prominent Wesleyan character
150 years ago this week the Dispatch printed a bio of the new Union general-in-chief.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch July 28, 1862:
The New Federal Commander-in-chief.
Henry Wager Halleck is one the four Major-Generals who were first appointed in 1861 to that rank in the United States army. Gen. Halleck is about forty-two years of age, and was born in Weston, Oneida county, N. Y., where his grand-father–one hundred years old, and hale and hearty — lately resided. General Halleck’s father was the Hon. Joseph Halleck, who died about three years since. General Halleck entered the Military Academy as a West Point cadet in 1835, stood third in the class, and was brevetted second lieutenant of engineers July 1, 1839. He was Acting Assistant Professor of Engineering at the Military Academy from July, 1839, to June, 1840. In 1811 he was the author of a military work on “Bitumen and it’s Uses,” &c. In January, 1845, he was appointed first lieutenant, and during the year he was selected by the Committee of the Lowell Institute, at Boston, to deliver one of the regular course of lectures, the subject being “Military Science and Art.” These lectures he compiled in a neat volume during the following year, adding thereto a lengthy introduction on the “Justifiableness of War.” The work contains much valuable elementary instruction, as well as abundance of historical illustration, and is written with ability. In 1847 he was brevetted Captain for gallant conduct in affairs with the enemy on the 19th and 20th days of November, 1847, and for meritorious service in California. He was Secretary of State of the Territory of California under the military governments of Generals Kearney, Mason, and Riley, from 1847 to the end of 1849. He was chief of the staff of Commodore Shubrick, in the naval and military operations on the Pacific coast in 1847 and 1848, and was a member of the convention in 1849 to form, and of the committee to draft, the Constitution of the State of California. In July, 1853, he was appointed Captain of engineers, and resigned August 1, 1834.
San Francisco view, about 1860
Gen. Halleck was appointed a Major General in the United States Army in August last, at the instance of Lieut.-Gen. Scott, then about to retire from active service. His commission bears date the 19th of August, 1861. At the time of his appointment, Gen. Halleck was the leading member of a most prominent law firm in San Francisco.
Major Gen. Halleck, in personal appearance, is below the medium height, straight, active, and well formed and has a brisk, energetic gait, significant of his firm and decisive character. His nose is delicate and well formed, his forehead ample, and his mouth by no means devoid of humor. His eye is of a hazel color, clear as a morning star, and of intense brilliancy. He bears a most striking resemblance to some oleaginous Methodist parson dressed in regimentals, with a wide, stiff-rimmed black felt hat sticking on the back of his head, at an acute angle with the ground. His demeanor in front of his tent is very simple and business-like.–No pomp, no unusual ceremony, and no lack of order. When on horseback his Wesleyan character is more and more prominent. He neither looks like a soldier, rides like one, nor does he carry the state of a Major General in the field, but is the impersonation of the man of peace.
impersonating a man of peace?
Henry Wager Halleck was trained at West Point as an engineer had a very accomplished career. In 1853 he built the Montgomery Block, San Francisco’s first fireproof and earthquake resistant building.
The block that Halleck built
