Lee and Longstreet at High Tide: Gettysburg in the Light of the Official Records
by Helen Dortch Longstreet · English · Gutenberg #44459 · 658,193 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lee and Longstreet at High Tide: Gettysburg in the Light of the Official Records
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Lee and Longstreet at High Tide: Gettysburg in the Light of the Official Records
Author: Helen Dortch Longstreet
Release date: December 18, 2013 [eBook #44459]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44459
Credits: Produced by Charlie Howard and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LEE AND LONGSTREET AT HIGH TIDE: GETTYSBURG IN THE LIGHT OF THE OFFICIAL RECORDS ***
Transcriber's Note:
The original text contained images of three handwritten letters and one
typed letter. Their positions are indicated here as “Illustrations”,
identified as “fac-simile”, and followed by printed transcriptions. The
identifications were not in the original text and have been copied from
the List of Illustrations. The transcriptions were not in the original
text and have been added to this eBook by the transcribers.
LEE AND LONGSTREET
AT HIGH TIDE
[Illustration:
Yours Truly
James Longstreet
Lieutenant-General]
LEE AND LONGSTREET
AT HIGH TIDE
GETTYSBURG IN THE LIGHT OF THE
OFFICIAL RECORDS
BY
HELEN D. LONGSTREET
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR
GAINESVILLE, GA.
1904
COPYRIGHT, 1904
BY HELEN D. LONGSTREET
Electrotyped and Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia
TO
LONGSTREET AT GETTYSBURG
FROM HER WHO SINCE CHILDHOOD HAS HELD
HIS HEROIC DEEDS AS SOLDIER AND CITIZEN
AMONG THE PRICELESS INHERITANCES OF THE
GREAT REPUBLIC
PREFACE
This brief story of a gigantic event, and General Longstreet’s part
therein was arranged for publication in book form in the fall of 1903,
before his death, which occurred January 2, 1904. It is the carefully
sifted story of the records and contemporaneous witnesses, and for
clearness I have here and there introduced General Longstreet’s
personal version of some of the disputed points. But the reader will
perceive that at last it is the _story of the records_.
For my undertaking I drew liberally from General Longstreet’s memoirs
of the war, “Manassas to Appomattox;” from his stores of knowledge in
the military art, and his treasure-house of memories of the Titanic
encounter on the field of Gettysburg. The war-pictures included herein
are also from the above-mentioned volume. And I am gratefully indebted
to Captain Leslie J. Perry, formerly of the War Records Office,
Washington City, for valuable assistance.
An appendix, added since General Longstreet’s death, includes a small
selection from the thousands of tributes from every quarter of the
republic.
One of the last of the brilliant generals of the Civil War, whose valor
and skill in the command of great armies, is to-day the common glory
of the restored Union, has contributed an introduction. No survivor
of the great struggle has a better right to speak of Gettysburg than
General Daniel E. Sickles. In this connection the following letter is
appreciatively reproduced.
“WASHINGTON, September 19, 1902.
“GENERAL D. E. SICKLES,
“Gettysburg, Pennsylvania:
“MY DEAR GENERAL SICKLES,--My plan and desire was to meet you at
Gettysburg on the interesting ceremony attending the unveiling
of the Slocum monument; but to-day I find myself in no condition
to keep the promise made you when last we were together. I am
quite disabled from a severe hurt in one of my feet, so that I
am unable to stand more than a minute or two at a time. Please
express my sincere regrets to the noble Army of the Potomac, and
accept them, especially, for yourself.
“On that field you made your mark that will place you prominently
before the world as one of the leading figures of the most
important battle of the Civil War. As a Northern veteran once
remarked to me, ‘General Sickles can well afford to leave a leg
on that field.’
“I believe it is now conceded that the advanced position at the
Peach-Orchard, taken by your corps and under your orders saved
that battle-field to the Union cause. It was the sorest and
saddest reflection of my life for many years; but, to-day, I can
say, with sincerest emotion, that it was and is the best that
could have come to us all, North and South; and I hope that the
nation, reunited, may always enjoy the honor and glory brought to
it by the grand work.
