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
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