HALLECK

halleck, henry wager (1815-1872), american general and jurist, was born at westernville, oneida county, n.y., in 1815, entered the west point military academy at the age of twenty, and on graduating in 1839 was appointed to the engineers, becoming at the same time assistant professor of engineering at the academy. in the following year he was made an assistant to the board of engineers at washington, from 1841 to 1846 he was employed on the defence works at new york, and in 1845 he was sent by the government to visit the principal military establishments of europe. after his return, halleck delivered a course of lectures on the science of war, published in 1846 under the title _elements of military art and science_. a later edition of this work was widely used as a text-book by volunteer officers during the civil war. on the outbreak of the mexican war in 1846, he served with the expedition to california and the pacific coast, in which he distinguished himself not only as an engineer, but by his skill in civil administration and by his good conduct before the enemy. he served for several years in california as a staff officer, and as secretary of state under the military government, and in 1849 he helped to frame the state constitution of california, on its being admitted into the union. in 1852 he was appointed inspector and engineer of lighthouses, and in 1853 was employed in the fortification of the pacific coast. in 1854 captain halleck resigned his commission and took up the practice of law with great success. he was also director of a quicksilver mine, and in 1855 he became president of the pacific & atlantic railway. on the outbreak of the civil war he returned to the army as a major-general, and in november 1861 he was charged with the supreme command in the western theatre of war. there can be no question that his administrative skill was mainly instrumental in bringing order out of chaos in the hurried formation of large volunteer armies in 1861, but the strategical and tactical successes of the following spring were due rather to the skill and activity of his subordinate generals grant, buell and pope, than to the plans of the supreme commander, and when he assumed command of the united forces of these three generals before corinth, the methodical slowness of his advance aroused much criticism. in july, however, he was called to washington as general-in-chief of the armies. at headquarters his administrative powers were conspicuous, but he proved to be utterly wanting in any large grasp of the military problem; the successive reverses of generals mcclellan, pope, burnside and hooker in virginia were not infrequently traceable to the defects of the general-in-chief. no co-ordination of the military efforts of the union was seriously undertaken by halleck, and eventually in march 1864 grant was appointed to replace him, major-general halleck becoming chief of staff at washington. this post he occupied with credit until the end of the war. in april 1865 he held the command of the military division of the james and in august of the same year of the military division of the pacific, which he retained till june 1869, when he was transferred to that of the south, a position he held till his death at louisville, ky., on the 9th of january 1872. halleck's position as a soldier is easily defined by bis uniform success as an administrative official, his equally uniform want of success as an officer at the head of large armies in the field, and the popularity of his theoretical writings on war. his influence, for good or evil, on the course of the greatest war of modern times was greater than that of any soldier on either side save grant and lee, and whilst his interference with the dispositions of the commanders in the field was often disastrous, his services in organizing and instructing the union forces were always of the highest value, and in this respect he was indispensable. besides _military art and science_, halleck wrote _bitumen, its varieties, properties and uses_ (1841); _the mining laws of spain and mexico_ (1859); _international law_ (1861; new edition, 1908); and _treatise on international law and the laws of war, prepared for the use of schools and colleges_, abridged from the larger work. he translated jomini's _vie politique et militaire de napoleon_ (1864) and de fooz _on the law of mines_ (1860). the works on international law mentioned above entitle general halleck to be considered as one of the great jurists of the 19th century. halleflinta (a swedish word meaning rock-flint), a white, grey, yellow, greenish or pink, fine-grained rock consisting of an intimate mixture of quartz and felspar. many examples are banded or striated; others contain porphyritic crystals of quartz which resemble those of the felsites and porphyries. mica, iron oxides, apatite, zircon, epidote and hornblende may also be present in small amount. the more micaceous varieties form transitions to granulite and gneiss. halleflinta under the microscope is very finely crystalline, or even cryptocrystalline, resembling the felsitic matrix of many acid rocks. it is essentially metamorphic and occurs with gneisses, schists and granulites, especially in the scandinavian peninsula, where it is regarded as being very characteristic of certain horizons. of its original nature there is some doubt, but its chemical composition and the occasional presence of porphyritic crystals indicate that it has affinities to the fine-grained acid intrusive rocks. in this group there may also have been placed metamorphosed acid tuffs and a certain number of adinoles (shales, contact altered by intrusions of diabase). the assemblage is not a perfectly homogeneous one but includes both igneous and sedimentary rocks, but the former preponderate. rocks very similar to the typical swedish halleflintas occur in tirol, in galicia and eastern bohemia. hallel (heb. [hebrew: hallel] a mishnic derivative from [hebrew: hillel] hillel, "to praise"), a term in synagogal liturgy for (a) psalms cxiii.-cxviii., often called "the egyptian hallel" because of its recitation during the paschal meal on the night of the passover, (b) psalm cxxxvi. "the great hallel." c. a. briggs[1] points out that the term "hallelujah" (praise ye yah) is found at the close of pss. civ., cv., cxv., cxvi., cxvii., at the beginning of pss. cxi., cxii. and at both ends of pss. cvi., cxiii., cxxxv., cxlvi. to cl. the septuagint also gives it at the beginning of pss. cv., cvii., cxiv., cxvi. to cxix., cxxxvi. there are thus four groups of hallel psalms:--civ.-cvii. (a tetralogy on creation, the patriarchal age, the exodus, and the restoration); cxi.-cxvii. which includes most of the "egyptian hallel"; cxxxv.-cxxxvi.; cxlvi.-cl. all of these hallels (except cxlvii. and cxlix. which are maccabean) belong to the greek period, forming a collection of sixteen psalms composed for public use by the choirs, especially at the great feasts. their distribution into four groups was the work of the final editor of the psalter. later liturgical use regarded pss. cxviii. and even cxix. as hallels, as well as pss. cxx. to cxxxiv. it will be observed that the extent of the official hallel varied from time to time. it would appear that in the time of gamaliel (_pesahim_ x. 5) the custom of its recitation at the paschal meal was still of recent innovation. while the school of shammai advised only ps. cxiii., the school of hillel favoured pss. cxiii. and cxiv.[2] the further extension so as to include pss. cxv. to cxviii. probably dates from the first half of the 2nd century a.d., and these four psalms were recited after the pouring out of the fourth cup, the two earlier ones being taken at the beginning of the meal. from the 3rd century the use of the hallel was extended to other occasions, and was gradually incorporated into the liturgy of eighteen festal days. the "great hallel" (ps. cxxxvi. and its later extension to cxx.-cxxxvi.) always served the wider purpose of a more general thanksgiving. according to rabbi johanan it derived its name from the allusion in v. 25 to the holy one who sits in heaven and thence distributes food to all bis creatures. footnotes: [1] _international critical commentary_, "psalms," intro. lxxviii. [2] the reference to a hymn at the institution of the eucharist (matt. xxvi. 30, mark xiv. 26) must be interpreted in the light of this inceptive stage of the hallel.