That same year, Maj. Gen. John A. Schofield, chief of staff, suggested the new post be formally named in honor of Maj. Gen. James Birdseye McPherson. During the Civil War, McPherson participated in the Battles of Jackson and Vicksburg earning promotion to brigadier general. In 1864 he was in command of one of the Three Armies under the Major General William T. Sherman's Military Division of the Mississippi. He was killed while on a reconnaissance patrol during the Battle of Atlanta July 22, 1864. He is the highest-ranking officer to have been killed by position in the history of the United States, He commanded the Union Army of the Tennessee. US Army Engineers built a monument to him on the site he was killed in 1888, in East Atlanta and maintained to this day by the Sons of Union Veterans of the American Civil War, SUVCW.