Review. XLVI (6): 95–100. Contrary to popular belief, this was not designated as a six-star rank, and Pershing never wore any insignia other than the four silver stars of a general.
  • "How many U.S. Army five-star generals have there been and who were they?". U.S. Army Center of Military History. Retrieved December 22, 2020. Army Regulations 600-35, Personnel: The Prescribed Uniform, October 12, 1921, and all subsequent editions during General Pershing's lifetime, made no mention of insignia for General of the Armies but prescribed that generals would wear four stars. General Pershing at no time wore more than four stars.
  • So where did Eguler get the notion that Pershing's stars were gold to begin with? I suspect he noticed the four gold stars depicted in Pershing's official Chief of Staff portrait, contrasted them with the four silver stars in adjacent portraits, and extrapolated a reason Pershing's stars might be different, instead of chalking it up to artist error or artistic license (Pershing's isn't the only Chief of Staff portrait that incorrectly depicts four gold stars).

Bottom line, I think Pershing only ever used four silver stars for his General of the Armies insignia, except for that one time he attended a coronation, and the story that he wore gold stars instead of silver stars is a myth that got inserted into the Pershing article in 2007, back in the Wild West days of Wikipedia before inline citations became standard, and metastasized from there. - Morinao (talk) 07:43, 23 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

@Morinao: The July 3, 1921 edition of the Salt Lake Telegram contains an article I found this morning via GenealogyBank.com which I think is relevant. Elsie Greene appears to have been a columnist who wrote a regular feature called "Utahns in New York" - I found the name and column title several times in searches of early 1920s newspapers. In her July 3, 1921 column, Greene writes of meeting Pershing while on the errand of obtaining a letter in support of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The pertinent passage is "My eyes wandered to General Pershing, caught by the glitter of the four gold stars on either shoulder. He looked exactly like all his pictures, firm, square cut jaw, temples touched with gray, keen but kindly eyes."
I also found the February 23, 1920 article "General Pershing is Welcomed by Cheering Crowds to San Antonio" -- San Antonio Light, also via GenealogyBank.com. The sentence that's on point reads "Except for the added weight, and for the four gold stars which adorn his shoulders, and the overseas decorations, General Pershing appears the same, as when he sat in the southeast room at Fort Sam Houston and directed the Southern Department."
In addition, I found via GenealogyBank.com the article "Pershing in Civvies", which appeared in the August 30, 1921 issue of the Kalamazoo Gazette. The story describes Pershing speaking at a reunion of the 32nd Division. The part I think applies here reads "Asked why the uniform, the gold stars, the Sam Brown belt and the service ribbons were missing, Pershing replied:".
These look to me like explicit references to Pershing wearing four gold stars on his uniform, and they are contemporaneous to Pershing's time in uniform. One is definitely an eyewitness account of Pershing in uniform, one appears to be a firsthand report from someone who saw Pershing in his uniform, and one shows at least that Pershing's insignia was known to be four gold stars.
I disregarded a December 1919 article which was published nationwide. It recounts Pershing's homecoming in Missouri, and indicates that the people of his hometown presented him with a silver loving cup displaying four gold stars. To me it was obvious that if the cup was silver, the stars had to be a different color, so the description of the cup didn't shed any light on this question.
I believe the case is made for Pershing wearing four gold stars after his promotion to general of the armies, that it was known, and that it was reported on when it was a current event, rather than after the fact.
Billmckern (talk) 13:00, 23 December 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Billmckern: Thanks for the quick additional research! I'm going to collapse most of my response so others can skip past it, except to observe that Pershing's uniform coat is at the Smithsonian, dated 1921, and it has four silver stars. So either Pershing had a second coat with four gold stars, the Smithsonian's date is wrong, or these news articles are wrong.
Response to further sources
1) 23 Feb 1920 (San Antonio Light)
Here are four more firsthand reports from people who appear to have also seen Pershing in his uniform in the same time frame (22 Dec 1919, 31 Jan 1920, 5 Mar 1921, 8 Aug 1921), describing four silver stars.
  • "Jefferson Barracks Men Inspected by Gen. Pershing After Welcome at Station". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. St. Louis, Missouri. December 22, 1919. p. 2. He wears the four silver stars of his rank on either shoulder, and the gold ornaments of the general staff.
