Uniform of the Union Army letters US. Officers, NCOs and cavalry troopers were equipped with a sword belt with a rectangular buckle with eagle motif. Rank was displayed on epaulettes (dress occasions) or shoulder straps(field duties): no insignia for a second lieutenant, one gold bar for a first lieutenant, two gold bars for a captain, a gold oak leaf for a major, a silver oak leaf for a lieutenant colonel, a silver eagle for a colonel and one, two or three silver stars for a general, depending on his seniority. The color of the shoulder strap fields – with trims in gold braid – were
Ranks and insignia of the Red Army and Navy 1918–1935 created on September 1935, took first precedence over all ranks since then. With the new Marshal rank being introduced, the Council of People's Commissars began the process of phrasing out the 1924 rank system. Ranks and insignia of the Red Army and Navy 1918–1935 In the period from 1918 to 1935 of the young Soviet Union any bourgeois military thoughts were put under general suspicion by the communists, the new political establishment. Among others, the Old Russian tradition to wear epaulets and shoulder straps as rank insignia was rigorously abolished and was replaced with a new tradition of rank designations