Although four-star officers appeared in organizations like the Continental Army before the United States of America was founded in 1776, the legislative history of four-star officers in the United States uniformed services began in 1799, when Congress authorized the grade of General of the Armies of the United States for former president George Washington, who was commanding the forces being raised for the Quasi-War with France as a lieutenant general of the U.S. Army but died without being promoted.
Congress revived Washington's never-used grade in 1866 with the title "General of the United States Army" and created a corresponding grade of admiral in the Navy. Unlike modern four-star grades, promotions to the 1866 grades were permanent and personal, vacating any previous grade and surviving any job change, like any other grade on the active list. Essentially decorative, permanent four-star grades on the active list carried full active-duty pay for life and were awarded sparingly to senior commanders after a war: after the Civil War to Army generals Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Philip Sheridan, and to Navy admirals David G. Farragut and David D. Porter; after the Spanish-American War to George Dewey, with the title Admiral of the Navy; after World War I to John J. Pershing, with the title General of the Armies; and after World War II to one temporary four-star officer in every armed service.
In 1915, Congress created a second category of four-star grades that lasted only while performing a specific function. These were temporary boosts in rank held while serving in important jobs, or as a personal grade during a wartime emergency. Upon leaving an office designated to carry four-star rank, or at the end of the war that authorized emergency or temporary four-star grades, officers reverted to their permanent two-star grade on the active list, although they typically regained their fourth star on the retired list. Modern four-star grades are descended from the functional grades of 1915, not the decorative grades of 1866, and continue to work in substantially the same way, as codified by the Officer Personnel Act of 1947 and the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act of 1980, which established the current unified framework for officer promotions in every armed service.
After World War II, Congress imposed strict limits on the number of four-star officers authorized for each service, but escalating global military commitments during the Cold War created many more four-star positions outside the services in joint and allied organizations. By 2024, the six armed services—Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force, Coast Guard—and the National Guard each had a four-star chief and vice chief and statutory or invited membership on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The three larger services—Army, Navy, Air Force—were authorized additional four-star officers for internal positions, and a separate pool of general and flag officers was authorized for joint-duty assignments outside the services. Of the two non-armed uniformed services, the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps was headed by a four-star assistant secretary for health, if commissioned as a Uniformed Services officer, but the highest rank in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps was three-star vice admiral.
History
1775–1865
Revolutionary War
In June 1775, the Continental Congress commissioned George Washington as general and commander in chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Washington resigned his commission when the war ended in 1783. The Continental Army was disbanded in 1784 and replaced by the United States Army, whose highest-ranking officer was initially a lieutenant colonel.Bell (2013), pp. 1, 6–7.
Quasi-War After his presidency, Washington was commissioned as lieutenant general and commander in chief of the Provisional Army being raised for the undeclared Quasi-War with France. In March 1799, Congress elevated his title to General of the Armies of the United States, but President John Adams thought Washington's office infringed on his presidential prerogatives as commander in chief and never made the appointment. Washington died later that year, and the grade lapsed when not mentioned in the 1802 law that defined the peacetime military establishment.Act of March 16, 1802 [Military Peace Establishment Act] (). He was promoted posthumously to the grade in 1978, after it was reestablished for him as part of the 1976 United States Bicentennial celebrations.
Civil War During the Civil War, the Confederate forces appointed eight full generals and an admiral, but the highest ranking Union officers were a lieutenant general and a vice admiral, Ulysses S. Grant and David G. Farragut, who became the first full general and admiral in the United States military after the war.Eicher and Eicher (1999), p. 303.
1866–1898
Post-Civil War
After the Civil War, the victorious general-in-chief of the Union Army, Ulysses S. Grant, and senior officer in the Navy, David G. Farragut, were rewarded with the first four-star promotions in the United States uniformed services. On July 25, 1866, Congress created the grade of admiral in the Navy and revived the grade of General of the Army of the United States that had been created (as "General of the Armies of the United States") for Washington in 1799 but never filled. Since there was only one four-star general in the Army during this period, the grade was referred to interchangeably as "general", "the General", and "the General of the Army", a title not to be confused with the five-star grade of general of the Army created in 1944. Similarly, the Navy's sole four-star admiral was often called "the Admiral of the Navy", a title that would evolve into a higher grade in 1899.
