Highest Ranking Union Officer Killed

[samgrant]

I came across an article which said that "so-and-so" was the highest ranking Union officer killed in the war.

Thinking this may be a cream-puff question for our WTBS Trivia Game, I proceeded to research it.

Well, just by Googling "highest ranking union officer" with "killed", I found 4 four generals for which this distinction was claimed! (Could have been more had I not stopped looking at the many responses. ?) All four are well known names, so it's no trick. I tried and tried to find a definitive answer, but was defeated!

Cases can be made for each of the four that I found (I'm not gonna tell you), involving such matters as: dates of rank, Regular Army vs. Volunteers, position of command at the time killed (ie. commanding an Army vs. a Corps), etc.

So I open this question for discussion. Let the quibbling begin.

Who was the highest ranking Union officer killed in the Civil War?

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[Dred]

Well, without looking anything up, McPherson comes to mind. He was commander of AoT when he was killed outside Atlanta. Major General I think? He was relativley newly promoted tho.

[OpnDownfall]

The highest rank in the Union Army was Maj. Gen. until Lincoln revived the rank of Lt. Gen. for Grant.
I think more than one Maj. Gen. was killed during the war, so, presumeably, it would be the one with the earliest date of rank. Whoever that may have been.

[ole]

Wasn't Reynolds a major general?

Specifically, the brigadier general commanded a brigade and the major general a division or more. So if you were a corps or army, department or regional commander, you were still a major general, presumably drawing major general's pay.

I would expect that Grant got a significant boost in pay with his promotion to Lieutenant General. I would also suspect that his family, as large as it was, was living quite comfortably on his major general's pay.

Things were quite different then tnan now. Instead of buying a 52" TV, the surplus was invested.

Well. I've lost where this was going so will cancel out.

ole

[Dred]

did a bit of research. Seems Sedgewick was a Major General as of July 1862 while McPherson recieved his in October 1862, so technicaly Sedgewick was higher ranking even at the time of McPherson's death.

However, since Sedgewick was "merely" a corps commander and McPherson was in charge of an entire Army, it could be said that McPherson's loss affected a more significant gap in the over all chain of command. Not that losing a corps commander isn't bad, but losing an army commander could throw the entire battle into chaos. Just look at how bad Hooker's incident effected the AoP at Chancelorsville. Altho, if Hooker was killed instead of just dazed they would have immediatley had somebody else giving orders instead of waiting for him to snap out of it. Might have been better outcome if he was killed!

[samgrant]

Doing the Google search I described above and adding the last name of those I found, here are the number of hits:

James B. McPherson - 200
John F. Reynolds - 77
John Sedgwick - 9
Philip Kearny - 7


Dates of Major General, USV:

McPherson 10-08-1862
Reynolds 11-29-1862
Sedgwick 07-04-1862
Kearny 07-04-1862 (posthumously)

Dates of Brigadier General, USA:

McPherson 08-01-1863

Dates of Brigadier General, USV:

McPherson 05-15-1862
Reynolds 08-20-1862
Sedgwick 08-31-1862
Kearny 05-17-1862

(dates from Civil War High Commands, Eicher+Eicher)

So it remains to be seen whether McPherson's claim might be attributed to his position of command at the time he was killed, or his Regular Army rank.

Warner, in Generals in Blue, does not address the question.

In the Eichers' book, they state that Sedgwick was "The highest ranking Union battle casualty."

But, if it was Reynolds, by virtue of his senority as Maj. Gen. USV?, then why not Kearny who officially had the same date? (Because it was posthumous?)

Doing a search substituting "most senior union officer" for "highest ranking union officer" returns only Sedgwick.

Turned out to be not such a cream-puff question.

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[Dred]

One thing to take into consideration was what the date of promotion was as it corelates to when they were killed. If Gen. Sedgwicke was killed on July 5 1862, he would be a lower ranking general, having only held the rank for 1 day at time of death, then if Mcpherson was killed 2 days after his promotion. even tho McPherson was not yet a Major General on the day Sedgewick died.

In other words, who held the rank longer before he was killed?

[Freddy]

Here is another candidate.
On July 12, 1862, General Jesse Reno was promoted to Major General and given command of the IX Corps. Reno was killed at South Mountain on September 14, 1862.

[Dred]

Sedgwick; Promoted 7-04-1862 killed 5-09-1864 2 months less than 2 years in rank

McPherson; Promoted 10-08-1862 killed 7-22-1864 3 months less than 2 years in rank

Reynolds; 11-29-1862 killed 7-1-1863 not even 1 year in rank

So between McPherson and Sedgwick, But I never understood the differene between regular army and volunteers. You're stil in the army, you are stil that rank , but either way it looks like Sedgwick wins! some prize lol

[samgrant]

Originally Posted by Dred

One thing to take into consideration was what the date of promotion was as it corelates to when they were killed. If Gen. Sedgwicke was killed on July 5 1862, he would be a lower ranking general, having only held the rank for 1 day at time of death, then if Mcpherson was killed 2 days after his promotion. even tho McPherson was not yet a Major General on the day Sedgewick died.

In other words, who held the rank longer before he was killed?

I guess you are suggesting that the length of time an officer held a rank as opposed to the date of rank, determines his seniority?

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