Johnson Hagood was born near Columbia on June 16, 1873. His forebears had been planters in Barnwell County, South Carolina, for many generations.

He was the son of a private soldier, Lee Hagood, who at the age of sixteen ran away from home to join the Confederate Army. A brother of Lee’s, Johnson Hagood, fought with conspicuous gallantry as a Brigadier throughout the Virginia campaigns and after the war became Governor of South Carolina. Another brother, James R. Hagood, who enlisted at seventeen, earned a citation from General Robert E. Lee before his nineteenth birthday: “During the whole time of his connection with the Army of Northern Virginia he was conspicuous for gallantry, efficiency and good conduct. By his merits and strength exhibited he rose from private in his regiment to its command, and showed by his action that he was worthy of the position”.

Johnson Hagood’s boyhood dreams were about being a soldier, a Confederate soldier, in gray uniform. The great traditions of the Confederate Army in the War Between the States and his close family connection with prominent actors in that great drama undoubtedly affected him profoundly. His impatience with meaningless form, both on parade and in correspondence, the simplicity and directness of his approach in all matters of administration, leadership and training, and the pithiness and vigor of his language mark him as one of the great descendants of the Elizabethan tradition whose final flowering was in the South of 1860.

Entering West Point from South Carolina in 1892 he graduated with the Class of ‘96, a class including future Generals of World War I, such as Holbrook, Dennis Nolan and E. L. King.

Graduation was followed by routine small post assignments where Johnson Hagood was called upon for initiative, responsibility, and decisiveness, even though on a small scale. At this early part of his career he showed his inventive genius and imaginative and perceptive qualities. At Fort Monroe he invented numerous items of Coast Artillery fire control equipment and developed techniques of artillery application that were adopted by his Corps.

During this period he married on December 14, 1899, Jean Gordon Small, the daughter of James H. Small, Esquire, of Montrose, Scotland and Charleston, S. C., and Charlotte Whaley of Charleston.

Undoubtedly some of the most important and formative years of General Hagood’s career were those spent in Washington between 1905 and 1912. As a young captain and major, he was Administrative Assistant. Aide-de-Camp, and in charge of all Army legislation for generals Bell and Wood, distinguished Chiefs of Staff. He occupied a desk in General Wood’s office and was present at practically all the high-level conferences there. This association early in his career with problems of the highest magnitude, and participation in making far reaching policy, contributed much in developing the breadth of vision so characteristic of him.

He was secretary and treasurer of the old Army and Navy Club of Washington. He was a leading figure in planning the new club; his signature is on the bonds of its original financing and the present club is still referred to as “the house that Jack built”.

His Washington service was followed by command and staff assignments overseas in the Philippine Islands. It was here that he first observed General George C. Marshall as a First Lieutenant and was on the Department Commander’s Staff when General Bell named George Marshall as a worthy successor to Robert E. Lee in military annals.

Later Captain Marshall served as Lieutenant Colonel Hagood’s Adjutant in one of the first Civilian Military Training Camps, in Salt Lake City in 1916, and Colonel Hagood reported his staff assistant officially to the Department as qualified to command a Division or Corps at that time. This bold and generous attitude toward his juniors was a marked characteristic of General Hagood throughout his career.

When World War I broke out Colonel Hagood organized and commanded a Heavy Artillery Regiment assembled at Fort Adams near Newport, Rhode Island. He conducted this command overseas and was in France when he was called to the first great and independent responsibility as a general officer.

He was selected and directed by General Pershing to plan and organize the line of communications and service of supply for the American Army in France. All his past experience and his exposure to the influence of great military leaders and administrators of the pre-World War I era were now brought to focus in the execution of the task General Pershing imposed upon him. The nomination which placed his name before the Commander-In-Chief stated: “... the most important of any of those in the organization of the A.E.F. To satisfactorily carry out this work it requires a man who has had general staff training, administrative training, and duty with troops. All this experience Colonel Hagood has had. He has served twice on the General Staff, commanded the Artillery Defenses at Puget Sound and Corregidor Island, was Artillery Officer on the staff of the Commanding General, Philippine Division, and in addition has been Assistant to the Chief of Coast Artillery. General Wood, General Murray, and General Weaver considered Colonel Hagood as one of our best all-around officers. He can bring outstanding service attainments to bear on the problem”.