“Please offer my kindest salutations to your governor and your
fellow-comrades of the Army of the Potomac.
“Always yours sincerely,
(Signed) “JAMES LONGSTREET,
“_Lieutenant-General Confederate Army_.”
Early in December advance chapters were given to the press for January
3; by strangely pathetic coincidence that being the date on which
public announcement was made of General Longstreet’s death.
This hour does not clamor for the charity of silence, but for the white
light of truth which I reverently undertake to throw upon the deeds of
the commander who, from Manassas to Appomattox, was the strong right
arm of the Confederate States Army.
I was writing for love of him whose dear name and fame had been
attacked; to place before his fading vision enduring appreciation of
his valiant deeds as a soldier and high qualities as a gentleman.
Providence decreed otherwise. While the opening chapters were running
into type, the Great Captain on High called him hence, where he can at
last have his wrongs on earth forever righted.
The warrior sleeps serenely to-day, undisturbed by all earthly
contentions, the peace of God upon him. And I bring to his tomb
this little leaf fragrant with my love, bedewed with my tears,
heavy-weighted with my woe and desolation.
H. D. L.
GAINESVILLE, GEORGIA, August 1, 1904.
CONTENTS
LEE AND LONGSTREET AT HIGH TIDE
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 17
CHAPTER I
THE STORY OF GETTYSBURG 31
CHAPTER II
LEE CHANGES PLAN OF CAMPAIGN 40
CHAPTER III
PICKETT’S CHARGE 50
CHAPTER IV
GORDON’S “ESTABLISHED FACTS” AND PENDLETON’S FULMINATIONS 53
CHAPTER V
LONGSTREET’S VERSION OF THE OPERATIONS OF JULY 2 68
CHAPTER VI
PENDLETON’S REPORT 71
CHAPTER VII
PENDLETON’S UNRELIABLE MEMORY 75
CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL LONGSTREET’S AMERICANISM 85
CHAPTER IX
FINALE 89
LONGSTREET THE MAN
HIS BOYHOOD DAYS 93
LIFE-LONG FRIENDSHIP OF GRANT AND LONGSTREET 100
HIS FIRST ROMANCE 109
HEROIC CITIZEN OF THE RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD 112
THE CHRISTIAN PATRIOT LOVED THE SOUTH TO THE LAST 115
WORSHIPPED BY THE SOLDIERS OF THE CONFEDERACY 119
HIS COUNTRY HOME IN PICTURESQUE NORTH GEORGIA 123
LONGSTREET ON THE FIELDS OF MEXICO
CHAPTER I
THE WINNING OF OUR WESTERN EMPIRE 127
CHAPTER II
PECULIARITIES OF SCOTT AND TAYLOR 134
CHAPTER III
UNPRETENTIOUS LIEUTENANT GRANT 139
CHAPTER IV
PLEASANT INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT CORPUS CHRISTI 144
CHAPTER V
INTO THE INTERIOR OF MEXICO 149
CHAPTER VI
FROM CONTRERAS TO CHAPULTEPEC 156
CHAPTER VII
LONGSTREET’S HONEYMOON 159
GREAT BATTLES BEFORE AND AFTER GETTYSBURG
THE FIRST MANASSAS 163
WILLIAMSBURG 167
FRAYSER’S FARM 170
MARCH AGAINST POPE AND THE SECOND MANASSAS 173
THE INVASION OF MARYLAND AND THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM 180
FREDERICKSBURG 185
CHICKAMAUGA 191
IN EAST TENNESSEE 194
THE WILDERNESS 205
THE CURTAIN FALLS AT APPOMATTOX 208
APPENDIX
LONGSTREET 213
JAMES LONGSTREET 214
THE FUNERAL CEREMONIES 217
TRIBUTES FROM THE PRESS 226
RESOLUTIONS BY CAMPS AND CHAPTERS 272
LETTER OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT 330
PERSONAL LETTERS 331
LETTER OF ARCHBISHOP IRELAND 332
LETTER OF GENERAL FREDERICK D. GRANT 334
TRIBUTE FROM THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC 345
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
General James Longstreet in 1863 (from the painting in
the Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington) _Frontispiece_
General Robert E. Lee 32
Major-General D. E. Sickles 40
Second Day’s Battle, Gettysburg 68
Retreat from Gettysburg (Accident during the Night-Crossing
of the Potomac on a Pontoon Bridge) 78
General Longstreet in 1901 90
Defeat of the Federal Troops by Longstreet’s Corps, Second
Manassas 178
Battle of Fredericksburg (from the Battery on Lee’s Hill) 190
Battle of Chickamauga (Confederates flanking the Union
Forces) 192
The Assault on Fort Sanders, Knoxville 196
The Wounding of General Longstreet at the Wilderness,
May 6, 1864 206
General Alexander arranging the Last Line of Battle formed
in the Army of Northern Virginia, at Appomattox 212
Fac-simile of Letter from President Theodore Roosevelt 330
Fac-simile of Letter from Archbishop John Ireland 332
Fac-simile of Letter from General Frederick D. Grant 334
INTRODUCTION
BY MAJOR-GENERAL D. E. SICKLES, U.S.A.
