The commission preferred Pershing's diagram, and thus by a single point he won the competitive examination and received the appointment.
When, however, Pershing and his sister informed their mother that he had passed the best examination and was to receive the appointment to West Point, she expressed her strong disapproval of the plan to make a soldier of John. Her objections were finally overcome, and she consented, partly because she believed her boy when he said "there would not be a gun fired for a hundred years" and partly because she was even more eager than he for him to obtain a good education.
Thirty years afterward General Pershing himself wrote: "The proudest days of my life, with one exception, have come to me in connection with West Point days that stand out clear and distinct from all others. The first of these was the day I won my appointment at Trenton, Missouri, in a competitive examination with seventeen competitors. An old friend of the family happened to be at Trenton that day and passing on the opposite side of the street called to me and said, 'John, I hear you passed with flying colors.' In all seriousness, feeling the great importance of my success, I naively replied in a loud voice, 'Yes, I did,' feeling assured that no one had ever passed such a fine examination as I had."
The Highland Military Academy.
United States Military Academy, West Point, N. Y.
In spite of his success, however, Pershing was not yet ready to take up the strenuous course in the Military Academy. The work is severe and only the fittest are supposed to survive. He must have a more careful preparation in certain branches, he decided, and accordingly entered the Highland Military Academy, Highland Falls, New York, in which he continued as a student until the following June (1882). The head of the school was sincerely loved and deeply respected by his boys, and in after years General Pershing usually referred to him as "splendid old Caleb"—for "Caleb" was the title the students had bestowed upon Col. Huse.
In the military school Pershing's record is much what one who has followed his development in the preceding years would expect it to be. He was an earnest, consistent student, doing well and steadily improving in his work, without any flashes of brilliancy. He was moving not by leaps but steadily toward the education he was determined to obtain.
Those who recall him as a pupil at Highland say that he is best remembered for his physical strength and his skill as a horseman. Doubtless he had had training and experiences which were outside those which many of his classmates had shared.