Who were all the generals from the northern side during the civil war?

Answer 1

There were more than six hundred men generally recognized as having attained the rank of general in the Union Army. All of these were either one star brigadier generals or two star major generals, with the sole exception of Ulysses Grant, who was the only three star northern general - he was THE lieutenant general. Because George Washington had styled himself as a lieutenant general during the American Revolution, and nobody could be as good or as important as Washington, for the first three years of the war the north had only one and two star generals, so "seniority" was important - whoever was promoted to the rank first was entitled to command others who had been promoted to the identical rank later. Some officers, such as Ben Butler, mostly the so-called "political generals", men without military experience but instead politicians, who could help influence their supporters to also support the Union cause, had been promoted to high rank early in the war, and then it was learned that they were incompetent, and caused disasters when they tried to command. But the reasons that had made it seem like a good idea to promote them to start with also meant it was a very risky idea to fire them, so there they were, still gumming up the works, and punctiliously insisting that their seniority be respected and that they command where their seniority was the oldest, instead of deferring to military professionals, who actually knew what they were doing but were promoted later. It was to overcome this that Lincoln finally made Grant THE lieutenant general in 1864, so it would be quite clear who was in command.