List of United States Army four-star generals

In March 1885, Grant was out of office, bankrupt, and dying, so Congress authorized the president to reappoint him to the rank and full pay of general on the retired list.

[158] In 1917, the rank of general was recreated in the National Army, a temporary force of conscripts and volunteers authorized for the duration of the World War I emergency.

[16] Congress and Pershing both opposed March's promotion, having clashed with him during the war, so he reverted to major general alongside Bliss when their emergency grades expired on 30 June 1920.

[28] The United States entered World War II on 7 December 1941 with one Army general, chief of staff George Marshall, authorized.

[169][aq] As with the National Army emergency generals, these appointments expired after the end of the war, although postwar legislation allowed officers to retire in their highest active-duty rank.

[171] On 19 December 1941, the Senate confirmed Douglas MacArthur to be the first temporary general in the Army of the United States, the reconstituted draft force, as he fought the Japanese invasion of the Philippines.

Marshall, MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Arnold were further promoted to the temporary five-star grade of general of the Army in December 1944, made permanent in March 1946.

[26][177] Malin Craig, Marshall's predecessor as Army chief of staff, was recalled to active duty in his four-star grade to run the War Department's Personnel Board.

Omar Bradley, who had commanded the Twelfth Army Group—the bulk of American forces on the Western Front—also received a permanent promotion to general as a one-time personal honor, with full active-duty pay for life.

[185] Escalating global commitments during the Cold War created more generals, both at home and abroad; a majority were appointed under renewed national emergency authority in excess of grade caps.

[188] The Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA) of 1980 standardized four-star appointments across all services, replacing the previous service-specific mechanisms.

[123] In September 2012, Frank J. Grass became the first Army National Guard officer to attain the rank of general, to relieve his Air Force predecessor as CNGB.

[205][206] The following list of Congressional legislation includes major acts of Congress pertaining to appointments to the grade of general in the United States Army.