Talk:General of the Armies

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[edit] image

Question has been raised regarding the image on this page. The Institute of Heraldry published this image and there are corresponding documents from 1945 that this was the suggested insignia if the rank had ever been reestablished. Documents from the National Archives (of which I am an employed historian) support this claim.


Then you will presumably have no problem providing a cite to the relevant documents in the National Archives? -- The Anome 08:52, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Douglas MacArthur

The documents from General MacArthur's service record, discussing six star rank, are in St. Louis, Missouri. They can be requested under the Freedom of Information but you would have more luck going to College Park, Maryland which has extensive material on both Chester Nimitz and Douglas MacArthur and the proposal for a six star rank during the Second World War. The image which is apparently such a controversy was published by the Institute of Heraldry some years ago. Its no longer on thier website since, as stated in the article, it was a conjectural insignia and was never made official.

The websites for the National Archives are:

http://www.archives.gov/facilities/md/archives_2.html

http://www.archives.gov/facilities/mo/st_louis/military_personnel_records.html

You can also call 314-801-0800 which is the customer service number for St. Louis

[edit] US Grant

The General of the Armies
Said "I think that war is barmy"
So he threw away his gun
Now he's having lots more fun

Wasn't US Grant made a six star as General of the Armies during the Civil War? Tomtom 1509est 15 June 2004

He was made General of the Army which was considered a title. His actual rank was Lieutenant General -User:Husnock 15 Jul 2004
And even that was controversial; Grant was the first lieutenant general since Washington. But the intent was the same: to make it official that he outranked everyone else in the Army. But
"By order of senority, it was decided that General Pershing (still living when the rank of General of the Army was created in 1944) would be senior to all the newly appointed General of the Army officers. Thus, Pershing has become considered a six-star general in that he was superior to all five-star generals."
doesn't follow -- Pershing could have been considered a five-star and he'd still have had 25 years' seniority over all the WWII five-stars.
True, but being a rank higher would be more of a symbolic gesture.
--wwoods 03:52, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

"The appointment was not considered a promotion to six star general, but rather a symbolic promotion that made Washington the senior United States military officer. By Presidential Decree of President Gerald Ford, it was proclaimed that George Washington would always remain senior and could never be outranked by another officer of the U.S. military."

I have trouble understanding the above excerpt from the article. If the promotion was merely "symbolic" then Washington's actual rank would be Lt General. Then the statement "could never be outranked by another officer of the U.S. military" would be false because there have been many generals higher than Lt General.

Didn't President Ford have the authority to promote officers? If so and if nobody has legally challenged the promotion, then woudn't it make Washington's promotion to "General of the Armies" legal( or official or at least de facto). Or did President Ford state that he intended the promotion to be merely "symbolic"?

The Bill promoting Washington to General of the Armies was very lengthy and a part of the tremendous celebrations that were occurring in 1976 as part of the bicentennial. Washington is regarded actually as three ranks. 1) Commander-in-Chief from the Revolutionary War, 2)Major General from his recall during the French-Quasi War, and 3)General of the Armies posthumously promoted in 1976. So, if you get technical, his rank is General of the Armies since thats the last one he held, albeit after he was dead. The thing about him being senior to every other officer was part of the bill promoting him, giving Washington the honor of beocming the senior most officer of the US military, past present and future. -Husnock 07:30, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge request

A user has requested that this be merged with General of the Army. This is a separate (although seldom used) rank from General of the Army (also seldom used). Considering the notability of the two recipients, John Pershing and George Washington, I feel this should stay as a separate article.--Rogerd 01:25, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree - what is really neaded is a cleanup of General of the Army of the United States, making a distinction between 'General of the Armies, General of the Army of the United States, and General of the Army (if there is a distinction. I think the difference is that General of the Army was the name given to the 5-stars of WWII, whereas General of the Army of the United States was the name given to those during and following the Civil War, and both are now considered to be equivalent ranks (5-stars). Yet the General of the Army of. the United States makes referance to both the WWII Generals and to Washington and Pershing, as well as to the Civil War Generals
The rank General of the Armies is entirely separate from General of the Army. The first is a special rank held by Pershing and Washington (and almost by MacArthur). It is considered senior to the rank of General of the Army verified from several sources. The merge notice on this article should be removed, although the articlew General of the Army of the United States should indeed be merged with General of the Army (USA) -Husnock 17:17, 28 September 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Proper Name

