Perhaps that sheds light on why there has never been a biography of the equally unlikable Union Gen. Henry W. Halleck. John F. Marszalek, a seasoned Civil War historian, has filled that void with “Commander of All Lincoln’s Armies.”
Halleck gets prominent play in most Civil War histories, in both the general histories and histories of specific commanders, but except for a one-sided essay published long after Halleck died, by Halleck’s best friend, Gen. George W. Cullum, who inherited Halleck’s extensive wealth by marrying Halleck’s widow and outliving her, very little has been published about Halleck himself.
The first part of Marszalek’s book makes one wonder why Halleck was ignored by history. He was a New Yorker, a graduate of Union College and then of West Point, so brilliant that he was already teaching at West Point before he graduated. He wrote several books, including one that became a textbook at West Point, translated the military volumes of the famous French military genius, Andre Henry Jomini, that influenced a generation of West Pointers and the conduct of the Civil War, studied military fortifications in Germany, served in California where he made a fortune on the side as a legal arbitrator of law claims and as one of the founders of the state of California, claimed southern California for the United States during the Mexican War, and by the time that war came in 1861, was hailed (along with Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan) as one of the “most-likely-to-succeed” from Old Army ranks.
Appointed major general of the California militia, Halleck was soon summoned east to the Union Army. Assigned to Missouri, he succeeded the incompetent Gen. Fremont and rose to national attention when one of his officers, a hard-drinking Ulysses Grant, took Forts Henry and Donelson and then turned defeat into victory at Shiloh.
Then Halleck assigned Grant to invisible menial roles and took charge of the Western army himself, spending months inching from Shiloh to Corinth which was finally evacuated with little loss to the Union troops.
Like McClellan who tried to do the same thing at Richmond on the Peninsula, Halleck seemed to think the war could be won by maneuvers instead of battles. When McClellan vacillated and Lincoln’s patience with him finally was exhausted, Halleck replaced McClellan as general of the Union armies.
Halleck proved to be an awful disappointment. The commander refused to command. He kept paperwork flowing and provided supplies and reinforcements to the various armies of the North, but he would not leave his office to inspect front-line conditions nor to give orders to his generals. Occasionally he would make suggestions but always made it clear that all decisions of when and where and how to fight were those of generals in the field, and certainly not his.
As his star faded, his stressfulness increased; he was sickly, and he had only one friend. Lincoln tolerated him because of his past reputation as a great military genius, but finally even Lincoln gave up on him. After Grant’s victories at Vicksburg and Chattanooga, Grant was made commander of all Union armies, and Halleck was demoted to chief of staff.
After the war, Halleck was assigned to command Richmond, then California (where he proved useful when Alaska was acquired from Russia), and then was assigned to Louisville in charge of all U.S. troops in the entire South, where—much evidence to the contrary—he blithely reported to Washington that there was no such organization as the Ku Klux Klan.
Self-deluded, shielded by his self-constructed superiority complex, refusing after age 16 ever to speak to his father (but buying his farm when the father died), arrogant and insolent, Halleck died in 1871. His friend and beneficiary, Cullum, later arranged for a statue of him in California and a bust of him at West Point, but when he was buried in Brooklyn, New York newspapers ignored his funeral.
Larry McGehee, professor and vice president at Wofford College, may be reached by e-mail at mcgeheelt@wofford.edu.
