United States Army officer rank insignia

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US DoD Pay Grade	O-10¹	O-10	O-9	O-8	O-7	O-6	O-5	O-4	O-3	O-2	O-1
Insignia
Title	General of the Army	General	Lieutenant General	Major General	Brigadier General	Colonel	Lieutenant Colonel	Major	Captain	First Lieutenant	Second Lieutenant
Abbreviation	GA	GEN	LTG	MG	BG	COL	LTC	MAJ	CPT	1LT	2LT
NATO Code	OF-10	OF-9	OF-8	OF-7	OF-6	OF-5	OF-4	OF-3	OF-2	OF-1
¹ Awarded only in times of Congressionally declared war.

This chart represents the U.S. Army officer rank insignia.

The highest Army rank is known as General of the Armies. No insignia has ever been authorized for the rank, and thus is not shown on table above. It has only been held by two people in history: John J. Pershing and George Washington (posthumously)

The structure of U.S. ranks has its roots in British military traditions. At the start of the American War of Independence, uniforms, let alone insignia, were barely affordable and recognition of ranks in the field was problematic. To solve this, Gen. George Washington wrote:

"As the Continental Army has unfortunately no uniforms, and consequently many inconveniences must arise from not being able to distinguish the commissioned officers from the privates, it is desired that some badge of distinction be immediately provided; for instance that the field officers may have red or pink colored cockades in their hats, the captains yellow or buff, and the subalterns green."

From 1780, regulations prescribed two stars for major generals and one star for brigadier generals worn on shoulder boards, or epaulettes.

The period of 1821 to 1832 witnessed a brief period of using chevrons to identify officer grades, a practice that is still observed at West Point for cadet officers.

Colonels received their eagle in 1832, and four years later lieutenant colonels were using oak leaves and captains and first lieutenants their respective double and single bars. Both majors and second lieutenants had no specific insignia. A major would have been recognizable as he would have worn the more elaborate epaulette fringes of a senior field officer but without insignia. The color of insignia was gold on silver epaulettes in the infantry and vice versa in the other branches until 1851 when insignia became universally silver on gold for senior officers and gold for the bars of captains and first lieutenants. The reason for the choice of silver eagles over gold ones is thought to be one of economy; there were more infantry colonels than cavalry and artillery so it was cheaper to replace the numerically fewer gold ones.

From 1872 the majors received oak leaves in gold to distinguish them from the silver of lieutenant colonels and the bars of both captains and lieutenants became silver. In a similar fashion, 1917 saw the introduction of a single gold bar for second lieutenants. These changes created the curious situation (in terms of heraldic tradition) of silver outranking gold. One after-the-fact explanation suggested by some NCOs is that the more-malleable gold suggests that the bearer is being "molded" for his or her responsibilities -- as a field officer (second lieutenant) or staff officer (major). However, this explanation may be more clever than correct, for while the insignia for second lieutenant and major are gold colored they are actually made of brass, and brass is a base metal while silver is a precious metal. The rank order thus does not actually conflict with heraldic tradition.

The Civil War saw the development of distinctive rank insignia in the Confederate armies. Junior officers up to captain had a less elaborate pattern of braid on their tunic cuffs and wore collar insignia of three horizontal bars for a captain, two for a first lieutenant and one for a second lieutenant. Majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels wore respectively one, two, and three stars on the collar, and all grades of general had the insignia of three stars (the middle being slightly larger) in an open top wreath pattern.