I am glad to write an introduction to a memoir of Lieutenant-General
Longstreet.
If it be thought strange that I should write a preface to a memoir
of a conspicuous adversary, I reply that the Civil War is only a
memory, its asperities are forgotten, both armies were American, old
army friendships have been renewed and new army friendships have been
formed among the combatants, the truth of history is dear to all of
us, and the amenities of chivalrous manhood are cherished alike by the
North and the South, when justice to either is involved. Longstreet’s
splendid record as a soldier needs neither apologies nor eulogium. And
if I venture, further along in this introduction, to defend him from
unfair criticism, it is because my personal knowledge of the battle
of July 2, 1863, qualifies me to testify in his behalf. It was the
fortune of my corps to meet Longstreet on many great fields. It is now
my privilege to offer a tribute to his memory. As Colonel Damas says in
“The Lady of Lyons,” after his duel with Melnotte, “It’s astonishing
how much I like a man after I’ve fought with him.”
Often adversaries on the field of battle, we became good friends after
peace was restored. He supported President Grant and his successors in
their wise policy of restoration. Longstreet’s example was the rainbow
of reconciliation that foreshadowed real peace between the North and
South. He drew the fire of the irreconcilable South. His statesmanlike
forecast blazed the path of progress and prosperity for his people,
impoverished by war and discouraged by adversity. He was the first
of the illustrious Southern war leaders to accept the result of the
great conflict as final. He folded up forever the Confederate flag he
had followed with supreme devotion, and thenceforth saluted the Stars
and Stripes of the Union with unfaltering homage. He was the trusted
servant of the republic in peace, as he had been its relentless foe in
war. The friends of the Union became his friends, the enemies of the
Union his enemies.
I trust I may be pardoned for relating an incident that reveals the
sunny side of Longstreet’s genial nature. When I visited Georgia, in
March, 1892, I was touched by a call from the General, who came from
Gainesville to Atlanta to welcome me to his State. On St. Patrick’s
Day we supped together as guests of the Irish Societies of Atlanta,
at their banquet. We entered the hall arm in arm, about nine o’clock
in the evening, and were received by some three hundred gentlemen,
with the wildest and loudest “rebel yell” I had ever heard. When I
rose to respond to a toast in honor of the Empire State of the North,
Longstreet stood also and leaned with one arm on my shoulder, the
better to hear what I had to say, and this was a signal for another
outburst. I concluded my remarks by proposing,--
“Health and long life to my old adversary, Lieutenant-General
Longstreet,”
assuring the audience that, although the General did not often make
speeches, he would sing the “Star-Spangled Banner.” This was, indeed,
a risky promise, as I had never heard the General sing. I was greatly
relieved by his exclamation:
“Yes, I will sing it!”
And he did sing the song admirably, the company joining with much
enthusiasm.
As the hour was late, and we had enjoyed quite a number of potations of
hot Irish whiskey punch, we decided to go to our lodgings long before
the end of the revel, which appeared likely to last until daybreak.
