For reasons not clear, after the American Revolutionary War, the United States Army discontinued the use of the Lieutenant General and General of the Armies ranks that had been held by General Washington. Although the Lieutenant General position theoretically existed, no one was promoted to that category until Grant. Full General (four stars) followed after the war for Grant, if I understand the history correctly. Sherman followed him in that rank. After Sherman, Lt. General was discontinued, and Sheridan was made full General and Commanding General of the United States Army. After Sheridan, the full General slot was again discontinued, and the Commanding General was the highest ranking Major General in the Army (starting with John McAllister Schofield).
Schofield was promoted to Lt. General in 1895, reviving that rank again. Later that year, he retired from the position of Commanding General, and the position was held by Major Generals until it was abolished in 1903, to be replaced by the position of Army Chief of Staff. The first three such Chiefs were Lt. Generals, whereupon the rank again languished until the First World War.
So, you can see, up to the period of the World Wars, in America, the tradition was that the most you had hanging around when a major war wasn’t going on was the Major General; no one is quite certain why.
This question is addressed in the Wikipedia article on General of the Armies. In short, it is impossible to answer because the titles are totally honorary, not ever held by a person on active duty, and, in the case of Washington, granted VERY posthumously (1976!). Given that it appears intended that Washington’s “rank” should be considered to be senior to any possible appointment, I believe his honorary title should be considered a different position, with seniority above that which Pershing held, which was only “General of the Armies.” But until we manage to inflate ranks to where 6-stars are ever issued to someone on active duty, we may never know.
Oh well sure…if I READ things, I’m likely to be able to answer all sorts of questions without looking stupid. But apparently today I just wanted to do it the hard way. :smack:
I assumed that it was just because until the World Wars, the US Armed forces were only rarely large enough to warrant three and four star generals, though I suppose it’s possible you could have had a bunch of two-stars hanging around organizing themselves based on seniority and position “OK, Jim, you’ve been a Major General for three years, right? I’ve been a Major General for three and a half years, so I guess I get to be in charge.” “Sounds fair, Sir, but Bob has only been a Major General for a year and a half, so he gets to pick up the dry cleaning. Sound fair, Bob?” “… Yes, Sir.”
Re post #21, dealing with general-officer ranks at the time of the Civil War. Winfield Scott was promoted to Lt. General in 1856, the first man since Washington to hold that rank. Though enfeebled by age and illness and unable to take field command, Scott continued in active service as what would today be considered Army Chief of Staff through 1861, devising the general strategy by which the North eventually won the Civil War, then retired at the end of the year due to ill health.
There is some question as to where the rank held, one at a time, post-war, by Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan stands – between four and five stars, equal to five stars, or between five stars and Pershing, and there is some question as to whether Pershing’s rank is the same as Washington’s. There is no doubt that Pershing’s and Washington’s ranks are more than five stars, and there is no doubt that Washington outranks Pershing, but it is possible that he does so only by seniority, and not by having an intrinsically higher rank.
By the way, Nimitz would have been promoted to six-star rank if the war had continued.
Actually, on an organizational level, the US Civil War definitely rated full four-star generals at a minimum, and perhaps one or two fives. But the US was reluctant to create higher ranks out of a vague fear of aristocracy.
And to follow up on an earlier comment, Washington, Scott & Grant were styled “Lieutenant General” w/o there being any senior general above them, because by that time that term had already become just the name of the rank, rather than a job description.
It should be noted that the promotion was a brevet promotion, though it did of course honor him quite highly even so. Scott had been Commanding General since 1841, quite a feat.
I was under the impresion that there could only be one five star general and only during war and the title is General of the Army, regardless of the holders original branch of service.
Never heard any rumor that anyone would or could receive a sixth star. How about a cite?
Also, how does limiting generals to five stars assuage “vague fear of aristocracy”?
Well, during WWII, there were a bunch of 5 star generals and admirals, including one that the Air Force claims as its own, though he retired before the Air Force became it’s own thing. Pershing outranked any of the 5 star generals, though he wore 4 stars on his uniform (they never designed a 6 star insignia to go with the rank).
As for limiting generals to 5 stars, I dunno. But the case in point was limiting generals to two stars during the Civil War. At the same time, the highest a Naval officer could hope for at the time was one star.
I think what he meant by “higher ranks” was just the ranks above major General, not ranks higher than General of the Army; and the thing is the early American republic just had this whole notion of avoiding large standing armies and the possible evolution of a military “class” that could develop its own power base: that led to keeping the regular military very small and careers in the service a slow-advancement proposition in peacetime. Thus, nobody above MG, only a handful of those in peacetime, and most wartime promotion being brévet (temporary) ranks. With time (and the personnel requirements of modern industrial warfare) the system got over it.
Before WW2, “General of the Army” was a title that was used for Grant, Sherman and Sheridan when they held the 4-star post, but they were what we would call a 4-star “full” General ; however, in their case it WAS limited to only one on active duty at any given time, and it went along with what we would now call the Chief of Staff post. As mentioned earlier, Blackjack Pershing was made “General of the Armies of the US” outranking everyone else around, but never wore anything but the 4-star insignia.
What we know today as 5-star General of the Army as an actual distinct rank rather than just the top general at a given time, came in WW2, creating an operational peer to a UK or Soviet Field Marshal. Unlike the post-Civil War GoA, there CAN be multiple 5-star GoAs at the same time, and the rank does not confer any post ex-officio in the service’s structure. Eisenhower, MacArthur, Marshall, Arnold and Bradley all were GoA simultaneously. Similarly there were 4 simultaneous 5-star FADM (Leahey, King, Nimitz, Halsey)(*). It *IS * only awarded to officers holding or having held wartime command of theatrewide or global multi-ally operations. The holder of the rank never goes into the retired reserve list (Ike had to resign his commission, NOT retire).
(* Nominally, even senior to Fleet Admiral is the title of “Admiral of the Navy of the US”, which has only been used for one person, Admiral Dewey. Hap Arnold, meanwhile, took his 5 stars with him to the Air Force when that service spun off from the Army and was styled “General of the Air Force”.)
The full story about Nimitz being considered for six-star admiral I cannot immediately find outside of Wikipedia and derivatives. However, there is no doubt that the rank was seriously considered by Congress during the war; a 1944 issue of Time goes into it, albeit at an earlier time, when the rank was being considered for C/S King.
