General-in-Chief

General-in-Chief was a highly-ranked position in the United States Army. During the War of Secession, George McClellan was general-in-chief. In the Second Mexican War, it was held by William Rosecrans.

The general-in-chief had limited supervisory authority over largely autonomous field armies and was also charged with planning overall strategy, a task which was made all but impossible for one man by the sructure of the army.

These inadequacies were very costly to the US in the Second Mexican War and ultimately contributed to the loss of that war. Following the war, German military observer to the US Alfred von Schleiffen suggested a reogranization of the army, doing away with the general-in-chief position and replacing it with the much more centralized Prussian-style General Staff.