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?

-

[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.

-

[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]

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?

-

[samgrant]

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.

Good, another one.

Jesse L. Reno:

Major General, USV 07-18-1862 (Posthumously)

Don't see how that put's him a 'candidate' for the distinction. Thanks, for naming him tho, he was apparently a great fellow and a "soldier's soldier".

( Hopefully you are not confusing him with the Jesse Reno who invented the escalator! )

-
-

[Dred]

Absolutley it does. If a general gets promoted and retires 6 months later, and another general gets promoted but retires a year later, the one with the 1 year in rank would outrank the other if they were called back for duty, regardless of the promotion date. The date of promotion still matters IF they are both still in service, but once one of them leaves, the other begins to "catch up" to his senior.

[Freddy]

Good, another one.

Jesse L. Reno:

Major General, USV 07-18-1862 (Posthumously)

Don't see how that put's him a 'candidate' for the distinction. Thanks, for naming him tho, he was apparently a great fellow and a "soldier's soldier".

( Hopefully you are not confusing him with the Jesse Reno who invented the escalator! )

-
-

I checked at least six sites and all of them put his promotion to Major General in July of 1862 and he died three months later on September 14 at the Battle of South Mountain. Someone may be confused but it is not I. From wikipedia:
"In 1892, Jesse W. Reno, son of American Civil War General Jesse L. Reno, and an 1883 engineering graduate of Lehigh University, patented the "notable Endless Conveyor or Elevator."

[samgrant]

Yes another posthumous USV, 18 July 1862, but that still puts him behind these, I think:

Sedgwick 07-04-1862
Kearny 07-04-1862 (posthumously)

Just for fun, I'll challange you about the elevator; Jesse W. Reno was responsible for the escalator (that scourge of acrophobiacs like myself), not the elevator.

Now I can't use this nugget in a WBTS Trivia game, nuts!
-

[cw1865]

What about Sumner?

[cw1865]

If I recall the movie correctly, I think in Shaka Zulu, the two British officers who are defending the position against an assault have a minor seniority dispute at the beginning of the film. They held the same rank but went back to date of commision.

Does it matter how long you're a major general here or how long you've held a commision (even as a lieutenant) in the army?

Is this rule written down somewhere?

[PINCKNEYUSMCRET]

Back a long long time ago if I recall the Marine Corps Manual pretty much spells it out that if you have two folks of the same rank then the one who has the senior date of rank is senior. There are exceptions, but time and tequila have dimmed my memory.

Pinckney

[Dred]

Its called Time in Grade. They did the same thing in the Air Force, and I'm sure all other military branches. It's only been ten years, I haven't had as much tequila as Pinckney

And if your time in grade happens to be the same, they would go by time in service, your sign up date. And if that was the same, its alphabetical, and if thats the same they go by age. So by that point, unless you had Siamese twins born through a C-section then seprarated successfully and were able to get into the military at exactly the same time and receive promotions to the exact day, They got pretty much everything covered.

[ole]

The movie was Zulu and one of the officers was the first appearance of Michael Caine. Stanley Baker was the engineering officer and it depicted a particularly heroic stand at Rorke's Drift. And Baker's character did have a date of commission a few days earlier than Caine's.

ole

[ole]

Forgot what I was going to post. Seems that a posthumous promotion hardly qualifies a dead general to be included in the "highest ranked."

ole

[cw1865]

The movie was Zulu and one of the officers was the first appearance of Michael Caine. Stanley Baker was the engineering officer and it depicted a particularly heroic stand at Rorke's Drift. And Baker's character did have a date of commission a few days earlier than Caine's.

ole

If I remember correctly Caine's charachter comes across as highly aristocratic and we're supposed to get a chuckle over the fact that the engineer (who gets his hands dirty) outranks him!

[Freddy]

Yes another posthumous USV, 18 July 1862, but that still puts him behind these, I think:

Sedgwick 07-04-1862
Kearny 07-04-1862 (posthumously)

Just for fun, I'll challange you about the elevator; Jesse W. Reno was responsible for the escalator (that scourge of acrophobiacs like myself), not the elevator.

Now I can't use this nugget in a WBTS Trivia game, nuts!
-

The "Notable Endless Conveyor or Elevator," is the original name for the escalator. Not sure when the name "escalator" was first used.
Jesse W. Reno "produced the first working escalator (he actually called it the "inclined elevator") and installed it alongside the Old Iron Pier at Coney Island, New York in 1896."

Reno, Nevada was named in honor of Brevet Major General Jesse L. Reno.

[gary]

There's also a distinction between Maj. Gen. of Volunteers and Maj. Gen. of Regulars.

[samgrant]

What about Sumner?

The unfortunate Sumner disqualified himself for this dustinction by dying of pneumonia on 21 Mar. 1863.

Mag. Gen. USV 5 May 1862

Brig. Gen USA 16 Mar. 1861


-

[Dred]

There's also a distinction between Maj. Gen. of Volunteers and Maj. Gen. of Regulars.

This is the part I don't understand, probably because today's military is totally voluntary. I mean, how many regular army were there in the civil war anyways, like 10?