Henry Halleck

HALLECK, Henry Wager, soldier, was born in Westernville, N.Y., Jan. 16, 1815. He was a descendant of Peter Halleck (or Hallock) of Long Island, 1640, and of Henry Wager, an earlysettler of central New York. He matriculated at Union college, and was graduated at the U.S. military academy in 1839, third in a class of thirty-one. He was appointed 3d lieutenant in the engineer corps and was retained at the academy as assistant professor of engineering and on July 28, 1840, was transferred to the board of engineers, Washington, D.C., as assistant. He was engaged on the fortifications in New York harbor, 1840—47, and during the period visited Europe on a tour of inspection of public works. He was promoted 1st lieutenant in 1845 and in 1847 was ordered to California as engineer for the western coast. He sailed on the transport Lexington, landed at Monterey, Cal., which he made a military base by fortifying the port, and which also became the rendezvous of the Pacific squadron. He accompanied several expeditions; was chief of staff to Colonel Burton, and took part in various skirmishes in Lower California in November, 1847; commanded the volunteers who marched to San Antonio, and on March 16, 1848, surprised the Mexican garrison and engaged in a skirmish at Todos Santos, March 30; and aided Commodore Shubrick, U.S.N., in the capture of Mazatlan, of which place he was for a time lieutenant-governor. He was brevetted captain to date from May 1, 1847, for “gallant and meritorious services&lrdquo; in these engagements. He was military secretary to military governors Mason and Riley and was commended for “great energy, high administrative qualities, excellent judgment and admirable adaptability to his varied and onerous duties.” He was a member of the convention that met at Monterey, Sept. 1, 1849, to frame a constitution for California, wrote the instrument, and refused to represent the state in the U.S. senate, preferring to continue his service in the army as aide-de-camp on the staff of General Riley. He was inspector and engineer of lighthouses. 1853-53; a member of the board of engineers for fortifications on the Pacific coast, 185354; was promoted captain of engineers, July 1, 1853, and resigned from the army, Aug. 1, 1854, to become head of a law firm of San Francisco, with large landed interests in the state. He was director-general of the New Almaden quicksilver mines, 1850-61; president of the Pacific & Atlantic railroad from San Jose to San Francisco, 1855-61; major-general of the state militia, 1861, and early in 1861 was appointed at the urgent recommendation of General Scott, major-general in the U.S. army, his commission dating from Aug. 19, 1861. He was commander of the department of Missouri, which embraced western Kentucky, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas, with headquarters at St. Louis. He brought to this position a military training and experience that in three months placed the Federal army in possession of all the territory under his control, save southern Missouri and western Kentucky, and then, with the aid of the gunboat flotilla of Admiral Foote and the army of General Grant, he began the military operations that resulted in the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson; the possession of Bowling Green, Columbus and Nashville, of New Madrid, Columbus and Island No. 10 on the Mississippi, and of the whole of Missouri and northern Arkansas, establishing the Federal army on a line extending from Chattanooga to Memphis. The departments of Kansas and Ohio were placed in his department, March 11, 1862, and the whole became known as the department of the Mississippi, which included the territory between the Allegheny and Rocky mountains. After the battle of Shiloh, General Halleck personally took the field and moved against Corinth, which had been fortified by the Confederate army, and on reaching the place May 30, it fell into his hands without an assault, the enemy having evacuated the place. He directed the pursuit of the fleeing Confederates, General Pope following up the direct retreat, while Sherman marched to Memphis, already captured by the gunboats before his arrival, and Buell marched against Chattanooga. He held the fortifications at Corinth, repaired railroad communications, and prepared to operate against Vicksburg, when on July 23 he accepted the appointment, made by President Lincoln, as general-in-chief of the armies of the United States with headquarters at Washington, D.C. He at once ordered the withdrawal of McClellan's army from the Peninsula and his letter to that commander under date of Oct. 38, 1863, was the only official explanation of the removal of McClellan from the command of the army of the Potomac, Nov. 7, 1863. When General Grant was made lieutenant general March 13, 1864, by special act of congress creating the rank for him, General Halleck was made his chief-of-staff, and continued in Washington until April 19, 1865, when he was transferred to Richmond, Va., as commander of the military division of the James. His orders to the officers in command of the forces operating in North Carolina against the army of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, “to pay no regard to any truce or orders of General Sherman respecting hostilities” and to push onward regardless of orders from any one except General Grant and cut off Johnston's retreat,” caused “a breach in the long existing friendship between the two commanders.” On Aug. 30, 1865, he was transferred to the command of the division of the Pacific and on being relieved by Gen. George H. Thomas was transferred to the division of the south, with headquarters at Louisville, Ky. March 16, 1869. He was elected professor of engineering in the Lawrence scientific school. Harvard university, in 1848, but declined the appointment. Union college conferred on him the honorary degree of A.M. in 1843, and that of LL.D. in 1862. He delivered before the Lowell institute, Boston, Mass., in the winter of 1845-46, twelve lectures on the science of war, which were published as “Elements of Military Art and Science“ (1846, 2d ed. 1861), and this work became the manual for volunteer officers of the civil war. During his seven months' voyage to California around the horn, he translated Baron Jomini's “Vie Politique et Militaire de Napoleon” which he published in 1864. He also published: A Collection of Mining Laws of Spain and Mexico (1859); a translation of De Fooz on the Law of Mines with Introductory Remarks (1860); and International Law on Rules regulating the Intercourse of Slates in Peace and War (1861), condensed and adapted to use in schools and colleges (1866). He died at Louisville. Ky., Jan. 9. 1872.