page_title: List of lieutenant generals in the United States Army before 1960
section_title: Civil War
hierarchical_section_title: List of lieutenant generals in the United States Army before 1960 / History / Civil War
caption_attribution_description: English: (==Creator== Brady National Photographic Art Gallery (Washington, D.C.) ==Source== Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Civil War Photographs Collection) Dansk: General John M. Schofield
context_page_description: This is a complete list of lieutenant generals in the United States Army before 1960. The grade of lieutenant general is ordinarily the second-highest in the peacetime Army, ranking above major general and below general.
  Originally created for George Washington during the Quasi-War with France, the grade lapsed for most of the 19th century and early 20th century because it was considered too lofty for the diminutive peacetime establishment. Unlike grades of major general and below, the grade of lieutenant general was not considered a functional office during this period, but the penultimate military honor reserved for only the most eminent of wartime generals. After the Spanish–American War, the lieutenant generalcy slowly transitioned from extraordinary accolade to routine appointment, and from permanent personal grade to temporary ex officio rank. The grade was revived permanently just before World War II and has been in continuous existence ever since.
  Before World War I there was at most one lieutenant general on active duty at any time.
context_section_description: The grade of lieutenant general was revived in February 1864 to allow President Abraham Lincoln to promote Major General Ulysses S. Grant to command the armies of the United States during the American Civil War. After the war, Grant was promoted to general and his vacant lieutenant general grade was filled by Major General William T. Sherman. When Grant became President in 1869, Sherman succeeded him as general and Major General Philip H. Sheridan succeeded Sherman as lieutenant general. Congress suspended further promotions to general and lieutenant general in 1870, but made an exception in 1888 to promote Sheridan on his deathbed by discontinuing the grade of lieutenant general and merging it with the grade of general.
  In 1895 Congress briefly revived the grade of lieutenant general to promote Sheridan's successor as commanding general of the Army, Major General John M. Schofield. Schofield had lobbied for the grade to be permanently reestablished in order to cement the primacy of all future commanding generals over the Army's other major generals. However, Congress regarded the lieutenant generalcy as the penultimate military accolade, second only to promotion to full general, and refused to devalue the title's significance by conferring it on any future commanding general less eminent than previous recipients. Instead, Schofield himself was promoted to lieutenant general as a one-time personal honor eight months before he retired. In retirement Schofield argued that the rank of lieutenant general ought to be permanently associated with the office of commanding general, not the individual officers occupying it, and that an officer serving as commanding general should hold the ex officio rank of lieutenant general while so detailed but revert to his permanent grade of major general upon leaving office. Over the next five decades, Schofield's concept of lieutenant general as temporary ex officio rank would slowly prevail over the concept of lieutenant general as permanent personal grade.
caption: John M. Schofield
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