  • "Commander Of American Army Shown How Warm The Arizona Greeting Can Be". Arizona Republic. Phoenix, Arizona. January 31, 1920. p. 1. The general wore the regular service uniform of a mounted officer and save for the four silver stars on his shoulder, designating the rank of a full general, none of the honors and decorations which have been bestowed upon him by a grateful government and appreciative allies were in evidence.
  • Morgan, James (March 5, 1921). "James Morgan's Story of the Inauguration". The Boston Globe. Boston, Massachusetts. p. 12. Gen Pershing...comes in and arouses the first applause that has been heard. Not a medal, not a ribbon, does he wear on his simple uniform, with its Sam Brown belt and the four silver stars on the shoulder....
  • "General Pershing Visits Hospitals For Service Men". Asheville Citizen-Times. Asheville, North Carolina. August 8, 1921. p. 8. Arriving at Oteen hospital he was greeted by Major Miller and his staff and they were in turn introduced to the only wearer of four silver stars in America.
I'm not trying to play a numbers game, but each of these four accounts seems at least as credible as the San Antonio Light article, so I can only speculate that with so much news coverage of Pershing, occasionally a reporter will get a detail wrong.
2) 31 Jul 1921 (Salt Lake Telegram)
I can't really explain this one, which is indeed an eyewitness account, other than to speculate that since Greene was acting as a socialite presenting a letter and not conducting an interview, she probably wasn't taking notes in Pershing's presence but later reconstructed this account from memory and a civilian's casual grasp of military insignia. Maybe there was a trick of the light, and his stars were tinted gold by the rose-colored glasses she is clearly wearing ("my heart was skipping beats as fast as Carpentier skips the rope", "firm, square cut jaw...keen but kindly eyes").
But I don't think her society column can balance contradictory reports from hard news stories like the ones above, especially from journalists covering a military or politics beat, or more scholarly accounts like the 1966 Military Review article linked in my original comment.
3) 30 Aug 1921 (Kalamazoo Gazette)
Here the reporter was really only asking Pershing why he was wearing civilian clothes instead of his uniform, whose details the reporter could easily have gotten wrong since Pershing wasn't wearing it at the time. Presumably Pershing would have answered the actual question without bothering to correct minor errors in phrasing.
But more to the point, I'm asking for something much stronger than a source that says only that Pershing wore four gold stars as an isolated observation.
I'm asking for a pre-2007 source that says Pershing wore gold stars instead of silver stars specifically to distinguish General of the Armies from other four-star generals, which is the claim to be verified and which is directly contradicted by the sources listed in my original comment.
Failing that, a pre-2007 source that says Pershing wore gold stars instead of silver stars, without saying why. Or even just mentions gold stars and silver stars in the same article, in reference to any general.
Also, I didn't mean to limit the scope to 1919-1924, especially since Pershing was technically on active duty until his death. Anything before 18 Feb 2007 is fair game. - Morinao (talk) 21:14, 23 December 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Morinao: Or Pershing donated a coat he had worn before he was promoted to general of the armies.
"Army Insignia", an article which appeared in Everybody's Magazine for December 1917 (Google Books) indicates that Bliss and Pershing had recently been promoted to full general, and were the only full generals on active duty. The article goes on to state that as chief of staff, Bliss revoked the regulation from the late 1800s that designated the insignia of a full general as an eagle and two small stars, and chose four silver stars as his own. Pershing followed suit, and when March was promoted in 1918, he did too.
I found copies of the Code of Federal Regulations via Google Books for 1939, 1943, and 1944, along with a 1945 supplement. The pre-supplement versions all state that the general of the armies, chief of staff, former chiefs of staff, and full generals may wear whatever insignia they prescribe. The 1945 supplement amends that to say that the insignia for general of the army will be five stars, with four fastened together in a circle and one in the center.
1921's Orders, Decorations and Insignia, Military and Civil by Robert E. Wyllie indicates that full generals were allowed to choose their own insignia, and that the three from WWI - Bliss, March, and Pershing -- all chose four stars. This verifies the Everybody's Magazine article and seems to be in line with the later federal regulations.
The Sun (New York, NY), September 9, 1919. "General Pershing Welcomed Home". Page 2. Via GenealogyBank. "Except for that and for the belt and the four gold stars, his (Pershing's) uniform was indistinguishable from that of other American officers."
