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Why were so Brevet Generals many appointed on March 13 1865?

appointed brevet Generals
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Why were so Brevet Generals many appointed on March 13 1865?

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A special session of the 39th Congress was held from March 4-11 1865, in which many hundreds of brevet promotions (not just to General grades) were considered and nearly all were confirmed at that time. While I am not sure why so many of these appointments were dated March 13 1865, it may have been due to their being processed immediately after the end of the Senate session. It is also likely that the US Congress considered that the War was coming to an end, but at that time they could not have known that Richmond would fall within three weeks.

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March 13 is the date of rank, not the date of confirmation or issuance. Most commissions read something in the form of “[name] is hereby granted the rank of [rank], to rank from [date],” the date frequently being sometime before the commission is issued. In the case of the Civil War, this date is commonly a date of some specific deed of the officer performed, particularly in the case of brevets. However, the majority of the 13 March brevets simply read “for service during the war” or something similar. The reason for this is unusual. In May of 1865, the Senate Committee on Military Affairs and the Militia informed the War Department that they would not confirm any brevet whose date was prior to the last date of adjournment – which, in this case, was the 11 March adjournment of the special session of the Senate from 4-11 March 1865. Theoretically, this was to distinguish brevets made by the special session from those made later. 12 March being a Sunday, the War Department chose 13 March

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