Halleck and the Problem of Motive - Pt 1

Over on Civil Warriors I've begun a couple of posts on Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, aka"Old Brains" -- probably the least martial nickname in American military history. Nowadays Halleck is an obscure figure. I doubt that anyone who is not a U.S. Civil War specialist knows much about him, if indeed they even recognize the name. But for most of the war -- from July 1862 until March 1864 -- Halleck was general-in-chief, the top commander in the Union Army.

Even after Ulysses S. Grant took over the post, Halleck served the balance of the war as the Army's chief of staff. He handled most of the Army's administrative matters, served as an intermediary between Grant and the political heavies in Washington, and received most of the correspondence from the Army's field and department commanders, which he then summarized and passed along to Grant. Correspondingly, he often relayed to them Grant's instructions. Historian T. Harry Williams termed this relationship the beginnings of a"modern command system."

For about a week now I've been revisiting Halleck, general-in-chief of the Union armies from July 1862 until March 1864, when Grant assumed the post -- Halleck then became his chief of staff. The experience has reminded of just how entrenched our view of many Civil War figures can become -- and more generally, the extent to which interpretation of individuals (and for that matter, groups), is driven by guesswork about what motivated their actions. This is of course a perennial issue and I'm far from the first to notice it. But precisely because it is a perennial issue, it merits periodic re-examination.

Halleck fares poorly in the annals of the conflict. The standard image is that of a stuffy paper-pusher who held the post of general in chief but was too timid and indecisive to really command the Union armies.

Probably nothing has done more to shape Halleck's historical image than the diaries of John Hay, which have been called"the most intimate record we have or ever will have of Abraham Lincoln in the White House." As Lincoln's personal secretary, he encountered just about every Northern luminary of the day and had almost daily access to the president.

Hay relished recording witty remarks made by others, particularly if spiced with a bit of venom, and most of his diary entries contain one or more of these. Needless to say, many come from Lincoln's mouth. As such, they have had an enormous impact on our image of the people Lincoln had to deal with. In some cases, they have pretty much etched the image in stone. Hay records a number of Lincoln's observations about Halleck. They are not flattering. For example:

March 24, 1864: Grant the Prest. says is Commander in Chief & Halleck is now nothing but a staff officer. In fact says the President 'when [Maj. Gen. George B.] McClellan seemed incompetent to the work of handling an army & we sent for Halleck to take command he stipulated that it should be with the full power and responsibility of Commander in Chief. He ran it on that basis until [Maj. Gen. John] Pope's defeat [at the battle of Second Manassas on August 29-30, 1862]: but ever since that event, He has shrunk from responsibility whenever it was possible."

April 28, 1864: [quoting Lincoln:]"When it was proposed to station Halleck here in general command, he [Halleck] insisted to use his own language[,] on the appt. of a General-in-Chief who shd. be held responsible for results. We appointed him & all went well enough until after Pope's defeat when he broke down -- nerve and pluck all gone -- and has ever since evaded all possible responsibility -- little more then than a first-rate clerk."

Lincoln portrays Halleck's style of command as being motivated by timidity. As I'll explore in my next post, it might just as well have emanated from principle. In which case the picture of Halleck that emerges becomes a good deal different.