"Welcome General Pershing". September 8, 1919. Kalamazoo Gazette. Via GenealogyBank.com. "... General Pershing returned this morning to an official greeting unprecedented in American history. Wearing the four gold stars of a general..."
Via GenealogyBank.com from September 19, 1927, "French Again Cheer Hosts of the Legion", by John Gunther. Omaha World-Herald. "There sat Marshal Foch and General Pershing side by side, Foch in the horizon blue uniform of a marshal of France, and Pershing in khaki, with the gold stars of a general of the United States."
The January 1932 edition of The Elks Magazine (via Google Books) contains the article "The Spirit of Pershing Hall" by Charles S. Hart. In describing Pershing Hall, the American Legion memorial in Paris, Hart wrote "The beautiful grilled gateway of wrought iron and bronze has twin designs of a bronze helmet resting on the hilt of a long sword -- the middle of the blade passing through the Legion seal surrounded by the gold stars, indicative of General Pershing's rank." This appears to me to be an indication that Pershing's use of four gold stars was popularly known.
In 1934, Pershing attended Armistice Day events in France. The Evansville Press (Evansville, IN) for November 11, 1934 includes the article "Armistice Day Finds "Black Jack" in Paris" on page 12 (Via GenealogyBank.com). This article includes this description of Pershing: "His shoulders, which once carried the four gold stars of the American Army, are a bit stooped..."
In 1937, Louis Kornitzer, a prominent London gem merchant, published a book advocating the use of natural pearls and decrying a future in which cultured pearls would be the norm. In describing his experiences in the Philippines, Kornitzer described a time "... when Black-Jack Pershing was earning his gold stars chasing Moros into the hills." At a minimum, this seems to me to be another indicator that Pershing's four gold stars insignia was popularly known.
When the April 1937 stories about Pershing attending the coronation of George VI indicated that he had spent exorbitantly on an expensive, showy uniform (with gold stars) were published, Army officer George S. Clarke, who had served with Pershing, wrote a widely circulated letter to the editor in which he argued that Pershing's uniform was a standard US Army dress uniform such as might be worn by any officer -- including Clarke. Clarke goes on to say that Pershing's only modification was having four gold stars embroidered on each sleeve because they were the insignia of his rank. Here's an officer then serving as a major who also knew Pershing, and he identified Pershing's rank insignia as four gold stars. Rockford Register-Republic (Rockford, IL), May 4, 1937, page 8. Via GenealogyBank.com.
So you're right -- as far as I can tell, it's not explicitly stated anywhere that Pershing as general of the armies chose four gold stars to set himself apart from the full generals who wore silver stars. But I think it's clear that he did have the authority to chose his insignia, and that he did wear four gold stars. I agree that his reason for wearing gold ones isn't explicit, but I believe there's only one reasonable inference -- that he chose gold to set himself off from his contemporaries who were full generals and wore silver.
Billmckern (talk) 01:37, 24 December 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Billmckern: But for most of these, the null hypothesis has to be that when writing the rough draft of history, the journalist just made a mistake.
  • Here are more articles that claim in equally certain terms that four gold stars were also worn by MacArthur, Bliss, March, Summerall, Arnold, Eisenhower, and Stilwell, all of whom were full generals who at the time had the same authority to design their own four-star insignia as Pershing:
Gold stars for MacArthur, Bliss, March, Summerall, Arnold, Eisenhower, Stilwell, Nimitz, Walker
News articles claiming that MacArthur, Bliss, March, Summerall, Arnold, Eisenhower, and Stilwell each wore four gold stars at some point, which they had the authority to do:
  • "General MacArthur". The Tribune. Scranton, Pennsylvania. August 8, 1930. p. 8. But General MacArthur is not the youngest to wear the four gold stars of a full general.
  • "MacArthur the Magnificent". The Evening News. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. March 6, 1942. p. 12. At that, MacArthur could easily have submitted to a certain lionization in Washington society....The four gold stars on each superbly tailored shoulder had been worn by only seven men before him -- Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Pershing, Bliss, March and Summerall.
  • "Like Gabriel, He Heads A Lot of Folks With Wings". The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Brooklyn, New York. January 9, 1944. p. 25. It was a great day for General Arnold when that report came out, probably an even greater day than the one when four gold stars were pinned on his lapel in recognition of the fact that his position on the President's board of strategy was equal to that of General George Marshall, the Chief of Staff, and Admiral Ernest J. King, commander in chief of the U. S. Fleet.