Is the rank "General of the Armies" or is it "General of the Armies of the United States" ? -unsigned 30Oct05

It is referred to in general usage as General of the Armies. The full title of the rank is General of the Armies of the United States. The article reflects this in the opening paragraph. -Husnock 07:11, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] why isnt washington first?

he is the more importnat of the 2 if you ask me. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.73.203.108 (talk • contribs) 10:23, April 1, 2006 (UTC)

He may have been the more important, but did not achieve the rank until after Pershing, poshumosly in 1976 by President Ford --rogerd 16:24, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Generals of the Army?

Shouldn't the plural of "General of the Army" be "Generals of the Army"? All other titles containing multiple words (i.e. Secretary of Defense, Chief of Police) are plurilized this way (i.e. Secretaries of Defense, Chiefs of Police). "General of the Armies" would seem to be the appropriate pluralization if it reffered to a general of more than one army, wihch it does not.

  • It does refer to more than one army in the grammatical sense, but we shouldn't get to technical about it all -in any event, it doesn't refer to more than one general - Washington was not a "Generals of the Army" as there was only one of him, but when refering to the seperate rank of General of the Army it would be proper to speak in the plural, like "MacArthur and Eisenhower were both Generals of the Army". - Matthew238 03:09, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
  • General of the Armies refers to the fact that the United States Army consists of several Armies, i.e. U.S. First Army, U.S. Third Army, U.S. Fifth Army, etc. Theoretically each of these might be commanded by a General of the Army, and the commander of the entire United States Army would be commanded by the General of the Armies. Since 1903, we have had the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, which was only filled by someone holding the General of the Armies rank, Pershing from 1921 to 1924. Before 1903, the senior officer was the Commanding General of the United States Army, which was never filled by someone holding the General of the Armies rank. Does this clear it up? --rogerd 03:33, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Washington's Executive Order

Does anyone know which executive order was mentioned in the article (or better, the source that mentions it!) of Ford making Washington most senior in the military (From the article: "By executive order of President Gerald Ford, it was also determined that George Washington would always remain senior and could never be outranked by any other officer of the U.S. military."). Thanks! –Pakman044 03:13, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to second this question. The wikipedia has comments about "Department of the Army Special Order Number 31-3 of March 13, 1978, with an effective appointment date of July 4, 1776" on both the George_Washington and General_of_the_Armies pages but Public Law 94-479 states "such appointment to take effect on July 4, 1976." I'm unable to find a reference to "Army Special Order Number 31-3" other than on the wikipedia and sites that seem to be extracting from or mirroring the wikipedia.
As the text of Army Special Order Number 31-3 does not seem to be available (and may not exist at all) I changed 1776 to 1976 as that's in line with what Public Law 94-479 states. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 18:40, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Update - as I was reviewing the text after changing from 1776 to 1976 I realized it would be simpler to not mention special order 31-3 until this data can be properly sourced. As the removed text will no doubt get buried in the edit-history here it is.
, and formalized in Department of the Army Special Order Number 31-3 of August 13, 1978, with an effective appointment date of July 4, 1776. The appointment confirmed George Washington as the most-senior United States military officer - more senior than Pershing because the date of Washington's posthumous commission predates Pershing by 143 years, but still subordinate in authority to the Commander in Chief. By normal US Military policy and precedent, no person may be elevated in seniority before their original date of appointment or enlistment.
Here is the original text from George_Washington's page which can be edited/restored once special order 31-3 is sourced.
Making up for lost time, and to maintain George Washington's proper position as the first Commanding General of the United States Army, he was appointed posthumously to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States by the congressional joint resolution s:Public Law 94-479 on January 19, 1976, approved by President Gerald R. Ford on October 11, 1976, and formalized in Department of the Army Special Order Number 31-3 of March 13, 1978, with an effective appointment date of July 4, 1976.
Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 18:55, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
ps: as an update on this - I found a reference to "Army Order Number 31-3" (it's not "Army Special Order Number 31-3") on http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/cg&csa/Washington-G2.htm and have contacted the people at that site about getting a copy of the order as searches for things related to order 31-3 only seem to find Wikipedpia articles. I also tried to track down if there is such a thing as an "Army Order" without luck and am also thinking this business of permanently ranking George Washington above everyone else may only apply to the U.S. Army and not to the U.S. armed forces as a whole. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 05:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed text from article

Since George Washington is considered to be the most senior army officer, permanently outranking all other army officers, it could be infered that his rank is that of a six star general since the rank of a five star general has already been established.

