Character Research - Army Ranks

In this play, my character is lieutenant George Johnston and after the "a day in the life of" improvisation we did in class, I realised I had absolutely no idea where my character stood in the army hierarchy. To understand the attitudes my character would have towards his other colleagues and the attitudes they would have towards him, I decided it would be wise to research the food chain of the marines.

(Starting from the top dogs)

1. Field marshal
2. General
3. Lieutenant General
4. Major General
5. Brigadier
6. Colonel
7. Lieutenant Colonel
8. Major
9. Captain
10. Lieutenant
11. Second Lieutenant 
12. Officer cadet

From this we can see that George (my character) is third from the bottom and isn't rated very much. He would have to be respectful to almost everyone else because most of the officers in the play are of a higher rank than he is.

Nevertheless, he has a role to play. First lieutenants command platoons of around 30 soldiers and normally get promoted within three years of being in the position. They can sometimes take on jobs that are outside their field and develop skills there and work in fields such as machinery, aviation and medical.

Of course in the 18th century, there wasn't a great deal of machinery let alone planes, so my character would have been more planning attacks and helping injured soldiers.