When we descended to the street we were unable to find a carriage, but
Longstreet proposed to be my guide; and, although the streets were dark
and the walk a long one, we reached my hotel in fairly good form. Not
wishing to be outdone in courtesy, I said,--
“Longstreet, the streets of Atlanta are very dark and it is very late,
and you are somewhat deaf and rather infirm; now I must escort you to
your head-quarters.”
“All right,” said Longstreet; “come on and we’ll have another handshake
over the bloody chasm.”
When we arrived at his stopping-place and were about to separate, as I
supposed, he turned to me and said,--
“Sickles, the streets of Atlanta are very dark and you are lame, and
a stranger here, and do not know the way back to your hotel; I must
escort you home.”
“Come along, Longstreet,” was my answer.
On our way to the hotel, I said to him,--
“Old fellow, I hope you are sorry for shooting off my leg at
Gettysburg. I suppose I will have to forgive you for it some day.”
“Forgive me?” Longstreet exclaimed. “You ought to thank me for leaving
you one leg to stand on, after the mean way you behaved to me at
Gettysburg.”
How often we performed escort duty for each other on that eventful
night I have never been able to recall with precision; but I am quite
sure that I shall never forget St. Patrick’s Day in 1892, at Atlanta,
Georgia, when Longstreet and I enjoyed the good Irish whiskey punch at
the banquet of the Knights of St. Patrick.
Afterwards Longstreet and I met again, at Gettysburg, this time as the
guests of John Russell Young, who had invited a number of his literary
and journalistic friends to join us on the old battle-field. We rode in
the same carriage. When I assisted the General in climbing up the rocky
face of Round Top, he turned to me and said,--
“Sickles, you can well afford to help me up here now, for if you had
not kept me away so long from Round Top on the 2d of July, 1863,
the war would have lasted longer than it did, and might have had a
different ending.”
As he said this, his stern, leonine face softened with a smile as sweet
as a brother’s.
We met in March, 1901, at the reception given to President McKinley on
his second inauguration. In the midst of the great throng assembled on
that occasion Longstreet and I had quite a reception of our own. He
was accompanied on this occasion by Mrs. Longstreet. Every one admired
the blended courtliness and gallantry of the veteran hero towards the
ladies who were presented to him and his charming wife.
At the West Point Centennial Longstreet and I sat together on the
dais, near President Roosevelt, the Secretary of War, Mr. Root, and
the commander of the army, Lieutenant-General Miles. Here among his
fellow-graduates of the Military Academy, he received a great ovation
from the vast audience that filled Cullum Hall. Again and again he was
cheered, when he turned to me, exclaiming,--
“Sickles, what are they all cheering about?”
“They are cheering you, General,” was my reply.
Joy lighted up his countenance, the war was forgotten, and Longstreet
was at home once more at West Point.
Again we stood upon the same platform, in Washington, on May
30,--Memorial Day,--1902. Together we reviewed, with President
Roosevelt, the magnificent column of Union veterans that marched past
the President’s reviewing-stand. That evening Longstreet joined me in a
visit to a thousand or more soldiers of the Third Army Corps, assembled
in a tent near the White House. These veterans, with a multitude of
their comrades, had come to Washington to commemorate another Memorial
Day in the Capitol of the Nation. The welcome given him by this crowd
of old soldiers, who had fought him with all their might again and
again, on many battle-fields, could hardly have been more cordial if he
had found himself in the midst of an equal number of his own command.
His speech to the men was felicitous, and enthusiastically cheered. In
an eloquent peroration he said, “I hope to live long enough to see my
surviving comrades march side by side with the Union veterans along
Pennsylvania Avenue, and then I will die happy.” This was the last time
I met Longstreet.
Longstreet was unjustly blamed for not attacking earlier in the day,
on July 2, 1863, at Gettysburg. I can answer that criticism, as I know
more about the matter than the critics. If he had attacked in the
morning, as it is said he should have done, he would have encountered
Buford’s division of cavalry, five thousand sabres, on his flank, and
my corps would have been in his front, as it was in the afternoon.
In a word, all the troops that opposed Longstreet in the afternoon,
including the Fifth Army Corps and Caldwell’s division of the Second
Corps, would have been available on the left flank of the Union army in
the morning. Every regiment and every battery that fired a shot in the
afternoon was on the field in the morning, and would have resisted an
assault in the morning as stubbornly as in the afternoon. Moreover,
if the assault had been made in the morning, Law’s strong brigade of
Alabamians could not have assisted in the attack, as they did not
arrive on the field until noon. On the other hand, if Lee had waited
an hour later, I would have been on Cemetery Ridge, in compliance with
General Meade’s orders, and Longstreet could have marched, unresisted,
from Seminary Ridge to the foot of Round Top, and might, perhaps, have
unlimbered his guns on the summit.
General Meade’s telegram to Halleck, dated 3 P.M., July 2, does not
indicate that Lee was then about to attack him. At the time that
despatch was sent, a council of corps commanders was assembled at
General Meade’s head-quarters. It was broken up by the sound of
Longstreet’s artillery. The probability is that Longstreet’s attack
held the Union army at Gettysburg. If Longstreet had waited until a
later hour, the Union army might have been moving towards Pipe Creek,
the position chosen by General Meade on June 30.
The best proof that Lee was not dissatisfied with Longstreet’s
movements on July 2 is the fact that Longstreet was intrusted with
the command of the column of attack on July 3,--Lee’s last hope at
Gettysburg. Of the eleven brigades that assaulted the Union left
centre on July 3, only three of them--Pickett’s division--belonged
to Longstreet’s corps, the other eight brigades belonged to Hill’s
corps. If Longstreet had disappointed Lee on July 2, why would Lee,
on the next day, give Longstreet a command of supreme importance, of
which more than two-thirds of the troops were taken from another corps
commander?
Longstreet did not look for success on July 3. He told General Lee that
“the fifteen thousand men who could make a successful assault over that
field had never been arrayed for battle,” and yet the command was
given to Longstreet. Why? Because the confidence of Lee in Longstreet
was unshaken; because he regarded Longstreet as his most capable
lieutenant.
Longstreet was never censured for the failure of the assault on July
3, although General Lee intimates, in his official report, that it was
not made as early in the day as was expected. Why, then, is Longstreet
blamed by them for the failure on July 2, when no fault was found by
General Lee with Longstreet’s dispositions on that day? The failure
of both assaults must be attributed to insurmountable obstacles,
which no commander could have overcome with the force at Longstreet’s
disposal,--seventeen thousand men on July 2, and fifteen thousand men
on July 3, against thirty thousand adversaries!
In General Lee’s official report not a word appears about any delay in
Longstreet’s movements on July 2, although, referring to the assault of
July 3, General Lee says, “General Longstreet’s dispositions were not
completed as early as was expected.” If General Lee did not hesitate to
point out unlooked for delay on July 3, why was he silent about delay
on July 2? His silence about delay on July 2 implies that there was
none on July 2. _Expresio unius exclusio alterius._
General Lee says, in his report, referring to July 3,--
“General Longstreet was delayed by a force occupying the high,
rocky hills on the enemy’s extreme left, from which his troops
could be attacked in reverse as they advanced. His operations
had been embarrassed the day previous by the same cause, and he
now deemed it necessary to defend his flank and rear with the
divisions of Hood and McLaws.”
Another embarrassment prevented an earlier attack on July 2. It was
the plan of General Lee to surprise the left flank of the Union army.
General Lee ordered Captain Johnson, the engineer officer of his staff,
to conduct Longstreet’s column by a route concealed from the enemy.
But the formation and movements of the attacking column had been
discovered by my reconnoisance; this exposure put an end to any chance
of surprise. Other dispositions became necessary; fresh orders from
head-quarters were asked for; another line of advance had to be found,
less exposed to view. All this took time. These circumstances were,
of course, known to General Lee; hence he saw no reason to reproach
Longstreet for delay.
The situation on the left flank of the Union army was entirely changed
by my advance to the Emmitsburg road. Fitzhugh Lee says, “Lee was
deceived by it and gave orders to attack up the Emmitsburg road,
partially enveloping the enemy’s left; there was much behind Sickles.”
