But Beauregard still has to be given a command large enough to accomodate his full general's rank. That will only clog up commands and prevent others from being promoted. The Federals, by virtue of keeping their generals restricted to brigadiers and majorities, created a situation which allowed them to promote Grant to lieutenant general over men who previously had been his seniors.
I suppose it depends on your idea of "large enough". Look at what Beauregard historically got. "The Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida." sounds more impressive than it really is - at least in terms of being somewhere you want your developing men. The main problem with a department that large is that he got more of Georgia - despite being essentially only responsible for defending the coast - than Bragg wound up with - despite being responsible for keeping the state from being invaded. But that's Davis's failure in deciding what turf the Army of Tennessee's department had.
Also, as for the Federals - let's look at Rosecrans.
Rosecrans's date of commission as a Major General was August 21st (1862) when he was given command of the Army of the Cumberland (Fourteenth Corps).
One stroke of a pen later...
The date of Rosecrans's commission as a major general is now March 31st.
Its like magic.
So if it really was necessary/desirable to do it, it was doable. Davis - presumably - had the same option (subject to a considerably less cooperative congress, of course, but that's another problem entirely).
So being able to promote Grant to Lieutenant General and nearly avoid the seniority question was a clean way to do it, but not the only way to do it.
One thing that ought to be noted, however.
As part of studying alternate organization for the Army of Northern Virginia as part of my what-if project involving the Gettysburg Campaign, I'm struck by something.
Who of the men who could be promoted do I actually feel I would promote as of mid-May 1863? What brigadiers have actually inspired faith that they can command divisions?
Maybe I'm too cautious about that judgment. But the fact remains that its not good enough to be open to promoting people as a guideline of how to do it. You also need people capable of stepping up.
Finding those people is hard. Division command is going from commanding 1,000-2,500 men to 4,000-10,000.
A corps is at least two divisions in size and usually three. And its a lot larger a leap than it sounds.
I agree that less "recycling" would have helped bring out some promising canidates. But no army in the war was consistently filled with good men at corps and division command.
Bringing the