Warrant Officers in the Army are recognized as highly skilled technicians with expert knowledge on the operation and maintenance of sophisticated equipment. But if you follow the history of the Warrant Officer rank or position back to its origin, you’ll discover that the rank was established to address what might be considered a mundane problem: mounting paperwork and administrative tasks. This was related not so much to the processing forms and other records for active-duty personnel, but rather handling the administrative processes involving the massive number of surviving veterans from the Civil War: in 1865, the Army had over a million active-duty personnel.
More Warrant Officer 1 Rank InsigniaPre-2004 Warrant Officer Branch ItemsTo deal with the flood of clerical work, the War Department established the position of Headquarters Clerk in 1896 and manned it with male and female civilian employees. Twenty years later, Congress passed legislation that made these civilians Army field clerks, but didn’t bother to set any types of standards or baseline requirements for these new members of the military—all Headquarters Clerks became Army Field Clerks. When they were deployed to France, the Army gave them uniforms and even a branch insignia (crossed quill pens on disc)—but no rank.
At around the same time, the Army created the first actual Warrant Officers in the Mine Planter Service in 1918. Following World War I, the decision was made that Field Clerks, along with other Soldiers with special technical skills, would be made Warrant Officers with the same status of those serving as deck personnel (Master, 1st and 2nd Mates) and technicians (Chief Engineer and 1st and 2nd ssistant Engineers) on the Mine Planters. In June 1920, Congress passed legislation authorizing the Army to appoint over 1100 Warrant Officers to serve as in clerical positions and as bandmasters. While technically officers, these new types of officers received presidential warrants rather than presidential commissions.
In 1986, the Army switched to presidential commissioning of its Warrant Officers, mirroring the system employed in the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. This was done in large part in recognition of the need for Warrant Officers to begin the process of becoming viewed as part of the leadership cadre within the Army.