The obvious purpose of my advance was to hold Lee’s force in check
until General Meade could bring his reserves from his right flank,
at Rock Creek, to the Round Tops, on the left. Fortunately for me,
General Lee believed that my line from the Peach-Orchard north--about a
division front--was all Longstreet would have to deal with. Longstreet
soon discovered that my left rested beyond Devil’s Den, about twelve
hundred yards easterly from the Emmitsburg road, and at a right
angle to it. Of course, Longstreet could not push forward to Lee’s
objective,--the Emmitsburg road ridge,--leaving this force on his flank
and rear, to take him in reverse. An obstinate conflict followed, which
detained Longstreet until the Fifth Corps, which had been in reserve on
the Union right, moved to the left and got into position on the Round
Tops. Thus it happened that my salient at the Peach-Orchard, on the
Emmitsburg road, was not attacked until six o’clock, the troops on my
line, from the Emmitsburg road to the Devil’s Den, having held their
positions until that hour. The surprise Lee had planned was turned
upon himself. The same thing would have happened if Longstreet had
attacked in the morning; all the troops that resisted Longstreet in the
afternoon--say thirty thousand--would have opposed him in the forenoon.
The alignment of the Union forces on the left flank at 11 A.M., when
Lee gave his preliminary orders to Longstreet for the attack, was
altogether different from the dispositions made by me at 3 P.M.,
when the attack was begun. At eleven in the morning my command was
on Cemetery Ridge, to the left of Hancock. At two o’clock in the
afternoon, anticipating General Lee’s attack, I changed front,
deploying my left division (Birney’s) from Plum Run, near the base
of Little Round Top, to the Peach-Orchard, at the intersection of
Millerstown and Emmitsburg roads. My right division (Humphrey’s) was
moved forward to the Emmitsburg road, its left connecting with Birney
at the Orchard, and its right _en echelon_ with Hancock, parallel with
the Codori House.
Longstreet was ordered to conceal his column of attack, for which the
ground on Lee’s right afforded excellent opportunities. Lee’s plan was
a repetition of Jackson’s attack on the right flank of the Union army
at Chancellorsville. In the afternoon, however, in view of the advance
of my corps, General Lee was obliged to form a new plan of battle. As
he believed that both of my flanks rested on the Emmitsburg road, Lee
directed Longstreet to envelop my left at the Peach-Orchard, and press
the attack northward “up the Emmitsburg road.”
Colonel Fairfax, of Longstreet’s staff, says that Lee and
Longstreet were together at three o’clock, when the attack began.
Lieutenant-General Hill, commanding the First Corps of Lee’s army, says
in his report,--
“The corps of General Longstreet (McLaws’s and Hood’s divisions)
was on my right, and in a line very nearly at right angles to
mine. General Longstreet was to attack the left flank of the
enemy, and sweep down his line, and I was ordered to co-operate
with him with such of my brigades from the right as could join
in with his troops in the attack. On the extreme right, Hood
commenced the attack about two o’clock, McLaws about 5.30
o’clock.”
Longstreet was not long in discovering, by his artillery practice,
that my position at the Peach-Orchard was a salient, and that my left
flank really rested twelve hundred yards eastward, at Plum Run, in the
valley between Little Round Top and the Devil’s Den, concealed from
observation by woods; my line extended to the high ground along the
Emmitsburg road, from which Lee says, “It was thought our artillery
could be used to advantage in assailing the more elevated ground
beyond.”
General J. B. Hood’s story of his part in the battle of July 2, taken
from a communication addressed to General Longstreet, which appears
in Hood’s “Advance and Retreat,” pages 57-59, is a clear narrative of
the movements of Longstreet’s assaulting column. It emphasizes the
firm adherence of Longstreet to the orders of General Lee. Again and
again, as Hood plainly points out, Longstreet refused to listen to
Hood’s appeal for leave to turn Round Top and assail the Union rear,
always replying, “General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emmitsburg
road.”[A]
These often repeated orders of General Lee to “attack up the Emmitsburg
road” could not have been given until near three in the afternoon of
July 2, because before that hour there was no Union line of battle on
the Emmitsburg road. There had been only a few of my pickets there in
the morning, thrown forward by the First Massachusetts Infantry. It
distinctly appears that Lee rejected Longstreet’s plan to turn the
Federal left on Cemetery Ridge. And Hood makes it plain enough that
Longstreet refused to listen to Hood’s appeal for permission to turn
Round Top, on the main Federal line, always replying, “No; General
Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emmitsburg road.” Of course, that
plan of battle was not formed until troops had been placed in positions
commanding that road. This, we have seen, was not done until towards
three in the afternoon.