I removed this because this can't really be "inferred" from anything. Why would we infer six stars in particular? Why not a billion? Why not five gold stars instead of five silver stars? This statement is meaningless and adds little to the article. - furrykef (Talk at me) 03:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] General of the Armies Is Not A Rank

General of the Armies is not a rank, it is an honorary title. I served in the military -- in the US Army -- and have been reading military history for over 40 years, and never until I came across the Wikipedia, was this ever given an inkling of consideration, including during the Bicentennial. This is like a child's writing -- six star general! Give me a break. It's fun, but to put in that it is a "rank" is ludicrous. -unsigned anon user

See below. Its a well established rank and has been held by two people. -Husnock 05:09, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No Such Rank or Grade

There is no "Rank" or "Grade" of six star General of the Armies or Admiral of the Navy. Try a hitch in the service: you will not find this information in any military publication. That is because there is nothing outside of the minds of Wikepedians that holds that there is such a rank or grade.

I've seen these discussions morph from some pleasant speculation about the possibility of there being a six-star rank to something akin to a papal bull: THERE IS A RANK HIGHER THAN FIVE-STAR GENERAL/ADMIRAL. Outside of the Wikipedia dogma, there is no such thing. These were honorary titles. It makes Wikipedia look, frankly, ridiculous. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.144.0.66 (talk • contribs) 15:53, September 25, 2006 (UTC)

That rank does not currently exist, but did in the past. See http://www.history.navy.mil/trivia/triv4-5m.htm from an official Navy web site. Also, the promotions of Pershing and Washington (posthumously) were acts of congress which can be verified via congressional web sites. --rogerd 20:05, 25 September 2006 (UTC)


I read the whole of the article cited above, and all it says on the question is:

"As to the question of Pershing being a six-star general, there can be no answer unless Congress creates the General of the Armies rank again and specifies the insignia. Pershing does rank ahead of the Five-star Generals, he comes right after Washington, but he chose his own insignia and he never wore more than four stars."

We should remove all references to "six stars" and just say that Washington, Pershing and Dewey rank ahead of everyone else and leave it at that. Richard75 20:04, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Re: "Six Stars" - I agree. There has not now nor has there ever been a six-star insignia. There has, however, been discussion in Washington of a six-star rank, so it's worth describing here.[1] Rklawton 21:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
OK. I have left in all of the discussion of six stars, but made it less dogmatic to conform with NPOV policy. Richard75 20:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Nice work! Rklawton 21:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MacArthur

When MacArthur was proposed for the rank in 1955, Eisenhower, who had been outranked by him during their time as serving five-star generals due to MacArthur's having been appointed to the rank two days earlier, was the sitting President. For constitutional reasons, he could not have been promoted to the rank, had Congress been willing.

What were these constitutional reasons? --VAcharon 08:20, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's in the legislation creating General of the Armies. The legislation specifies that these ranks would never again be used. Rklawton 21:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

So it's not a matter of "constitutional reasons," simply statutory reasons? Was there anything preventing Congress from passing another General of the Armies bill appointing MacArthur to that rank? Is there any place on the web I can read the legislation in question? (I no longer have access to a law library or depository library, unfortunately.) --VAcharon 20:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Three Ranks

There are actually three ranks (well, maybe 2½) being discussed here, and the main difference is whether or not the office has authority over the Navy. Search the .gov websites for accurate information and read the actual ranks used in official documents (not speeches).

