July 11, 1862

July 11, 1862:  On this date, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, otherwise known as “Old Brains” in the service, is given the post of General-in-Chief of Union armies and summoned to Washington.  Halleck seems to be the obvious choice, since he was in command over the armies in the West which had enjoyed so much success.  Gen. McClellan, in his recent “strong and frank letter” to Lincoln, had suggested with a transparent lack of tact, that he was available to take up his old post again and thus save the country, but Lincoln apparently does not take the bait.  The sidelined Grant, being Halleck’s second-in-command, is made chief over the western departments. 

Maj. Gen. Henry W. "Old Brains" Halleck

---Pleasant Hill, Missouri:  A company of State militia clashes with a company of Rebel bushwhackers, resulting in the defeat of the Rebels, with six killed and five wounded.

---A similar clash takes place in New Hope, Kentucky, between Federal cavalry and Rebel mounted guerillas, resulting in the guerillas’ rout.

---In a letter home to his mother, Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes, with his regiment in the mountains of western Virginia, writes of how his men take care of themselves in this peaceful theater of the war:

The men are healthy, contented, and have the prettiest and largest bowers over the whole camp I ever saw. They will never look so well or behave so well in any settled country. Here the drunkards get no liquor, or so little that they regain the healthy complexion of temperate men. Every button and buckle is burnished bright, and clothes brushed or washed clean. I often think that if mothers could see their boys as they often look in this mountain wilderness, they would feel prouder of them than ever before. We have dancing in two of the larger bowers from soon after sundown until a few minutes after nine o’clock. By half-past nine all is silence and darkness. At sunrise the men are up, drilling until breakfast. . . .