Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff

Front Cover
LSU Press, 1996 - History - 248 pages

“Halleck originates nothing, anticipates nothing, to assist others; takes no responsibility, plans nothing, suggests nothing, is good for nothing.” Lincoln’s secretary of the navy Gideon Welles’s harsh words constitute the stereotype into which Union General-in-Chief Henry Wager Halleck has been cast by most historians since Appomattox. In Halleck: Lincoln’s Chief of Staff, originally published in 1962, Stephen Ambrose challenges the standard interpretation of this controversial figure.

Ambrose argues persuasively that Halleck has been greatly underrated as a war theorist because of past writer’s failure to do justice to his close involvement with three movements basic to the development of the American military establishment: the Union high command’s application—and ultimate rejection—of the principles of Baron Henri Jomini; the growth of a national, professional army at the expense of the state militia; and the beginnings of a modern command system.

 

Contents

I The Formative Years
3
II From Chaos to Order
11
III Give Me Command in the West
23
IV The Siege of Corinth
41
V Consolidating Recent Gains
55
VI McClellan Pope and Second Bull Run
64
VII The Guillotine for Unsuccessful Generals
79
VIII Burnside and Rosecrans
94
X Concentrate on Important Points
123
XI Gettysburg and Vicksburg
137
XII Responsibility and Odium
150
XIII Chief of Staff
162
XIV Total War
181
XV Victory
196
Bibliography
213
Index
219

IX Intrigue Along the Mississippi
108

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About the author (1996)

Historian Stephen E. Ambrose grew up in Wisconsin and attended the University of Wisconsin and the University of Louisiana. Ambrose is considered to be one of the foremost historical scholars of recent times and has been a professor for over three decades. He is also the founder and president of the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans. His works include D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II, Citizen Soldiers: The U. S. Army from Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944-May 7, 1945, Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest and Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West. Abrose served historical consultant on the motion picture Saving Private Ryan.

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