The only order of battle announced by General Lee on July 2 of which
there is any record was to assail my position on the Emmitsburg
road, turn my left flank (which he erroneously supposed to rest on
the Peach-Orchard), and sweep the attack “up the Emmitsburg road.”
This was impossible until I occupied that road, and it was then that
Longstreet’s artillery began its practice on my advanced line.
I am unable to see how any just person can charge Longstreet with
deviation from the orders of General Lee on July 2. It is true enough
that Longstreet had advised different tactics; but he was a soldier,--a
West Pointer,--and once he had indicated his own views, he obeyed
the orders of the general commanding,--he did not even exercise the
discretion allowed to the chief of a _corps d’armée_, which permits
him to modify instructions when an unforeseen emergency imposes fresh
responsibilities, or when an unlooked-for opportunity offers tempting
advantages.
We have seen that many circumstances required General Lee to modify
his plans and orders on July 2 between daybreak, when his first
reconnoisance was made, and three o’clock in the afternoon, when my
advanced position was defined. We have seen that if a morning attack
had been made the column would have encountered Buford’s strong
division of cavalry on its flank, and that it would have been weakened
by the absence of Law’s brigade of Hood’s division. We have seen that
Longstreet, even in the afternoon, when Law had come up and Buford had
been sent to Westminster, was still too weak to contend against the
reinforcements sent against him. We have seen that Lee was present all
day on July 2, and that his own staff-officer led the column of attack.
We have seen that General Lee, in his official report, gives no hint of
dissatisfaction with Longstreet’s conduct of the battle of July 2, nor
does it appear that Longstreet was ever afterwards criticised by Lee.
On the contrary, Lee points out that the same danger to Longstreet’s
flank, which required the protection of two divisions on July 3,
existed on July 2, when his flank was unsupported. We have seen that
again and again, when Hood appealed to Longstreet for leave to swing
his column to the right and turn the Round Tops, Longstreet as often
refused, always saying, “No; General Lee’s orders are to attack up
the Emmitsburg road.” The conclusion is irrefutable, that whilst the
operations were directed with signal ability and sustained by heroic
courage, the failure of both assaults, that of July 2 and the other
of July 3, must be attributed to the lack of strength in the columns
of attack on both days, for which the commanding general alone was
responsible.
It was Longstreet’s good fortune to live until he saw his country hold
a high place among the great powers of the world. He saw the new South
advancing in prosperity, hand in hand with the North, East, and West.
He saw his people in the ranks of our army, in Cuba, Porto Rico, the
Philippines, China, and Panama; he saw the Union stars and the blue
uniform worn by Fitzhugh Lee, and Butler, and Wheeler. He witnessed the
fulfilment of his prediction,--that the hearty reunion of the North
and South would advance the welfare of both. He lived long enough to
rejoice with all of us in a reunited nation, and to know that his name
was honored wherever the old flag was unfurled. His fame as a soldier
belongs to all Americans.
Farewell, Longstreet! I shall follow you very soon. May we meet in the
happy realm where strife is unknown and friendship is eternal!
LEE AND LONGSTREET AT HIGH TIDE
CHAPTER I
THE STORY OF GETTYSBURG
Back of the day that opened so auspiciously for the Confederate
cause at the first Manassas, and of the four years that followed,
lies Longstreet’s record of a quarter of a century in the Union
army, completing one of the most lustrous pages in the world’s
war history. That page cannot be dimmed or darkened; it rests
secure in its own white splendor, above the touch of detractors.