After serving brilliantly as General Harbord’s Chief of Staff for the Services of Supply, he (now Brigadier General Hagood) entered Germany after the Armistice in command of an Artillery Brigade. He returned to the United States in the spring of 1919.

The two decades following World War I saw General Hagood first as a Brigade Commander and a Division Commander in the Philippines, and later as a Corps and Field Army Commander in the continental United States. He commanded in succession the Fourth, Third and Second Armies. He also authored The Services of Supply, We Can Defend America. Soldier’s Handbook and numerous articles in “The Saturday Evening Post”, “Colliers” and other national magazines.

His administration and leadership were characterized with brilliance, bluntness, and a great impatience for unnecessary routine and red tape. He was famous for his annual report to the Secretary of War which consisted of one line, “Nothing to report”.

Retiring in 1937 after over forty years’ service, General and Mrs. Hagood eventually settled in their native South Carolina, Charleston, with its small walled garden and ancient tiled roof. Here they were in the midst of family and friends and were visited year in and out by their children and grandchildren.

General Hagood’s death on December 22, 1948 was an occasion of mourning throughout the city and state. His place in the hearts of Charleston and South Carolina is best set forth by the following editorial appearing in “The News and Courier”:

“Able soldier that he was, Johnson Hagood was more than a skillful practitioner of the military profession. He was an independent thinker, a man of originality and common sense, a man who would have stood head and shoulders above his fellow in many another field.

“He was a gifted writer, and his books leave a record that some day may startle researchers of an era when ballyhoo too often has supplanted competence. As an administrator, he had a healthy disregard for red tape and meaningless ceremony. No parade ground martinet, he used the same practical approach to military science that a business executive adopts for civilian production and marketing. This faculty for pinpointing a problem and then solving it in the most efficient way made him outstanding as chief of the service of supply for the American Expeditionary Force in World War I.

“Between World wars, he held responsible commands in the army, and preached his theory of quick and simple training for soldiers. He used to say that all a soldier needed to learn was how to shoot and how to march in an orderly manner from one place to another. Nephew of a Confederate general, he had an inbred regard for the natural ability and resourcefulness of American youth, especially Southerners. His knowledge of men was penetrating. He understood and sympathized with people of all conditions and races, and he counted friends by the hundred in every walk of life.

“His sense of humor never failed. Despite personal tragedies and official disappointments, he harbored neither bitterness nor grudges. Even the sensational episode that terminated his army career was accepted in stride. When relieved of his command for calling W.P.A. appropriations “stage money” (it was an illustration of his pungent diction as compared with the ordinary service jargon), he maintained a dignified silence. His record vindicated with reassignment to another important command, he immediately retired from the army.

“Deeply patriotic and fully aware of the true historic strength of America, General Hagood was neither a jingoist nor a flagwaver. He was the friend and sometimes mentor of famous soldiers in a warlike age. The equal or superior of some whose names now are household words, he might have filled their shoes but for the quirks of fate.

“One of South Carolina’s most illustrious sons, General Hagood was the kind of man who helps to make a country great. Throughout the world, and particularly in his home city of Charleston, thousands who knew him as commander or as friend will remember him with pride and admiration so long as they live.”

His children were Jean Gordon, Kathleen, Johnson Hagood, Jr., and Francesca. His widow and two children survive him.

General Hagood’s son, Colonel Johnson Hagood, Jr., of the Class of 1931 at West Point, commanded a Regiment of Heavy Artillery with distinction in Africa, Italy and France during World War II. Colonel Hagood retired from the Army for physical disability after the cessation of hostilities and is now associated with the Creole Petroleum Company.

His daughter, Jean Gordon Hagood, is Mrs. James L. Holloway, Jr., wife of the Superintendent of the Naval Academy.

General Hagood’s grandchildren are: Robert and David Gambrell, Sue Hagood, Lieutenant J. L. Holloway, III, U.S.N., and Mrs. Lawrence Heyworth, Jr., wife of Lieutenant Heyworth, U.S.N. (the former Jean Gordon Holloway). He also leaves two great-grandsons.

General Hagood particularly loved and was beloved by little children. He possessed strong family loyalties, and held blood ties in all the significance indigenous to his southern inheritance. Perhaps his most charming book is Meet Your Grandfather, a family anthology written with the great humor and charm so characteristic of him.

J. L. H.