re: #184 HappyWarrior

This talk of brevets though has me with a question for our military history buffs. Would the extremely high number of deaths during the Civil War explain why so many were able to rise through the ranks quickly despite many not having military experience? Hate to use Nathan Bedford Forrest as an example but he was a guy with no military experience at the start of the war who started as a private but ended it a general. You never really read about that during WWII where someone started out a private and made it that far. Hell, you don’t even really read about captains making it that far by WWII’s end. So question I guess, was it the causalities that allowed for such rapid advancement.

Partially that, but also heavily political connections. Many volunteer units got to elect their officers - so a local who was popular or who had helped form the regiment often could start at a colonel, major, or captain.

I think Forrest got his officer rank by helping form a unit a little later than his initial service as a private soldier. From there it was promotion by merit, and having some backers to help smooth the way.

Getting above division commander in the Union Army during that period pretty much required being a West Pointer due to internal politics. Some of the early generals (such as Butler) got around this, but by 1864 some very good divisional commanders (such as Logan) got passed over for corps command due to being “political” generals.