General officers in the Confederate States Army Edmund Kirby Smith, who was appointed general late in the war and into the PACS. Pierre G.T. Beauregard, had also initially been appointed a PACS general but was elevated to ACSA two months later with the same date of rank. These generals outranked all other grades of generals, as well as all lesser officers in the Confederate States Army. The first group of officers appointed to general were Samuel Cooper, Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and Pierre G.T. Beauregard, with their seniority in that order. This ordering caused Cooper, a staff officer who would not see
General officers in the Confederate States Army South's president and therefore commander-in-chief of the Army, Navy, and Marines of the Confederate States. Much of the design of the Confederate States Army was based on the structure and customs of the U.S. Army when the Confederate Congress established their War Department on February 21, 1861. The Confederate Army was composed of three parts; the Army of the Confederate States of America (ACSA, intended to be the permanent, regular army), the Provisional Army of the Confederate States (PACS, or "volunteer" Army, to be disbanded after hostilities), and the various Southern state militias. Graduates from West Point and Mexican War