Brigadier General vs. Brevet Major General...

Mike Serpa

Major
Joined
Jan 24, 2013
1) Who would rank higher, a 100% real, genuine, bona fide Brigadier General or a temporary, interim Brevet Major General?

2) Who would rank higher, a U.S. Army Brigadier General or U.S. Volunteer Army Brigadier General?
 
Mike, for question one in terms of who could tell whom to do what, the Brevet MG could give orders to the bona fide BG. I think Eric gave a good explanation of the Brevet or temporary rank in another thread earlier. The Army has done this during times when an expasion was necessary. Eisenhower for most of WWII was a RA full colonel, iirc, but he wore temporary 3 and 4 stars and gave orders to men who were actual regular army BGs and MGs. In some cases it did not go smoothly.

Your second question is very similar to a Reserve General today v a Regular Army General. If they were both on active duty it would be a question of date of rank, not source of rank. Think of Sickles in the ACW.

It is confusing and can cause real, operational problems but usually gets worked out unless the personalities involved are too big.

Good questions and I hope my attempt at an answer helped.
 
To confuse things a little here is Eisenhower ' s history of military rank.it is a little confusing just as was the case in the ACW.Here it applies to regular army or Army of the U.S.
Permanent rank Lt.Col. may 1939
Col. Army of the U.S......3/11/41
Brig.Gen. Army of the U.S......9/29/41
Maj.Gen. Army of the U.S.......3/27/42
Lt.Gen. Army of the U.S.....7/7/43
Gen. Army of the U.S......11/2/43
Maj.Gen. Regular Army....8/30/43
General of Army of U.S.....12/20/44
General Regular Army.....11/19/45
General of the Army.....4/11/46
So I hope this confuses you more but alot of it had to do with giving him complete control because things were difficult with Monty, Patton, DeGaule. And others.
 
Actually, there is one slight correction that needs to be; a brevet should have meant essentially nothing as far as seniority went unless the officer was assigned to duty at their brevet rank, i.e. unless that brevet major general happens to be holding a position that a major general should be holding. If not, then both men are mere brigadiers, and seniority is established only by date of their respective commissions. If both men are commanding brigades, and the man without the brevet happens to have an earlier date on his commission as a brigadier general, he remains the senior unless or until someone gives the brevetted officer a division. The regulations were, unfortunately a bit vague on this point, in that they mentioned some specific exceptions to this rule, but that was theoretically how it was supposed to work.

By the same token, there is nothing "interim" or "temporary" about a brevet; it was a permanent honor to recognize an officer's service. They were so permanent that when Paymaster General Andrews was offered a brevet brigadier generalcy after the war, he rejected it outright, because he'd already been given that exact brevet nearly twenty years earlier for his service in the Mexican-American War as colonel of the Regiment of Voltigeurs.

Since the US had no military medals of any kind until the Medal of Honor was authorized in December of 1861, brevets were just about the only award given, which is why around 8,000 of them were eventually issued for Civil War service. However, it is worth noting that this whole thread is entirely hypothetical, because it was unlikely the above situation ever came up, because of those 8,000 brevets, fewer than 100 were issued during the war.

The point about Eisenhower may seem complicated enough, but at least by World War II, brevets had been removed from the regulations for twenty years. In the Civil War, there are many men who appear to have held four ranks simultaneously - substantive and brevet ranks in both the regular and volunteer armies. Realistically, almost all of them had at least one brevet that was actually issued post-war (any brevet dated March 13, 1865 was actually issued sometime between 1866 and 1869), but it still makes for messy rank histories.

I can, however, think of one (non-general) officer who did hold four simultaneous ranks, albeit very briefly before succumbing to the wounds that prompted his final brevet. Arthur Henry Dutton, Colonel of the 21st Connecticut volunteers, was West Point graduate who held a commission as an engineer Captain in the regular army, his rank as Colonel of Volunteers, and after being mortally wounded at Proctor's Creek on 16 May 1864 but before succumbing to his wounds on 5 June, he was brevetted a Colonel in the regular army and a brigadier general in the volunteers, both from the date of the battle.

Edit: I found one other example of an officer who held four simultaneous ranks: Rufus Saxton, who was a regular army captain from 13 May 1861 and a brigadier general of volunteers from 15 April 1862. Additionally, he was brevetted brigadier general in the regular army from 9 April 1865 and major general of volunteers from 12 January 1865.
 
Last edited:
1) Who would rank higher, a 100% real, genuine, bona fide Brigadier General or a temporary, interim Brevet Major General?

The Major General.

2) Who would rank higher, a U.S. Army Brigadier General or U.S. Volunteer Army Brigadier General?

There is no difference, whichever was promoted first.

Lets discuss what a brevet is; it is a *real* and permanent promotion to that rank in the *army*. However as regiments have fixed establishments of officers the regiment/ corps does not (and indeed usually can't) promote within the regiment. Rather than thinking of a brevet as a higher rank it is more useful to think of it as the officers real rank, and that they're acting down to a lower rank.

Take for example a regiment in the field under the command of a Lt Col, whose 2i/c is a Maj with two brevets to Col. When the regiment is on its' own the Lt Col is in command; however if brigaded with another regiment also under a Lt Col then seniority is an army, not regimental, matter. The Maj (Bvt Col) is senior and assumes command of the brigade.

