Commander of All Lincoln's Armies: A Life of General Henry W. Halleck
352Commander of All Lincoln's Armies: A Life of General Henry W. Halleck
352Hardcover
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
In the first comprehensive biography of Halleck, the prize-winning historian John F. Marszalek recreates the life of a man of enormous achievement who bungled his most important mission. When Lincoln summoned him to the nation's capital, Halleck boasted outstanding qualifications as a military theorist, a legal scholar, a brave soldier, and a California entrepreneur. Yet in the thick of battle, he couldn't make essential decisions. Unable to produce victory for the Union forces, he saw his power become subsumed by Grant's emergent leadership, a loss that paved the way for Halleck's path to obscurity.
Harnessing previously unused research, as well as the insights of modern medicine and psychology, Marszalek unearths the seeds of Halleck's fatal wartime indecisiveness in personality traits and health problems. In this brilliant dissection of a rich and disappointed life, we gain new understanding of how the key decisions of the Civil War were taken, as well as insight into the making of effective military leadership.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780674014930 |
---|---|
Publisher: | Harvard University Press |
Publication date: | 12/17/2004 |
Pages: | 352 |
Product dimensions: | 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Prologue
1. Born to Gentility, Educated to Elitism
2. Army Engineer at Home and Abroad
3. War and Peace in California
4. From Soldier to Businessman
5. From Peace to War
6. Commander of the Western Theater
7. Supreme Commander
8. War by Washington Telegraph
9. The Western Generals Bring Success
10. Chief of Staff under Grant
11. From War to Peace
Bibliographical Essay
Abbreviations Used in the Notes
Notes
Acknowledgments
Illustration Credits
Index
What People are Saying About This
Early in the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant assessed Henry W. Halleck as, 'a man of gigantic intellect and well studied in the profession of arms.' Grant and Abraham Lincoln, among others, would eventually abandon that admiration. In a meticulously researched and intellectually probing biography, John F. Marszalek explores the psychological and physical causes of Halleck's disappointing performance. In a path-breaking biography, Marszalek brings a new perspective to the interpretation of the Civil War.
Often ignored, often disparaged, Henry W. Halleck has long required a serious biography by an accomplished Civil War historian. John Marszalek's effort was worth the wait. This book finally sheds light on how 'Old Brains' earned his moniker, and what he did-and gallingly failed to do-that caused him to forfeit it. Here is a highly valuable, highly readable contribution to Civil War scholarship that not only paints a vivid portrait of a complex life, but sheds much new light on the complexities of 19-century military command.
Harold Holzer, co-Chairman of the US Lincoln Bicentennial Commission
In this first full-scale biography of Henry W. Halleck, John Marszalek offers a balanced appraisal of that controversial general's strengths and weaknesses. An excellent administrator, Halleck could not make command decisions. A disappointment as general in chief, he nevertheless helped organize Union victory in the Civil War. This important book provides new insights on the Union command structure.
James M. McPherson, author of Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg
'Old Brains' seemed an unlikely sobriquet for an officer whom most senior commanders in the Union Army regarded as bumbling and indecisive as a field commander, and hide-bound by paperwork as an administrator. Yet, for good or ill, few officers in Lincoln's army exerted more influence over the course of the Civil War than Henry W. Halleck. John F. Marszalek, one of our finest scholars of the era, provides the first in-depth look at Halleck in more than forty years, and surely the finest work on the subject we are likely to get.
William C. Davis, author of Lone Star Rising: The Revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic
Not only does this study fill a biographical void; it is also remarkably evenhanded for an examination of a figure who never quite measured up to the Civil War responsibilities of his offices… Scrupulous in its scholarship and fair in its judgments, John Marszalek brings to the work a comprehensive mastery of Civil War history that is indispensable.
Russell Weigley, author of The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy
Henry Halleck has often been dismissed by students of the Civil War as a kind of glorified clerk. That is because until now no scholar has managed to bring to light the full history of this obviously gifted, but equally troubled and complex individual. In this rich and readable biography, John Marszalek at last gives us a convincing three-dimensional portrait of the man who commanded all of Lincoln's armies in America's greatest war. And in so doing, he has not only clarified Halleck's role in the war, he has enhanced our understanding of the war itself.
Craig L. Symonds, U.S. Naval Academy
Early in the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant assessed Henry W. Halleck as, 'a man of gigantic intellect and well studied in the profession of arms.' Grant and Abraham Lincoln, among others, would eventually abandon that admiration. In a meticulously researched and intellectually probing biography, John F. Marszalek explores the psychological and physical causes of Halleck's disappointing performance. In a path-breaking biography, Marszalek brings a new perspective to the interpretation of the Civil War.
John Y. Simon, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale