Commander of All Lincoln's Armies: A Life of General Henry W. Halleck (review)

When first opening this book, the combination of a capable author and a subject badly in need of reappraisal raised my expectations. And indeed there are a lot of good things about it. John Marszalek has provided the most detailed and authoritative account of Halleck's early life, initial military career and later professional success as a lawyer. Marszalek takes the view that "In the early success, the early actions, and the early decisions lay the seeds of Halleck's later failure, inactivity and indecision" (p. 3). The book, as one would suspect from such an author, is skilfully put together and agreeably written. Marszalek also explores Halleck's place in American intellectual life, especially his military works that were far more influential than those of Baron Jomini (although an opportunity has been missed to explore the roots of Halleck's fundamentally defensive outlook).

However, taken as a whole, the book is rather disappointing as a contribution to Civil War scholarship. Marszalek makes little effort to revise our established views of Halleck's military career, and signals from the first that he was an irredeemable failure. Consequently, although the initial chapters on Halleck's formative experiences contain new material and insights, the central chapters on the conduct of the Civil War at the highest level have very little to offer that has not been said before. Regrettably, this must be the yardstick by which the quality of the book should be judged.

There are two reasons for Marszalek's failure to reappraise Halleck as commanding general, and after 1864 as chief of staff. First, he fails to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of the command system within which Halleck operated and instead gives too much attention to the clash of personalities. Halleck's much criticised reluctance to take command in the field can be justified, and it is unfortunate that Marszalek does not attempt to deal sympathetically with his case. Halleck's view—that he was military adviser to the President and Secretary of War—was perfectly legitimate and accords more closely with twenty-first century practice; the alternative—Grant's choice—left the commanding general a mere superior field commander. "Halleck worried rather than acted," Marszalek complains (p. 142); "he had placed himself in command limbo" (p. 153). Marszalek refers to Francis Lieber's pleasure "that such an intellectual" had been appointed commanding general (p. 167), but he does not consider the degree to which antiintellectualism provoked the exaggerated scorn that was heaped on Halleck's head. Secondly, he spends too much time discussing operations and neglects to give Halleck's important administrative and logistical efforts the space they deserve (p. 199).

Nor is any space allotted to the way that Halleck ran the general in chief's office. In all of these key areas, Marszalek does not provide the re-evaluation that Halleck really needs, but simply repeats the opinions of earlier historians, who often damn with faint praise. For instance, after Halleck's appointment as chief of staff in March 1864, Marszalek turns to the well-worn argument that he was a part of a "modern" command system. T. Harry Williams popularized this argument in his book on Lincoln's Generals in 1952, although it had been advanced by Major General Sir Frederick Maurice in his book Statesmen and Soldiers of the Civil War, published as long ago as 1926. Marszalek, alas, does not take this notion forward at all, as there are grounds for questioning its validity. The separation of the role of commanding general from the work of the chief of staff did not "set a precedent for modern army organization" (p. 197), for this reverses the relative seniority of all field commanders to the chief of staff that has prevailed since the Austro-Prussian War of 1866.

Within his chosen context of modernity...