  • "General of the Army" has superior command over the United States Army only (ground based forces). Ulysses S. Grant's official title was "General of the Army", which he actively commanded. Grant did not officially command the Navy. This makes sense, because it was difficult for an officer to command the Navy from land because of the immense impracticality of communications. During the Civil War, the Navy was under the command of a succession of Rear Admirals, although when the Army and Navy engaged in a few joint operations, Grant did write the battle plans.
  • "General of the Armies" has superior command over all land, sea, and air military forces. While this title was held by Pershing, it was awarded while he was inactive and as such was seen as symbolic.
  • The superior "General of the Armies of the United States" is the official title granted both by law and by Executive Order to George Washington. Since he may never be outranked, it makes sense that he hold a unnique title. Washington had actively held the official title "General and Commander in Chief" [2]. Both GOTAOTUS and GACIC are one-of-a-kind titles. Washington had no civilian Commander-in-Chief superior to him; although he was to take his orders from Congress, he was "hereby vested with full power and authority to act as you shall think for the good and welfare of the service", a flexibility that would be scary today. The solid reality is solidified in that the Continental Army and fledgling Navy would not respect command from Congress. Although the same impracticality of communications existed between the land and sea as later during the Civil War, both army and sailors considered Washington to be the supreme military commander regardless of anything that came out of Congress.

--Corwin8 22:36, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe something could be added about all that. There is already a separate page, General of the Army (United States), which this page is not technically talking about. - Matthew238 02:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
A search of dot gov for "General of the Armies of the United States" [3] seems to indicate that Pershing held this title. What confuses me is Public Law 94-479 which says "the grade of General of the Armies of the United States is established, such grade to have rank and precedence over all other grades of the Army, past or present." The implication there is that General of the Armies of the United States is a new title it it would only be held by George Washington so that "no officer of the United States Army should outrank Lieutenant General George Washington on the Army list." So this is only about the U.S. Army and not all of the armed forces? What's been written here about "General of the Army", "General of the Armies" and "General of the Armies of the United States" makes perfect sense but I'm having a hard time tracing this to the text of the law. This page, http://www.army.mil/cmh/faq/FAQ-5star.htm, is interesting reading on the subject. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 04:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Backdating George Washinton's appointment to 1776

Today the text "...congressional joint resolution s:Public Law 94-479 January 19, 1976, approved by President Gerald R. Ford on October 11, 1976, with an effective appointment date of July 4, 1976" was edited to change the effective appointment date to 1776. The s:Public Law 94-479 made the appointment effective 1976. There may be a back dating to 1776 in that the Wikipedia used to cite Army Order 31-1 that apparently gives Washington a rank effective 1776. I e-mailed the Army last week about getting a copy of Order 31-1 as what was said in Wikipedia about this order conflicts with the desires of the U.S. Congress. Today I got this response back:

From: CMH Answers at http://www.hqda.army.mil (Address mangled a little as a despam tactic)
Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 12:38 PM
To: 'Marc Kupper'
Subject: RE: Army Order Number 31-3 (UNCLASSIFIED)
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE
Dear Mr. Kupper,
Thank you for your inquiry regarding an Army order.
Unfortunately, this is not one of the orders we have online and do not know
which Army organization published it. We would also like to advise you that
Wikipedia is not a credible source of information. Anyone can put anything
on this public website. No one seems to monitor or update the specific
entries. We are familiar with President Gerald Ford signing a law that
placed General Washington as the senior five-star general for the nation.
Other than that, we are not sure what order was implemented to make this
happen.
Sincerely,
Gary
Dr. Gary A. Trogdon
Chief, Public Inquiries Section
U.S. Army Center of Military History
103 Third Ave, Collins Hall
Fort McNair, D.C. 20319-5058

I still have an interest in tracking down Army Order 31-3 but in the mean time feel that the date of George Washington's appointment as General of the Armies of the United States should be 1976 as that date is citable. At present the only "official" reference to this order seems to be http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/cg&csa/Washington-G2.htm. The problem I have with this is that I suspect whoever did this web page copied the info from wikipdedia as I have been able to locate zero references to the order other than the wikipedia and it's mirrors. I have also not been able to track down that there is such an animal as an "Army Order" or "Army Special Order" much less that they get numbered with things like 31-1.

Another issue is that "General of the Armies of the Unites States" is supposed to be about all military services and I would assume a U.S. Army order would only apply to that branch of the military. Thus if a copy of Order 31-3 shows up I could see adding something to the main page that says "The U.S. Army recognizes...." Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 01:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Correction - From http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/cg&csa/Washington-G2.htm I clicked on "Table of Contents" and found http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/cg&csa/CG-TOC.htm - The web site apparently has a copy of a book written in 1983 meaning that the contents of the web page probably was not copied from wikipedia (unless the Army has a time warp device). With that in mind I'll think about a revision to the main page that references Order 31-3 but would also include a note that this applies to the U.S. Army. For the most part I'd be copy/pasting text directly from the book (with attribution plus it's a U.S. Government publication meaning copyright should not be an issue) rather than trying to get creative on just what Order 31-3 means. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 01:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible Clue for Army Order 31-3

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-3931(197812)42%3A4%3C202%3AAI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E

"Promotion of George Washington: Secretary of the Army Clif- ford L. Alexander, Jr., signed Department of the Army Order Number 31-3 on 13 March 1978, ..."

