One the Union Corps Commanders in 1865, graduated from West Point in 1862. Name was something McKenzie.
Nathan Bedford Forrest enlisted as a private in the Confederate States Army in July 1861, was promoted to lieutenant colonel (!) that October, and was a lieutenant general by Feb. 1865. Gotta be some kind of record.
In wartime the military has more people in uniform and promotions come faster for qualified people. I was in the Air Force during VietNam and made Staff Sargent in 3 1/2 years. In peactime it would take 5 - 7 years. That is just the way it is.
Was going to mention Custer’s rapid rise, instead, will offer up a couple points of interest.
I remember seeing this Bill Mauldin cartoon in a book about the air war in Europe.
It’s the second image down, our GI Joe, Willy, meets his very young nephew, the USAAF Colonel.
If you scroll down, there’s another cartoon captioned “Ya might hafta catch a boat. One of them kids ya chased off th’ field wuz the pilot.”
For example:
35,313 male officers were killed in combat from 7 Dec 41 - 31 Dec 46.
21,915 of those officers were branched Air Corps. That’s about 62% of all officer casualties.
Infantry had the next highest loss of officers, 8584 officer deaths in combat, about 24% of all losses.
The next chart down lists losses by grade.
Looking at 112 Colonels killed, if the percentages above hold true, then the USAAF lost about 70 and the infantry lost about 27.
It is easy to see that during WWII one could rapidly make field grade positions in the USAAF while the officer slots being opened by combat deaths in the rest of the Army were pretty much at the platoon and company level only.