Peyton Conway March was an American Army officer who, as chief of staff from 1918 to 1921, reorganized and streamlined the War Department, in order that the United States could make an important contribution to the Allied military effort.
Background
Peyton Conway March was born on the 27th of December, 1864 in Easton, Pennsylvania to Francis Andrew March and Mildred Conway March. His father was a college professor and is regarded as the principal founder of modern comparative linguistics in Anglo-Saxon. His mother descended from Thomas Stone, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and was Moncure D. Conway's sister.
Education
Peyton March attended Lafayette College, where his father occupied the first chair of the English language and comparative philology in the United States. After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1884, he was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point and graduated in 1888, ranked 10th in a class of 44.
Career
Peyton Conway March gained prominence during the Spanish-American War as commander of the privately raised Astor Battery during the Battle of Manila. From 1901 to 1917, March received various assignments as a battery, battalion, and regimental commander; his staff tours included that of a military observer with the Japanese First Army during the Russo-Japanese War.
A forceful and decisive officer, Colonel March in April 1917 was chief of the Eighth Field Artillery Regiment, and three months later was sent to France in the grade of brigadier general to command the artillery brigade of the First Division. In August 1917, he was promoted to the grade of major general and still later that year appointed head of all artillery for the American Expeditionary Forces. During the winter of 1917-1918, Secretary of War Baker came under intensive fire from Congress for alleged inadequacies in his office's logistical efforts, and the secretary appointed March acting chief of staff on March 4, 1918, in order to allay such fears and suspicions, two months later March was officially appointed army chief of staff. The new chief inherited a staff of fewer than twenty officers in April 1917, by November the General Staff had swelled to more than 1,000 members.
March introduced grand reforms for his office, weekly press conferences became routine, training at the Point was reduced to one year for the duration of the war, the special branches of Air Service, Tank Corps, and Chemical Warfare Service were created, the distinctions between Regular Army, National Guard, and National Army were abolished, and March succeeded in elevating his position to that of the highest-ranking officer in the army and the immediate military adviser to the civilian authority. At the end of his term as U.S. Army Chief of Staff in 1921 March retired as a major general, though he earned a promotion to general in 1930 while retired. March published The Nation at War in 1932 as an answer to Pershing's criticisms of the War Department (a veiled indictment of March) in his memoir My Experiences in the World War.
Achievements
Membership
While at Lafayette College, Peyton Conway March was a member of the Rho Chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon and Phi Beta Kappa. He was a member of General Staff, Society of the Cincinnati (Virginia) Descendants of Signers of Declatation of Independence, Army and Navy Union.
Connections
Peyton Conway March was married to Josephine Smith Cunningham. They had three daughters, Mildred, Josephine and Vivian. Josephine had a twin brother, named Peyton Jr. who died ten days after their birth. March's second son, also named Peyton, Jr., was killed in a plane crash in Texas during World War I.