At Corinth, Braxton Bragg succeeded Beauregard as commander of the Confederate Army in the West. Not pressured by the incompetent Halleck, Bragg reinforced and outfitted the depleted units that Grant had all but destroyed at Shiloh, and sent them to Chattanooga. His plan essentially removed the force from central Tennessee in favor of Nashville and central Kentucky. It was an odd arrangement, but superior to what he inherited. As they moved from Central Mississippi to Eastern Tennessee,
General Kirby Smith assembled an army in the upper Tennessee Valley bent on pushing through the Cumberland Gap and occupying the Telephone Number List Bluegrass Region of Kentucky. At the same time, Generals Sterling Price and Earl Van Dorn collected troops from both sides of the lower Mississippi for an assault on Corinth to dislodge Halleck. But it was not Halleck they would be opposing. Halleck, sensing the deterioration and seeing no more glory in it for himself, had gone and left Grant to occupy with a relatively small contingent of troops.
Halleck continued to display ignorance of the war from the field of battle. Good administrator though he was, he did not belong in the field. He failed repeatedly to correctly interpret the intelligence delivered to him about enemy troop movement. Halleck was afforded modest praise for the behavior of the West, but in reality, it was for the success that Grant was able to achieve in spite of Halleck. Lincoln saw two things. Halleck was important to the war effort as a theoretician and administrator, but useless as a field general. He called Halleck to Washington and appointed him General in Chief of the Army to fulfill the post vacated by the retired Winfield Scott.