In August of 1861, US President Abraham Lincoln appointed General Henry Halleck to head the Department of Missouri. Upon his arrival to Missouri he set about cleaning up the mess created by his predecessor, John Fremont. Fremont was already an American icon of sorts based on his history in the West and as a candidate for the first Republican Party nomination in 1854. Lincoln and Fremont shared the belief that slavery was wrong, but when Fremont "freed" the slaves in Missouri, he was rebuked by Lincoln. Readers should take not that this was far too early in the war to act on his own regarding slavery. In fact, as Lincoln reminded Halleck and other commanders, only the president could handle such affairs. And Lincoln quite correctly was still working on a reunion of the Union. In August of 1861 emancipation was not even on the "table".
Major General Henry W. Halleck was placed in charge of the Western Theater of the US iCvil War. After the near defeat at the Battle of Shiloh, Halleck left his headquarters in St. Louis to personally command the armies now at Shiloh. He formed a 100,000 man army by adding the troops of General Pope to his own. The major problem was that Halleck had never commanded a force larger than a platoon. His objective was to confront the Rebel forces of PT Beauregard, who had escaped from Shiloh and was headed to Corinth, Mississippi.
General Henry Halleck spent the rest of his life after the US Civil War in the army. President Andrew Johnson sent him to Richmond to sort out the after war situation there in the former Rebel capital. He did history a valuable service there by finding and preserving Confederate war correspondence. This added to the publication of Official Records of the war. Halleck was also placed in charge of the west coast's military operations and later commanded a division in Kentucky. He died as a soldier in 1872
General Washington was a general because the Continental Congress gave him that rank when it placed him in charge of the army.
The Union general that President Lincoln placed in charge of the department of Mississippi was Ulysses S. Grant.
Placed a union general in charge of each district of the former Union
In early 1862, US President acted on General Halleck's recommendation to promote General John Pope to Major General.Based on Pope;s prior performance, President Lincoln had placed general Pope in charge of the newly created Army of Virginia. The new army was a composition of of the forces that were led by Fremont, Banks, McDowell, and Sturgis. This happened while General McClellan remained frozen still ion the James River in Virginia.
Abraham Lincoln's war order (March 11, 1862) established Halleck as autonomous within the Union Army, becoming the overall superior of Generals Buell, Hunter, and Grant in the western theater. In June 1862, he became general-in-chief of the Union armies, but was unable to effectively influence all of his subordinate generals, or to implement the strategic direction by Lincoln and War Secretary Stanton. He lost the general-in-chief position to Grant in 1864.
One of the reasons that US President Lincoln called upon General Henry Wager Halleck to come to Washington DC and lead the Union's military effort against the Rebels was Halleck's success in the Western Theater. Because of that, General William T. Sherman expected a vigorous Fall offensive in the in the East where the Union had cause to put Virginia's feet to the fire. Irregardless of Antietam, Sherman was an intelligent general and realized as war historians have pointed out, Antietam was a "technical " victory. Lee had placed the Army of the Potomac on the defensive and McClellan's claim that he saved the Union was an exaggeration. Sherman wrote to General US Grant he expected to hear of overwhelming numbers of troops by land and sea converging on Richmond while McClellan held Lee in check.Although Sherman was wrong concerning Halleck's intentions concerning the Army of Northern Virginia, he was glad to know that Halleck did have good plans for the Mississippi.
Aaron's descendants were placed in charge of the temple.
As General Joseph Hooker was doing his best to boost the morale of the Army of the Potomac, and being credited with his great success, Halleck, under fire from US President Lincoln, began to reorganize the command structure in the Eastern Theater. This was a challenge, and a major reason was the fact that Lincoln believed that Halleck had failed in more than one way to correctly exercise his role as general in chief. Because of that, General Hooker convinced Lincoln that he could break the normal chain of command and report directly to President Lincoln. This was a serious flaw by any military measure.With that said, Halleck took the following measures:* He placed the troops at Harper's Ferry and troops in the Shenandoah Valley under the command of Major General Robert Schenck;* Halleck reassigned the 9th Corps of the Army of the Potomac to Major General Dix at Fort Monroe; and* Halleck retained Major General Heintzelman as commander of the Washington DC defense troops.Halleck believed that these armies were too weak to defend themselves and ordered General Hooker to support them from the Army of the Potomac as needed.Lincoln again stepped in to break the chain of command by offering Hooker command of the Washington DC garrison, bur Hooker declined.Halleck was able to give to Hooker the same instructions that Lincoln had approved for the last commander of the Army of the Potomac, General Burnside, the command to focus on destroying Lee's army.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee decided that he had to reorganize his army before undertaking the Gettysburg campaign. He placed General Richard Ewell to take charge of Stonewall Jackson's corps the ll Corps.
March 1864. His previous boss, Halleck, graciously agreed to act as his Chief of Staff.