In the case of a brevet major general and a brigadier general, they can't be on "regimental" business by definition. Ergo the brevet is essentially meaningless as the general can't ever not be acting in that rank.

As to volunteer/ regular rank, they were identical with the only difference being the permanency of the regular rank.
 
Rank has always been quite confusing for me. I mean, why have two streams of rank? I suppose, once the war is over and most of the men muster out nearly everyone who remained in the army would be ranked a general of some sort! Just seems like it would be a blow to be a general with general responsibilities and power during war time but then go back to being a major or something during peacetime...I was good enough to be a general during a time of actual conflict but during peacetime I'm just a scrub :frown:
 
By two streams of rank, are you distinguishing between the volunteer service and the regulars?

Volunteers were expected to serve only for the duration of the war. Regulars remained in the army post-war. Custer is a ready example. Major General of Volunteers but a Lt. Col. in the cavalry. Reading about the post-war army reallly shows how many "generals" were later just Cols or Lt. cols in the post war army. 0

Maj. Gen. of Volunteers Regis de Trobriand post-war became a colonel.
 
I think one of the best examples of this type of confusion is Custer. He is often listed as one of the youngest Generals in the Army and it is often noted that he achieved that rank by being promoted directly from Captain to Brig. Gen shortly before Gettysburg. There is no doubt that just at the week before Gettysburg he was a Captain, but was treated and commanded as a Brigadier General the following week. I don't recall references to him after that point as "Captain Custer" and while Brevet may have been an honorary rank in lieu of other recognition those receiving the rank had no trouble announcing to the world that they were of that rank. Custer would never have announced himself as "Brevet General" and the papers of the day would not have referred to him that way either.

Keep in mind that NOBODY goes to "Honorary" Colonel Sanders Chicken :sneaky:

If you look at his listed dates for rank here (near the bottom of the Wiki page) you will find the following:

Second Lieutenant, 2nd Cavalry: June 24, 1861
First Lieutenant, 5th Cavalry: July 17, 1862
Captain Staff, Additional Aide-De-Camp: June 5, 1862
Brigadier General, U.S. Volunteers: June 29, 1863
Brevet Major, July 3, 1863 (Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania)

Captain, 5th Cavalry: May 8, 1864
Brevet Lieutenant Colonel: May 11, 1864 (Battle of Yellow Tavern - Combat at Meadow)

Brevet Colonel: September 19, 1864(Battle of Winchester, Virginia)
Brevet Major General, U.S. Volunteers: October 19, 1864 (Battle of Winchester and Fisher's Hill, Virginia)
Brevet Brigadier General, U.S. Army, March 13, 1865 (Battle of Five Forks, Virginia)
Brevet Major General, U.S. Army: March 13, 1865 (The campaign ending in the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia)

Major General, U.S. Volunteers: April 15, 1865
Mustered out of Volunteer Service: February 1, 1866

Lieutenant Colonel, 7th Cavalry: July 28, 1866 (killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, June 25, 1876)​

It can a bit confusing to follow all of that so I broke it down into a grid to divide it between US Army regular, US Army Brevet, US Volunteers and US Volunteers Brevet.

Note that he has two listings as Captain in the US Army. One was a an Aide-De-Camp under McClellan and the other was a regular promotion. This would have mean that he would have reverted back to 1st Lt. after McClellan's departure and may have actually gone straight from 1st Lt. in the regular Army to Bvt. Brig. Gen. in the US Volunteers.

A few other interesting things to note:

He was given a Brevet Brigadier General and Brevet Major General on the same day.
He was promoted directly from Regular US Army Captain to Major General with no stops in between.

cruster_rank.jpg
 
When you talk about Honorary Colonel Sanders but my primary care doctor has on his wall a proclamation from the State of Alabama that he is an "Honorary Colonel in the Alabama state Militia and it is signed by Gov. GEORGE Wallace.
 
When you talk about Honorary Colonel Sanders but my primary care doctor has on his wall a proclamation from the State of Alabama that he is an "Honorary Colonel in the Alabama state Militia and it is signed by Gov. GEORGE Wallace.

:giggle: Nobody made more off an honorary title than Sanders. If you ever see images of him from his very early days he is in working clothes (much more appropriate for a kitchen that is pressure cooking chicken) no signs of the goatee or white suit and cane. He knew how to make the most out of something that others have taken as a lark.

BTW the first "Center for Civil War Photography's - Image of War Seminar" at Gettysburg we were travelling on the bus back from a day touring the battlefield. Garry Adleman was providing commentary. As we approached one intersection he said "...and if you look straight ahead you will see where Colonel Sander's made his last stand..." You can still view the spot today here on Google Earth Street View. :wink:
 
Nice table, however the entry for Maj. Gen. is wrong; as the substantive rank from April 15, 1865 should be in US Vol. and not US Army.

Thanks! It was a struggle to put together something that made sense. I checked each one twice and still missed this. I have corrected the grid.

That actually makes more sense now as I remember reading years ago that one of the reasons that he mustered out was that when the Army started reverting back to the "non Brevet" ranks following the war that Custer did not want to drop from a Major General to a Captain and that ultimately returning as a Lt. Col. was acceptable (although probably not by much) to him.
 
Back
Top