never was a friend of henry halleck, not in california nor during the civil war. could, heoker 'sdiculed his halleck unwillingness to take the field. you may have heard this quote did -- quote. halleck serving as commanding was like being a man who got married but never intended to sleep with his wife. i didn't make that up. that's what hooked said. , you can'tclellan think of many people he really he had little good to say about anybody. lyrical inositively his disdain for halleck. i havethe men encountered in high position, halleck was the most hopelessly stupid. it was more difficult to get an idea through his head then can be conceived i anyone who never made the attempt. he ever had a correct military well, those kinds of condemnations, when added with the condemnations of historians are bad enough, but they still do not reach the level of hisctive displayed by political contemporaries, the ones he dealt with regularly in washington. weighed -- ben wade. put halleck in front of 100,000 men, and he would not scare piece from their nest -- ."ese from their nests

in that role, henry w. halleck was involved in one way or another with every major decision that was made in the american civil war, every major battlefield decision. he advised. he cajoled, he encouraged, he rejoiced, or he picked up the pieces. when grant assumed overall command in 1864, halleck stayed on. he became part of the military theme. he was then that was then called the chief of staff. it is not what we call it today, but he was the chief of staff. he was like a general to grant. he took the administrative burdens off grant's shoulders. he forged that military machine that finally overwhelmed the confederate forces. in short, i think it's fair to say that halleck played a major role both militarily and politically in the outcome of the civil war. he was a leading general, had an important influence on the nation's political leaders, no other military man was as central to the civil war as was henry w. "old brains" halleck. that's nice. who cares? that is the usual attitude. that's the usual response tha

first the jealousy of henry halleck, then don carlos buell, john mcclendon is the worst of all. there is also stephen hurlbut, nathaniel banks and grant's one-time friend william rosecrans. almost alleir allies of them allied themselves with newspaperman. communications and information and the creation of impressions versus the actual expression of fact. it is nothing new. as ralph told you in his talk. it is very evident there. these men constantly fed stories to her grant, by the charges of drunkenness. i will deal with that later on. lee never has to contend with that. he has no one working against him behind his lines except possibly long street, was more interested in getting an independent command of his own that he was in undercutting lee. directly,eport face-to-face, with jefferson davis. grant, through his career will report first to john c fremont, and henry halleck, briefly to georgia:, and then to -- briefly to george mcclellan, then hallec k again. talk about a losing hand. that is four deuces. grant starts the war in which virtually every division commander in 1862