n War received a couple of the brevets
so easily won in that conflict.

With his attainments and cast of mind, he made an admirable staff
officer for Commodore Shubrick and Gens. Mason and Riley in their
administration of California while the territory was being reduced to an
American possession. He became a Captain in his Corps in 1852, but the
opportunities in California were so tempting, that he resigned to enter
the practice of the law and embark in various business enterprises of
railroad building and quicksilver mining. He was unusually successful
in all these, becoming Director-General of the New Almaden Quicksilver
Mining Company, President of a railroad, and a member of a leading law
firm. He kept up his military connection by accepting the commission of
Major-General commanding the California Militia.

264

He was a constant student and a ready writer, and during this time
published a number of military and scientific books, some of which were
original and others translations.

Intellectually, professionally and socially he stood very high, and
the bestowal of a Major-General's commission upon him, dating from Aug.
19,1861, met with universal approval, though it gave him seniority in
that coveted rank to many distinguished soldiers. At that time Halleck
was in his 46th year and the very prime of his powers. He was tall,
spare, and commanding in figure, with a clean-shaven, authoritative,
intellectual face in which men read great things. He had large,
searching eyes, which seemed to penetrate the one with whom he was
talking. As far as education and observation could go, Halleck was
as complete a soldier as could be produced. Whatever could be done by
calculation and careful operation, he could do on a high plane. He only
lacked military instinct and soldierly intuition. Of that moral force
which frequently overleaps mere physical limitation he seems to have had
little, nor could he understand it in others.

There was in him none of the fiery zeal of Lyon, or the relentless
pugnacity of Grant; apparently these qualities were so absent in him
that he did not know how to deal with them in others. He never put
himself at the head of his troops to lead them in battle.

255

He could build up, block by block, with patient calculation, without
comprehension that somewhere might be a volcanic energy suddenly
unloosed which would scatter his blocks like straws.

If he had political convictions, they were