[1][2][3] He attended Ohio Wesleyan University and Pennsylvania's Washington and Jefferson College, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

[15][16][17] At the beginning of World War I he was Chief of Staff at the Newport News, Virginia port of embarkation, and was one of only twelve Army officers to earn the Navy Cross.

In 1918 he went to France as a member of the American Expeditionary Force staff and, after the war was assigned to the port of Brest, where he was responsible for coordinating the A.E.F's return to the United States, for which he received the Distinguished Service Medal.

[31][32][33][34] In September 1941 Van Voorhis was administratively reduced in rank to major general and reassigned as commander of Fifth Corps Area, where he remained until reaching the mandatory retirement age of 64 in October 1942.

General Van Voorhis died at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. on January 9, 1956, and was buried in Zanesville's Greenwood Cemetery.