Small armies make for many generals in the fact that they get killed off. That and if you are the government you can call even marginally definable leaders a general. Heck, even Quadadfi is still only a colonel!
Full Generals by Seniority of the Confederate States Army
1 Samuel Cooper 16 May 1861
2 Albert Sidney Johnson 30 May 1861
3 Robert E. Lee 14 June 1861
4 Joseph E. Johnston 4 July 1861
5 Pierre G. T. Beauregard 21 July 1861
6 Braxton Bragg 6 April 1862
7 Edmund Kirby Smith 19 Feb. 1864
8 John Bell Hood 18 July 1864
I don’t know what is meant by “full generals,” but this is only a fraction of Confederate generals I’ve read about. Where are Jubal Early, Ben McCulloch, Earl van Dorn, Sterling Price, etc?
I’m looking for anyone who carried the “general” title, full or not.
The attached bibliography gives the title for one book:
“Generals at Rest: The Grave Sites of the 425 Official Confederate Generals,” book by Richard Owen
Good grief. It’s hard to believe the Confederacy had 425 generals–425! Sure, many may have been of brevet rank, but good lord that is a lot of generals, isn’t it?
BTW, BobT, I was using “generals” generically, as does the author above.
The civil war saw the Union and Confederate armies become the largest (in the western world) and most powerful (anywhere). By the end, they had half a million men in uniform. It took a lot of generals to organize, run, and lead those men.
And considering that at the time, if you were a citizen with the time/cash to raise and outfit a Volunteer Regiment you could be made a Colonel (or LTC) off the street, so to speak, you really, really needed those generals.