page_title: List of brigadier generals in the United States Regular Army before February 2, 1901
section_title: Mexican War
hierarchical_section_title: List of brigadier generals in the United States Regular Army before February 2, 1901 / History / Mexican War
caption_attribution_description: English: en:David E. Twiggs.
context_page_description: This is a complete list of brigadier generals in the United States Regular Army before February 2, 1901. The grade of brigadier general is ordinarily the fourth-highest in the peacetime Army, ranking above colonel and below major general.
  The grade of brigadier general was the highest peacetime rank in the Regular Army during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the second-highest for most of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It was also rare: until 1901 there were fewer than twenty brigadier generals on active duty at any given time. Even during times of war, the number of Regular Army brigadier generals remained relatively constant, because rather than expand the permanent military establishment to meet transient wartime requirements, the Regular Army served as a cadre for a much larger temporary force of volunteers and conscripts. Many famous generals of the American Civil War held high rank only in the volunteer service, and reverted to much lower permanent grades in the Regular Army when the volunteers were disbanded after the war.
context_section_description: The Mexican War triggered a temporary increase in the number of general officers. In 1846 Congress authorized two additional brigadier generals on the condition that they be discharged immediately upon the ratification of a peace treaty; career Regular Army officers David E. Twiggs and Stephen W. Kearny were promoted to the new grades. The next year, three more wartime grades were authorized; Franklin Pierce, George Cadwalader, and Enos D. Hopping were appointed directly from civilian life. Hopping died a few months after his appointment, and the two remaining civilian generals were duly discharged at the end of the war, but Congress allowed Twiggs and Kearny to remain in grade while normal attrition reduced the number of brigadier generals to the desired peacetime total. Gaines and Kearny died within a year, leaving Wool and Twiggs as the two brigadier generals of the line authorized by statute.
  In 1855 Congress increased the Army by four regiments and added a third brigadier generalcy of the line, which it intended for Illinois Senator James Shields, a former brigadier general of volunteers during the Mexican War who had just been defeated for reelection to the Senate. However, Scott, the Army's only major general, was almost seventy years old and likely to be succeeded by a brigadier general of the line. Since Wool and Twiggs were around the same age as Scott, the person appointed to the third brigadier generalcy could reasonably expect to become the next commanding general of the Army. Rather than vault the civilian Shields to potential command of the professional Army in a single bound, the administration instead promoted Colonel Persifor F. Smith, a distinguished career officer. Ironically, Wool and Twiggs both outlived Smith, who died unexpectedly in 1858 and was succeeded by Colonel William S. Harney.
  In the end, none of the Army's prewar generals would retain high command in the United States Army during the Civil War. Of the five general officers in the Regular Army at the outbreak of hostilities, Scott retired almost immediately, Wool and Harney were sidelined and retired midway through the war, Twiggs was dismissed for treason after surrendering the garrison in Texas, and Quartermaster General Joseph E. Johnston resigned to join the Confederate States Army.
caption: David E. Twiggs
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