JSTOR wants $12 for the text of the article, you'd think the Army would have had it. Anyone have access to JSTOR who can lend a hand? — MrDolomite • Talk 06:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! I've put out a couple of requests at likely places where I could view the article. The one sentence synopsis was helpful in that it stated that it's "Department of the Army Order Number 31-3" and not a "Special Order" or some other name though it's a little disturbing that Google for "Department of the Army Order Number" returns four pages that are essentially this topic and one(!) other page, http://boards.law.af.mil/ARMY/BCMR/CY1998/11000-12999/9811319.rtf, that's looks like the results of a military hearing though the good news was the Order # was about an officer's promotion implying these are the things that are used as part of the promotion process. The implication though is that the phrase wording is not quite correct. "Department of the Army Order No." returns two pages (both about the same thing). Shortening it to "Department of the Army Order" locates 143 pages. It's not the thousands I was hoping for but presumably we are on the right track in terms of the wording. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 00:44, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I stumbled on this website, http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/index.html, which has sections for DA General Orders and others. Maybe it is in there, or we can contact them for assistance. — MrDolomite • Talk 18:11, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I found it interesting that http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/index.html skips over section 31 which I believe covers officer promotions. I have determined that the Military Affairs article that’s available via JSTOR is a general purpose column that announces a long list of promotions. It’s possible the part about George Washington is only one or two sentences and so far it looks like it would cost me at least $5 for an inter-library loan (plus other unknown costs…) to see the article. I’ll keep looking for this but in the mean time there is some good news in that I got an e-mail today from Dr. Trogdon of the U.S. Army Center for Military History, http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/ who says his assistant has located a copy of the order put out by the Secretary of the Army (I assume he means Order # 31-3). It was at the National Archives (NARA) and he is postal-mailing it to me. I then used NARA's search functions without success to see if I could locate this myself and so am I'm hoping the postal mailed copy will come with NARA's indexing data so that I can cite that when I post a scan of this order on the wikipedia plus perhaps I can then persuade the Army ePubs people to add section 31 with at least 31-3 which can then be cited. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 19:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The Order arrived in the mail today. I unplugged my scanner this morning to deal with a conflict issue with a USB hard drive but once that's fixed I'll scan it in. It reads
                          Department of the Army
                          Washington, D.C. 30310

ORDERS 31-3                                             13 March 1978


The following officer is promoted posthumously in the Regular Army of
the Unites States as indicated.

Authority: Joint Resolution of Congress dated 19 January 1976, approved
by the President of the Unites States on 11 October 1976.

                                    Grade                    Effective
Name, Branch                     promoted to                   date
------------                     -----------                 ---------
Washington, George, USA         General of the Armies       4 July 1976
                                of the Unites States

BY DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT:
                            Clifford L. Alexander, Jr. (signature)
                            Clifford L. Alexander, Jr.
                            Secretary of the Army

I'm happy to see this as it had bothered me that the promotion was originally reported as being backdated to 1776 which conflicts with what Congress and the President had authorized. There are three other pages, the first is a cover sheet which I'll scan in and the second is a three page document titled Index to Army Records for Researchers. Google for that phrase finds http://www.sauruspress.com/archive/Index_to_Army_Records_for_Researchers_Dec2006.pdf which is the March 2006 version (despite the Dec-2006 in the URL) and what was sent to me was the February 2007 version of the list. It's not clear who maintains this index though I'd guess it's the Center for Military History. There seem to be similar lists at

I need to think about how I want to deal with this list. Ideally, the CMH would keep the last version available on their web site. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 23:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Excellent work! I've added it to wikisource at s:Order 31-3 as well. It was great to see it had the 1976 effective date and the "...Armies of the United States" rank title, both of which are perennial discussions. It would be great to come up with Pershing's. — MrDolomite • Talk 00:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
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