Sergeant major general general appeared to create a precedence issue, in that a major outranks a lieutenant but a lieutenant general outranks a major general. This continues to cause confusion to those unfamiliar with the history of the rank, particularly in those armies using insignia similar to the British Army. The rank is sometimes used by paramilitary organizations such as militias. 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
General of the Armies also drastically reduced in size and there was no practical need for a superior General rank, thus the proposal for General of the Armies was soon forgotten. In 1865, after the close of the American Civil War, Congress again revisited the idea of a superior General rank. The result was the creation of a special rank called "General of the Army of the United States", which was held by Ulysses S. Grant. This early version of General of the Army was in fact a four-star general officer rank although, unlike in modern times, Congress intended for only one Army officer