General of the Armies That a Commander of the United States shall be appointed and commissioned by the style of General of the Armies of the United States and the present office and title of Lieutenant General shall thereafter be abolished. The rank of General of the Armies was intended for bestowal upon George Washington, who held the rank of "General and Commander-in-Chief" which was a grade senior to all American major generals and brigadier generals from the American Revolutionary War. However, only a few months after the Congressional proposal, Washington died on December 14, 1799. The United States Army at that time had
Major general French Army, Major General (in full "Major General of the Army", "Major général de l'armée de terre") is a position and the major general is normally of the rank of corps general. Historically, the French army had some "sergent-majors généraux", also called "sergents de bataille", whose task was to prepare the disposition of the army on the field before a battle. These "sergents-majors généraux" became a new rank, the "maréchal de camp" (not the same as a field marshal, in the French Army from antiquity called a "Maréchal de France"), which was the equivalent of the rank of major general.