On December 16, 1944, there was a wedding at Eisenhower's headquarters in Paris for a young staff officer and a Red Cross nurse.

….

The day before the wedding President Roosevelt had nominated Eisenhower to the five-star rank of General of the Army, along with Marshall, Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific, and Hap Arnold of the air force. Also getting multistar treatment were Adm[iral]s. William Leahy, Ernest King, and Chester Nimitz, who were named to the equivalent five-star rank of Admiral of the Fleet.

This was big stuff to the career military officers, as it represented the pinnacle of professional achievement. Ulysses S. Grant was the first general in American history to wear four stars. George Washington himself had only three as a lieutenant general, though in 1976, in honor of the bicentennial, Congress posthumously awarded him a fourth star, making him General of the Armies.

So wrote Hank H Cox in his biography of General JCH Lee, with the telling title The General Who Wore Six Stars. Let me tell you about that, but just briefly, in passing it’s interesting to note the footnote that Carlo d’Este appended to his biography of General Patton, A Genius for War, in the light of the Congress making the posthumous promotion of George Washington (although admittedly to the rank of a four star general and not a five star general):

Two resolutions were introduced into the 82d Congress in 1951 by Massachusetts representatives to posthumously promote Patton to the rank of five-star general, thus placing him alongside both Eisenhower and Bradley. Neither passed and both were opposed by the Pentagon on grounds that it was against policy ever again to promote officers to five-star rank.

That Sicilian slapping incident still made Patton, even dead, too controversial a figure to honour in that way just after the war I reckon.

Tag words: Eisenhower; President Roosevelt; General of the Army; Ulysses S. Grant; George Washington; Hank H Cox; The General Who Wore Six Stars; Carlo d’Este; A Genius for War; General JCH Lee; Bradley; Patton; Materialschlacht; Service of Supply; sos; Communications Zone; ComZ; Third Army; Court House; Jesus Christ; Jesus Christ Himself; Bedell Smith; Geoffrey Perret; There's a War to Be Won; Kay Summersby; He Was My Boss; Rick Atkinson; The Guns at Last Light; Jonathan W. Jordan;Brothers, Rivals, Victors; Antony Beevor; Captain Harry C. Butcher;