  • "Invasion Boss". The Daily Oklahoman. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. June 6, 1944. p. 26. When the maneuvers were over and scores were totalled, Eisenhower was a brigadier general....And now, at 53, he wears the gold stars of a full general.
  • "Worthy". The Record. Hackensack, New Jersey. August 3, 1944. p. 24. Nomination of Lieutenant General Joseph W. Stilwell by President Roosevelt to the rank of full general will be acclaimed by both civilians and soldiers. Uncle Joe, as his men call him, has earned the four gold stars by fighting with any sort of army and materiel he could raise in Burma and China....Four gold stars on his sweaty shirt are none too much for him.
News articles claiming that Nimitz wore five gold stars and Walton Walker wore three gold stars, which they did not have the authority to do:
  • Clune, Henry W. (May 7, 1949). "Seen and Heard". Democrat and Chronicle. Rochester, New York. p. 31. At the clerk's desk stood a grayhaired man whose resplendent Navy uniform was adorned with five gold stars....The admiral was Chester W. Nimitz....
  • Hamilton, Andrew (October 24, 1954). "An Author Bows". The Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, California. p. 63. As a Navy public information officer, I served on the staff of Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz at Pearl Harbor and at Guam....The admiral always dressed in freshly laundered khakis, shirt sleeves cut off at the elbow and a tiny ring of five gold stars on his open collar.
  • "Walker Dies on Way To Decorate Son". The Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Corpus Christi, Texas. December 23, 1950. p. 1. Walker, commanding general of the U. S. 8th Army...died wearing the three gold stars given him by Lt. Gen. George Patton, with whom he fought across Europe in 1945.
Taking these at equal face value as the Pershing articles, I could infer that Arnold chose to exercise his authority to design his own insignia by using four gold stars to identify himself as an air general, as distinct from the four silver stars of a land general. Or I could infer that Eisenhower took two uniform coats to D-Day, and wore the coat with gold stars around some people and the coat with silver stars around others.
Or I could weigh the great mass of competing news articles, biographies, and other historical literature that say the stars were definitely silver, and conclude these reports of gold stars just got the color wrong.
  • Pershing's uniform coat in the Smithsonian lists an "associated date" of 1921, meaning that's when it was in use, not when it was donated. So he was wearing four silver stars for at least part of his tenure as General of the Armies. The Pershing estate donated his uniforms to the Smithsonian in 1948 ("Pershing Will Provides Trust Fund Of $150,000 For Sister". Arizona Republic. Phoenix, Arizona. July 22, 1948. p. 3. Uniforms and other military equipment not specifically bequeathed go to the Smithsonian Institution.).
  • It's not clear to me that when Clarke says Pershing's coronation uniform had four gold stars embroidered on his sleeve as the insignia of his rank, that Clarke includes the gold color in the rank, as opposed to just the number of stars. One could equally say that a modern Army general has four black stars embroidered on his camouflage uniform as the insignia of his rank.
  • Pershing's coronation uniform coat is also in the Smithsonian, and its stars are definitely gold. I am not disputing that at all. What I am disputing is that we can make any inference about why the stars are gold.
Maybe Pershing forgot to specify that the stars were supposed to be silver, and the tailor just embroidered them gold like everything else on the uniform.
Maybe Pershing's expensive tailor made a mistake, but Pershing liked the look enough to let it slide.
Maybe Pershing wanted to change all dress uniform ranks to gold as part of the Army dress uniform redesign that was underway at the time, but then when he came back from the coronation he discovered they were still using silver stars.
Maybe Pershing did pick gold over silver to distinguish General of the Armies from other generals, but just didn't publicize it, even though it defeats the whole point if no one knows about it.
Without an affirmative statement one way or another, we can't rule out any of these speculations. All we can say is that in 1937 Pershing exercised his authority to design a General of the Armies uniform that used four gold stars to denote his rank, and leave it at that.
- Morinao (talk) 08:05, 24 December 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Morinao: Other GOs wearing gold stars adds a wrinkle I had not considered when I was researching this question. Now I'm wondering whether Pershing consistently wore gold or silver depending on the circumstances, or consistently wore gold. I'll keep looking into it and see if I can find anything useful.
