Special Edition: Lost Opportunities (April 11, 1862)
On April 11, 1862, Henry W. Halleck arrived at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, took command of the combined Armies of the Tennessee and Ohio, and embarked on the first field command of his career. (Halleck held only staff positions in California during the Mexican War.) Nicknamed ‘Old Brains’ by his peers after publishing Elements of Military Art and Science in 1846, Halleck graduated third in the West Point class of 1839 and was a favorite of esteemed military theorist and professor Dennis Hart Mahan. After resigning from the army in 1854, he enjoyed a highly successful and lucrative legal career in California before the war.
After taking command of the Department of the Missouri in November 1861, Halleck enjoyed a string of successes and was promoted to overall command of the Union armies in the western theater. After the near disaster at Shiloh, Halleck rushed to take personal command. His first action as overall commander was to sideline Ulysses S. Grant, his most successful subordinate, and inch his army very slowly towards the Confederate positions at Corinth, Mississippi, the junction of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad and the Mobile & Ohio Railroad.
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