Who was a 4 star general in the civil war?

Answer 1

There were eight, all Confederates. In order of seniority Samuel Cooper, Albert Sidney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, Pierre G. T. Beauregard, Braxton Bragg, Edmund Kirby Smith and John Bell Hood.

The US Army had a tradition that since Washington had awarded himself the rank of three star Lieutenant General, and no one could be as good as Washington, that there were no higher ranking officers than two star Major Generals. This caused a lot of problems. Within the rank of Major General, seniority determined who would command. Some who were promoted to that rank early in the war, when they looked promising, turned out to be duds (Ben Butler). But there they were, senior to all other Major Generals of much greater merit. Lincoln solved this by making Grant a three star Lieutenant General, the first in the US Army since Washington, and the only Union soldier to hold that rank during the war.