Sergeant major general Sergeant major general Sergeant major general is a now mostly extinct military rank. A prominent example was Philip Skippon in the English New Model Army as organized by Oliver Cromwell. Over the course of the 17th century, the increasing professionalisation of armies saw sergeant major general become the most junior of the general ranks. At the same time, the "sergeant" portion of the title was more and more commonly dropped; by the early 18th century, the rank's name had been permanently shortened to major general. Since sergeant major general had ranked below lieutenant general, the newly named rank of major
General of the Armies of Pershing to the rank of "General of the Armies of the United States" and allowed him to design his own insignia. On September 3, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson, in accordance with , promoted Pershing to that same rank. The rank was primarily intended to recognize Pershing's performance as commander of the American Expeditionary Forces. General Pershing chose to wear the four stars of a general, but in gold, to signify his new position. A bureaucratic loophole in Army regulations did not recognize this insignia, thus Pershing's gold stars did not appear on Army rank precedence charts and were considered