(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
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Robert Lee Bullard was born on January 15, 1861 and was the eleventh of twelve children and second son of Daniel and Susan (Mizell) Bullard, was born on January 15, 1861 on his father's homestead near Opelika, Lee County, Alabama. He was christened William Robert, but changed his name as a boy in honor of the Confederate general. His father was a North Carolinian of Scottish and English ancestry; his mother, the daughter of a Methodist circuit rider, was of Georgia Huguenot stock. They were pioneer settlers in eastern Alabama, where Daniel Bullard raised cotton, sold cotton gins, and speculated in farm land.
Education
Robert, a shy and sickly youth, was educated by his family and a series of temporary schoolmasters. He attended the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama (later Auburn University) for one year.
In 1881, having won a competitive examination, he entered the United States Military Academy at West Point. The Civil War had given him romantic notions about soldiering, but his immediate motive was to finish college without going into debt.
He later graduated from the Army War College in 1912.
Career
Bullard's academic record at West Point was undistinguished, and after graduating in 1885, twenty-seventh in a class of thirty-nine, he was assigned, like other low-ranking graduates, to the infantry. For most of the next thirteen years Bullard served with the 10th Infantry, chiefly in the Southwest.
Weary of frontier duty and disturbed by his stagnant career (he was still a first lieutenant at thirty-seven), Bullard arranged a transfer to the Commissary Department in 1898 as a captain. During the Spanish-American War, with the temporary rank of colonel, he commanded the 3rd Alabama Regiment, made up of black volunteers, and later the 39th Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which engaged in guerrilla and open warfare in the Philippines in 1900-1901 and won a reputation for aggressiveness and determination in the face of sickness and the Filipinos' stubborn resistance.
The regiment's qualities were those of its colonel. When his regiment was mustered out, Bullard stayed in the Philippines as a commissary, but arranged a transfer back to the Infantry in 1902 at the rank of major, thus "jumping" more than a hundred of his peers in seniority. To silence his critics, he volunteered for more combat service against the Moros on Mindanao, where he served as a battalion commander and district governor until 1904.
Between 1906 and 1909 he was an official in the provisional government of Cuba, then under army occupation; in 1911 he went into revolutionary Mexico to search for Japanese naval bases.
After graduating from the Army War College in 1912, he was promoted to colonel and picked by Chief of Staff Wood and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson to command the 26th Infantry. Bullard made this regiment combat-ready during the Mexican civil war, and in 1915 it helped keep the peace in the lower Rio Grande Valley.
The following year he commanded a brigade of National Guard regiments from Louisiana, South Dakota, and Oklahoma, mobilized for service on the Mexican border. His militiamen found Bullard demanding, but a personable officer with little taste for formality and an appetite for polo, hunting, and field training.
In June 1917, after American entry into World War I, Bullard was promoted to brigadier general--a rank for which he had lobbied for fifteen years--and was placed in command of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Division. He accompanied the division to France, where General John J. Pershing soon made him commandant of the infantry officer specialist schools of the American Expeditionary Forces as major general (August 1917). In December Pershing gave him the command of the 1st Division; its successful attack on Cantigny in late May of 1918 demonstrated for the Germans and the Allies the offensive ability of an American division. Bullard was an able and popular commander. He gathered an exceptional group of officers around him, including three future Chiefs of Staff, and his ability to speak French helped him to get along with his French superiors.
In July 1918 he assumed command of the III Corps. During the summer this unit took part in the Aisne-Marne counteroffensive along the Vesle River, battering the Germans, who finally retreated in early September. Bullard then led the III Corps into the Meuse-Argonne sector, where they again fought creditably. Promoted to lieutenant general, Bullard took charge of the Second Army in October, shortly before the Armistice.
His role in the war won him the Distinguished Service Medal and several foreign decorations. Returning to the United States in May 1919, Bullard became commanding general of the II Corps area at Fort Jay, Governors Island, New York, where he served until his compulsory retirement in 1925.
After his retirement he sought to promote public interest in military affairs through lectures, articles for the Hearst press, and the work of the National Security League, of which he became president in 1925.
He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the Fort Jay Hospital in New York City and was buried in the Military Academy Cemetery at West Point.
Achievements
Bullard built his military reputation on his ability as a field commander of citizen-soldiers, his loyalty to both his superiors and his subordinates, and his thorough knowledge of troop morale, logistics, tactics, communications, and administration. Among his accomplishments: participation in the Geronimo Campaign, the Philippines, Cuba, and service on the Mexican border. He also commanded First Division, III Corps and Second Army, AEF, during the First World War. He was typical of the largely anonymous but talented officers who ended their careers as generals in the American Expeditionary Forces.
His other major achievement after he retired from the military service was that he became president of the National Security League from 1925–1947. Pennsylvania Military College recognized his contribution to ongoing Army preparedness by awarding him a doctorate of military science in 1924.
Bullard also participated in the so-called “Battle of the Memoirs” and was an author of "American Soldiers Also Fought", which he published in 1936. Bullard’s memoir supported Pershing against criticism from Chief of Staff General Peyton March (1864–1955) that the AEF commander acted too independently of the War Department. Bullard also supported Pershing against criticism from Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) and David Lloyd George (1863–1945) over Pershing’s demand that the AEF act as an independent army.
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Religion
Reared as a Methodist, he had in 1901 become a convert to Roman Catholicism, the religion of his first wife.
Views
A dogged nativist and isolationist, conservative in his philosophy, he was a strong critic of the New Deal; in 1935 he suggested that the Communists were using the relief system to undermine the United States.
Personality
Tall, slender, athletic, patrician in appearance, Bullard was a popular speaker.
Interests
Bullard was fluent in French and often served in joint United States–French operations.
Connections
On April 17, 1888, at Fort Wingate, New Mexico, he married Rose Douglass Brabson, daughter of a Tennessee congressman and stepdaughter of an army surgeon. They had four children: Robert Lee, Peter Cleary, Rose, and Charles Keith.
His first wife died in 1921, and on Augut 24, 1927, he married Mrs. Ella (Reiff) Wall, a widow from Philadelphia. They had four children: Robert Lee, Peter Cleary, Rose, and Charles Keith.
Father:
Daniel Bullard
1811–1897
Mother:
Susan Mizell Bullard
1818–1881
Sister:
Sarah Bullard Richards
1845–1937
Sister:
Clarence Bullard
1863–1919
1st wife:
Rose Douglas Brabson Bullard
1864–1921
Sister :
Emma Bullard Davis
1851–1940
Sister :
Elizabeth Bullard Williams
1841–1915
Daughter :
Rose Bullard Bellinger
1894–199
2nd wife:
Ella Wall Reiff Bullard
1870–1963
Son:
Robert Lee Bullard
1891–1955
Son:
Peter Cleary Bullard
1892–1972
Brother:
Daniel W Bullard
1857–1937
protege:
Leonard Wood
General
He became a protégé of General Leonard Wood. In the decade prior to World War I, Bullard sought varied and challenging service which enhanced his reputation.
