The resolution was Public Law 94-479. Its dry text stated that 'George Washington shall be appointed to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States... to have rank and precedence over all other grades of the Armed Forces, past or present.' President Gerald Ford signed it on October 11, 1976, as the nation celebrated its bicentennial. The promotion was retroactive to July 4, 1776.
This was not a ceremonial gesture. It solved a specific, if obscure, point of military protocol. In 1799, Washington died holding the rank of a three-star general, a Lieutenant General. Over the next 177 years, several officers, including Ulysses S. Grant, John J. Pershing, and Omar Bradley, had achieved equivalent or higher ranks. Pershing was specifically designated 'General of the Armies' in 1919. The 1976 law clarified, permanently, that no officer could ever be considered Washington's senior.
The action was partly a corrective to the 1975 promotion of George Washington's distant successor. In 1975, Congress promoted General George Dewey posthumously to Admiral of the Navy, a unique six-star rank. This created an imbalance between the services, with the Navy possessing a singular, supreme rank the Army lacked. Washington's promotion restored equilibrium, granting the Army its own singular, supreme rank.
The promotion exists outside of normal military history. It is a statement of principle, not a battlefield command. It codifies the civilian authority of the presidency and the symbolic supremacy of the nation's first commander-in-chief over the military institution he helped create. Washington remains the only person to hold the six-star rank of General of the Armies. The promotion ensures that, on any official order of precedence, the first name listed will always be his.