HALLECK, HENRY WAGER American general and jurist, was born at Westernville, Oneida county, N.Y., in 1815. Upon graduating from West Point military academy in 1839 he was appointed to the engineers, and in 1845 he was sent by the Government to visit the principal military establishments of Europe. After his return, Halleck delivered a course of lec tures on the science of war, published in 1846 under the title Elements of Military Art and Science, a later edition of which was widely used as a text-book by volunteer officers during the Civil War. On the outbreak of the Mexican War in 1846, he served with the expedition to California and the Pacific coast, acting for several years in California as a staff officer, and as sec retary of State under the military government, and in 1849 he helped to frame the State Constitution of California. In 1854 Capt. Halleck resigned his commission and took up the practice of law with great success. On the outbreak of the Civil War he returned to the army as a major-general, and in Nov. 1861 he was charged with the supreme command in the western theatre of war.
There can be no doubt that his administrative skill was mainly instrumental in bringing order out of chaos in the hurried forma tion of large volunteer armies in 1861, but the strategical and tac tical successes of the following spring were due rather to the skill and activity of his subordinate generals, Grant, Buell and Pope, than to the plans of the supreme commander. In July, however, he was called to Washington as general-in-chief of the armies. At headquarters his administrative powers were conspicuous, but he proved to be utterly wanting in any large grasp of the military problem; the successive reverses of McClellan, Pope, Burn side and Hooker in Virginia were not infrequently traceable to the defects of the general-in-chief. In March 1864 Grant was ap pointed to replace him, Halleck becoming chief of staff at Wash ington. This post he occupied with credit until the end of the war. Halleck's position as a soldier is easily defined by his uniform suc cess as an administrative official, his equally uniform want of suc cess as an officer at the head of large armies in the field, and the popularity of his theoretical writings on war. While his interfer ence with the dispositions of the commanders in the field was often disastrous, his services in organizing and instructing Union forces were of high value. He died at Louisville, Ky., Jan. 9, 18 7 2.
Besides Military Art and Science, Halleck wrote Bitumen, its Varieties, Properties and Uses (1841) ; The Mining Laws of Spain and Mexico (1859) ; International Law (1861; new ed., 1908) ; and Treatise on International Law and the Laws of War, prepared for the use of Schools and Colleges, abridged from the larger work. He translated Jomini's Vie politique et militaire de Napoleon (1864) and de Fooz On the Law of Mines (186o) . The works on international law mentioned above entitle Gen. Halleck to high rank among the jurists of the loth century.
See R. N. R. Phelps, Stanton and Halleck in the Civil War (19o5) ; J. G. Wilson, "Types and Traditions of the Old Army," in Journal of Military Service Institute, vol. xxxvii., pp.