General officer brigadier general is brigadier, which is not always considered by these armies to be a general officer rank, although it is always treated as equivalent to the rank of brigadier general for comparative purposes. As a lieutenant outranks a sergeant major; confusion often arises because a lieutenant is outranked by a major. Originally the serjeant major was, exclusively, the commander of the infantry, junior only to the captain general and lieutenant general. The distinction of serjeant major general only applied after serjeant majors were introduced as a rank of field officer. Serjeant was eventually dropped from both rank titles, creating
General of the Armies a five-star general position and named this new rank "General of the Army", which was a title that had not been used since the 1880s after the Civil War. Unlike the Civil War version, this new rank was clearly a five-star position, whereas the old version was considered a four-star rank; the five-star rank was also intended to be held by more than one person rather than a single supreme rank for the head of the U.S. Army. Pershing was still living during World War II, although he was over eighty years old. Nevertheless, the question was immediately raised by