Biography/History:

John George Quekemeyer was born in Yazoo City, Yazoo County, Mississippi, on August 31, 1884. He was the son of George H. and Elizabeth Agnes (Housman) Quekemeyer. After graduating from high school in Yazoo City in 1901, Quekemeyer attended the University of Mississippi for a year. He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1902. After graduation, he served in the United States Army as a second lieutenant in the Fifth Cavalry; a first lieutenant in the Thirteenth Cavalry; and a captain in the Seventh Cavalry. After being stationed in Arizona, Colorado, and Hawaii, Quekemeyer was chosen as a member of the United States Army polo team. However, an injury prevented him from competing in the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden.

Quekemeyer was an assistant military attaché to the United States embassy in London in 1914. He returned to Washington, D.C., to serve as liaison officer for the British Military Commission to the United States in 1917. Quekemeyer was next transferred to Fort Niagara, New York, where he was an officers’ training camp instructor. He was appointed to the Graves Commission that was sent to England and France by the War Department to investigate training facilities and to prepare for the arrival of the American Expeditionary Forces in 1917.

On May 1, 1918, Quekemeyer and George Catlett Marshall became aides-de-camp to General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces. Quekemeyer was soon promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and then to the rank of colonel (temporarily). He served in The Hague, London, Paris, and Rome, and he was wounded in the Argonne Forest in France in September of 1918. At the close of the war, Quekemeyer’s rank was reduced to that of major, and in July of 1925, he was appointed as secretary of the American delegation to the Tacna-Arica Plebiscitary Commission, which was headed by General Pershing, to settle border disputes between Chile and Peru. Quekemeyer was then selected as one of the commandants at West Point, but he died of pneumonia on February 28, 1926, before he reached his post. He was buried in Glenwood Cemetery in Yazoo City.

Scope and Content:

This collection contains personal correspondence of Quekemeyer, November 27, 1904–September 2, 1925 (folders 1–38); correspondence between Quekemeyer and Lt. Paul Kelly, aide to Major General William Lassiter, July 29, 1925–January 26, 1926 (folders 39); news clippings (folder 40); post cards and pictures (folder 41); telegrams, 1914–1919 (folder 42); an efficiency report, July 1, 1922 (folder 42); a proclamation, March 2, 1926 (folder 42); lectures delivered at the Army War College, Washington Barracks, Washington, D.C., November 11, 1922–June 28, 1923 (folders 43–49); and lectures undated (folder 50).