Wood was bypassed for a major command in World War I, but then became a prominent Republican Party leader and a leading candidate for the 1920 presidential nomination.

Born in Winchester, New Hampshire, Wood became an army surgeon after earning a Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard Medical School.

Several Republican leaders supported Wood for the role of commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I, but the Woodrow Wilson administration selected John J. Pershing.

Biographer Jack Lane sums up his importance: Wood played a significant role in shaping many of the United States's major developments in the early twentieth century: progressivism, expansionism and colonialism, military reform, preparedness and American intervention in World War I, and the election of 1920.

[2][3] His family was of English descent, and Wood was descended from Mayflower passengers William White, Francis Cooke, Stephen Hopkins and Richard Warren.

[8] Wood tried unsuccessfully for an appointment to the United States Naval Academy and considered going to sea on an Arctic expedition or as a commercial fisherman.

[8] With the assistance of a relative, Wood was introduced to wealthy businessman H. H. Hunnewell, a philanthropist who had provided college tuition for other promising young men.

[11] According to Hunnewell, who considered his financial support to young men attending college loans and not grants, but did not attempt to obtain repayment, Wood was the only beneficiary who ever paid him back.

[8][12] Wood worked diligently and consistently improved his class standing to the point where he earned a scholarship that provided additional financial support for his studies.

[14] He interned at Boston City Hospital, but was fired near the end of the year for exceeding his authority by conducting surgical procedures without supervision.

[16] In 1885, he completed the examinations for a commission in the Army Medical Corps, attracted to the military by the possibilities for immediate employment and a regular salary.

[20] In 1898, Wood received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the 1886 Geronimo campaign, including carrying dispatches 100 miles through hostile territory, and commanding a detachment of the 8th Infantry Regiment whose officers had been killed in hand-to-hand combat against the Apaches.

Awarded for Actions During: Indian Campaigns Service: Army Unit: 4th U.S. Cavalry Date of Issue: April 8, 1898[24][a] In late July 1886, Wood's appointment was confirmed and he received his commission as a first lieutenant.

[23]: 29  In 1892, he was part of a contingent of Presidio soldiers that traveled to Benicia Barracks to assist units of the California National Guard during the conduct of their annual training encampment.

In a report to Washington in 1900, he outlined that Cuban stability would be reached when "money can be borrowed at a reasonable rate of interest and when capital is willing to invest in the island.

[50] Wood received criticism for his command of U.S. Marines during the First Battle of Bud Dajo in March 1906, during which hundreds of women and children were killed.

[52] At Wood's instigation, Governor-General Henry Clay Ide reported that the women and children killed were the result of collateral damage from artillery fire, but that there had been no massacre.

[53] Some of Wood's critics accused him of being a "glory hound" for ordering Marines to storm the dormant volcano crater where the battle took place instead of besieging the Moro encampment.

[51][54][55] Due to the backlash over Bud Dajo, Wood resigned as governor of Moro Province in April 1906 and was succeeded by brigadier general Tasker H.

[58] Wood was named Army Chief of Staff in 1910 by President William Howard Taft, whom he had met while both were in the Philippines; he is the only medical officer to have held the position.

[61] The three divisions he created did not last, but the overall result of his reorganization was the recognition that decentralization, which continued under his successors, enabled streamlined planning and decision making, which facilitated operations and training as the army began to prepare for U.S. entry into the war.

[62] As commander of the army's Eastern Department for the second time, Wood was a strong advocate of the Preparedness Movement, led by Republicans, which alienated him from President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat who pursued an isolationist and pacifist foreign policy.

[63] Wood made speeches and wrote articles to advocate preparedness and in 1915 a collection of these works were published as a pro-preparedness book, The Military Obligation of Citizenship.

[66] Funston died of a heart attack in February, leaving President Woodrow Wilson to choose from among the army's six other major generals.

[31]: 371  While on an inspection tour of the Western Front in January 1918, Wood was slightly injured by shrapnel from a US mortar round that exploded during a test.

[70] The major candidates were Senator Hiram Johnson of California, a progressive who opposed U.S. involvement in the League of Nations; Governor Frank Orren Lowden of Illinois, who supported women's suffrage and Prohibition, and opposed U.S. entry into the League of Nations; and Wood, whose military career made him the personification of competence and ties to Theodore Roosevelt earned him the backing of many of Roosevelt's former supporters, including William Cooper Procter.

[71] The college granted him a leave of absence before he assumed the position, enabling him to carry out a one-year appointment as Governor General of the Philippines.

[76] Wood was serving in Monterey, California, in 1888 when he met Louise Adriana Condit Smith (1869–1943), who was vacationing with her uncle and legal guardian, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Johnson Field.

[89] In January 1941, the newly constructed Seventh Corps Area Training Center in Missouri was designated Fort Leonard Wood.