Henry Halleck - Postbellum Career

Postbellum Career

After Grant forced Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House, Halleck was assigned to command the Military Division of the James, headquartered at Richmond. He was a pall-bearer at Lincoln's funeral. He lost his friendship with William Sherman when he quarreled with him over Sherman's tendency to be lenient toward former Confederates. In August 1865 he was transferred to the Division of the Pacific in California, essentially in military exile. While holding this command he accompanied photographer Eadweard Muybridge to the newly purchased Russian America. He and Senator Charles Sumner are credited with applying the name "Alaska" to that region. In March 1869, he was assigned to command the Military Division of the South, headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky.

Henry Halleck died at his post in Louisville. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York, and is commemorated by a street named for him in San Francisco and a statue in Golden Gate Park. He left no memoirs for posterity and apparently destroyed his private correspondence and memoranda. His estate at his death showed a net value of $474,773.16 ($9,210,599.3 in 2011 dollars). His widow, Elizabeth, married Col. George Washington Cullum in 1875. Cullum had served as Halleck's chief of staff in the Western Theater and then on his staff in Washington.