Grant resigned his commission to become president in 1869, and promoted the lieutenant general of the Army, William Tecumseh Sherman, to succeed him as general. Farragut died in 1870 and was succeeded by the vice admiral of the Navy, David D. Porter.West (1937), pp. 330–333. Congress stopped further promotions to general in 1870 and to admiral in 1873, and the grades terminated when Sherman and Porter died in 1891.Acts of July 15, 1870 (), and January 24, 1873 (). Chisholm (2001), pp. 349–353.
In 1885, Grant was out of office, bankrupt, and dying, so Congress authorized the president to reappoint him to the rank and full pay of general on the retired list.Act of March 3, 1885 (). Chernow (2017), pp. 938–939. Congress made a similar exception three years later to promote the ailing lieutenant general of the Army, Philip Sheridan, two months before his death.Act of June 1, 1888 (). Bell (2013), p. 24.
1899–1946
Admiral of the Navy
On March 2, 1899, Congress revived the grade of admiral to honor George Dewey for his victory at the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War. Although titled "Admiral of the Navy" instead of "admiral", Dewey held the same grade as Farragut and Porter, who had also been called the Admiral of the Navy during their respective tenures as the only admiral in the Navy. The Comptroller of the Treasury ruled in 1900 that the grade of Admiral of the Navy revived the 1866 grade of admiral and therefore ranked with Sheridan's grade, which had the analogous title of "General of the Army of the United States".
By 1912, Navy officials were calling Dewey's grade equivalent to an admiral of the fleet, one rank higher than Farragut and Porter, as they lobbied Congress to permanently reestablish three- and four-star grades for peacetime use. However, Navy regulations continued to rank the Admiral of the Navy with a general in the Army until 1915, when the reestablished grades of admiral and vice admiral were inserted below the Admiral of the Navy, whose salute was increased to 19 guns from the 17 guns of an admiral or general. The annual pay of a 1915 admiral was only $10,000, while the Admiral of the Navy received $13,500, further distinguishing the two grades.Acts of May 4, 1908 (), and March 3, 1915 ().
Designated admirals
Congress had always held that three- and four-star promotions were meant to reward conspicuous service in time of war, not routine peacetime assignments, and ignored decades of Navy pleas to revive the grades of admiral and vice admiral to keep overseas commanders from being outranked by foreign flag officers commanding smaller forces. By 1911, a compromise emerged whereby permanent promotions to admiral would still be reserved for war heroes like Dewey, but a rear admiral could be designated to hold temporary four-star rank while commanding a fleet and then revert to his permanent two-star grade. They therefore did not need Senate confirmation but also could not retire in that grade or, later, base a tombstone promotion on it.
On March 3, 1915, Congress authorized the president to designate up to six officers to have the rank and pay of admiral or vice admiral while assigned as commander in chief or second in command of the Atlantic Fleet, Pacific Fleet, or Asiatic Fleet. Frank F. Fletcher, Thomas B. Howard, and Walter C. Cowles, commanders in chief of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Asiatic Fleets, respectively, were designated as admirals on March 10, 11, and 12. Four months later, Cowles became the first admiral to revert to rear admiral when he relinquished command of the Asiatic Fleet and retired on July 10.
Although Congress specifically did not want designated admirals and vice admirals to be able to retire in those grades, legislation eventually advanced every former three- or four-star admiral to that rank on the retired list if he lived long enough, except for Husband E. Kimmel, who retired as a rear admiral after being relieved as four-star commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
World War I
Four-star grades reappeared in the Army in October 1917, when Congress authorized the chief of staff of the Army, Tasker H. Bliss, and the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France, John J. Pershing, to hold the ex officio grades of general during the World War I emergency.Act of October 6, 1917 (). Like a designated admiral, an emergency general's four-star rank was attached to his position, not his person, so when Bliss reached mandatory retirement age at the end of 1917, he reverted to his permanent grade of major general and was succeeded as emergency general and chief of staff by Peyton C. March. Because Bliss still needed four-star rank to serve alongside full generals from allied nations in his next assignment as United States permanent military representative to the Supreme War Council, he was reappointed emergency general by brevet, the last and highest brevet promotion awarded in the United States military.Act of March 1, 1869 ().
All emergency grades expired at the end of the war, so in July 1919, eight months after the armistice, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to reward March and Pershing by making them both permanent generals, with Pershing senior to March. The House Military Affairs Committee reported out separate bills to promote Pershing and March to General of the Armies of the United States, reviving the grade originally created for Washington in 1799 and subsequently awarded to Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan as "General of the Army of the United States". March had made enemies in Congress during the war, so his bill did not pass and he reverted to major general when his emergency grade expired on June 30, 1920.
General of the Armies