Billmckern (talk) 12:55, 26 December 2020 (UTC)Reply
@Morinao: Today I read through this Congressional hearing record. It concerns the Bicentennial-related effort in 1976 to designate Washington as General of the Armies of the United States, a higher rank than General of the Armies (Pershing) and General of the Army (Marshall, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Bradley) with a date of rank so early that Washington would always be considered the top-ranking officer in the Army.
In the discussion about insignia between Congressman Sam Stratton of the Armed Services Committee and Committee Counsel John F. Lally, Lally indicates that no insignia was designated when Pershing was promoted to General of the Armies in 1919, and that Pershing always wore four stars. There is no mention of them being gold or silver, and no mention that Pershing saw a need to differentiate himself from the Army's other full generals. In fact, Lally says that while Congress passed a law promoting Pershing to General of the Armies, Pershing's commission continued to read "General". Could this be taken as an additional indication that Pershing did not differentiate himself from the Army's other full Generals?
Billmckern (talk) 17:26, 2 January 2021 (UTC)Reply
There are two general factors in how I determine if a rank insignia is considered established. 1) Did Congress set a law indicating what the rank insignia should look like? If the first is not applicable, then 2) Did the service(s) create, set, and adopt their own regulation for the rank insignia. Since neither of the two happen have any WP:Verifiable source that indicates that there is or was such a law, or there is or was such a past regulation. Or, if either of which were later amended or removed from law and/or regulation, then the rank insignia is not established.
Could this be taken as an additional indication that Pershing did not differentiate himself from the Army's other full Generals? Yes it could, but we can't put that in the article, as it would be considered WP:Original research on our part, since there is no additional congressional testimony or documentation that we have found that supports this theory, so this should be considered as mere conjecture on our part as contributors. We've already establish that the rank, outranks all other ranks past and present, so while your question could have been true during Pershing's era, it could/can no longer be the case, due to Public Law 94-479 establishing its seniority. Therefore, under Wiki guidelines, the gold stars insignia should not be included in the article as an established rank insignia. However, I would support adding a section regarding the debate of the insignia with the above sourcing information cited, but it should also be noted in that section, that there is no official rank insignia. Neovu79 (talk) 18:56, 2 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Billmckern: In that 1976 hearing, Lally is almost certainly drawing on the 1970/71 Wiener articles, which made a big to-do about how Pershing's commission saying only "General" was evidence that Pershing only held a four-star rank. I don't think this is actually good evidence one way or the other, because news articles did point out that his title was wrong right after the commission was issued in 1919 (e.g. Army and Navy Journal, 20 September 1919). Pershing himself had nothing to do with its wording, since War Department staffers just filled in a blank commission and it was handed to him when he stepped off the boat from France.

Admittedly, Pershing apparently never had his commission reissued with a corrected title, even after he became chief of staff. But he could have thought it just wasn't worth the effort to correct, like a university diploma that people just hang on the wall and don't even read, but then they make very sure to update their business cards (i.e. insignia of rank) with their latest degree. So I think there are many reasons to think Pershing didn't differentiate himself from other generals, but his commission isn't one of them.

(I also don't think Pershing would have thought he needed to differentiate his rank before 1929, when the Army chief of staff got the rank of general again. In 1919, Bliss and March were still emergency generals, but they were about to either revert to major general or potentially be promoted to General of the Armies. Either way, there wasn't going to be a competing four-star rank to differentiate.) - Morinao (talk) 23:49, 2 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Morinao: @Neovu79: - Neovu, I don't believe I said anything about including anything in any article. I've just been sharing the results of my research here because I thought we were trying to figure out what happened and develop a consensus.
Billmckern (talk) 00:29, 3 January 2021 (UTC)Reply

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There are 5 talk pages for this article that have been archived as of this posting. While they all invariably contain multiple, lengthy discussions that are related to this topic, (some directly, others more obliquely), I did a cursory search for "gold" and only found two discussions that make references to "gold stars". See; Archive 4#Legislative history and Archive 5#OF-11, O-12. Also, there is mention of Pershing's "gold stars" on the Six-star ranks in the U.S. armed forces talk page. Dunno if these will help at all, but thought I'd mention it anyway. Lastly, for anyone getting involved in this discussion, it may be worth your while to do quick scan through these archives as well. FYI - wolf 09:08, 24 December 2020 (UTC)Reply

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