The detractors of General Longstreet’s military integrity assert that,
being opposed to fighting an offensive battle at Gettysburg, he was
“balky and stubborn” in executing Lee’s orders; that he disobeyed the
commanding general’s orders to attack at sunrise on the morning of July
2; that, again ordered to attack with half the army on the morning
of July 3, his culpably slow attack with only Pickett’s division,
supported by some of Hill’s troops, caused the fatal Confederate defeat
in that encounter.
General Gordon has seen fit, in a recent publication, to revive this
cruel aspersion.
When General Longstreet surrendered his sword at Appomattox his war
record was made up. It stands unassailable--needing no defenders. Back
of the day that opened so auspiciously for the Confederate cause at
the first Manassas, and of the four years that followed, lies the
record of a quarter of a century in the Union army.
In those times General Longstreet, at Cerro Gordo, Molino del Rey,
and Chapultepec, was aiding to win the great empire of the West; in
subsequent hard Indian campaigns lighting the fagots of a splendid
western civilization, adding new glory to American arms and, in the
struggles of a nation that fell, a new star of the first magnitude to
the galaxy of American valor, completing one of the most lustrous pages
in the world’s war history. That page cannot be dimmed or darkened; it
rests secure in its own white splendor, above the touch of detractors.
General Longstreet has of late years deemed it unnecessary to make
defence of his military integrity, save such as may be found in his
memoirs, “Manassas to Appomattox,” published nearly ten years since. He
has held that his deeds stand on the impartial pages of the nation’s
records--their own defender.
The cold historian of our Civil War of a hundred years hence will
not go for truth to the picturesque reminiscences of General John B.
Gordon, nor to the pyrotechnics of General Fitzhugh Lee, nor yet to
the somewhat hysterical ravings of Rev. Mr. Pendleton and scores of
other modern essayists who have sought to fix the failure of Gettysburg
upon General Longstreet. The coming chronicler will cast aside the
rubbish of passion and hate that followed the war, and have recourse
to the nation’s official war records, and in the cool, calm lights of
the letters and reports of the participants, written at the time, will
place the blunder of Gettysburg where it belongs. Longstreet’s fame has
nothing to fear in that hour.
[Illustration: R. E. Lee]
But for the benefit of the present--of the young, the busy, who
have neither time nor inclination to study the records, and for that
sentiment that is increasingly shaped by the public press,--for these
and other reasons it appears fitting that in this hour historical truth
should have a spokesman on the Gettysburg contentions. In the absence
of one more able to speak, this little story of the truth is written.
The writer belongs to a generation that has come up since the gloom
of Appomattox closed the drama of the great “Lost Cause” of American
history--a generation that seeks the truth, unwarped and undistorted by
passion, and can face the truth.
In the prosecution of my researches for the origin of the extraordinary
calumnies aimed at General Longstreet’s honor as a soldier, two most
significant facts have continually pressed upon my attention.
First, not one word appears to have been published openly accusing him
of disobedience at Gettysburg until the man who could forever have
silenced all criticism was in his grave--until the knightly soul of
Robert Edward Lee had passed into eternity.
Second, General Longstreet’s operations on the field of Gettysburg
were above the suspicion of reproach until he came under the political
ban in the South, for meeting in the proper spirit, as he saw it, the
requirements of good citizenship in the observance of his Appomattox
parole, and, after the removal of his political disabilities, for
having accepted office at the hands of a Republican President who
happened to be his old West Point comrade,--Grant.
Then the storm broke. He was heralded as traitor, deserter of his
people, deserter of Democracy, etc. In the fury of this onslaught
originated the cruel slander that he had disobeyed Lee’s most vital
orders, causing the loss of the Gettysburg battle and the ultimate fall
of the Confederate cause. Most singularly, this strange discovery was
not made until some years after the battle and General Lee’s death.
Thereafter for two decades the South was sedulously taught to believe
that the Federal victory was wholly the fortuitous outcome of the
culpable disobedience of General Longstreet.
The sectional complaint that he deserted “Democracy” is about as
relevant and truthful as the assertion that he lost Gettysburg. He was
a West Pointer, a professional soldier. He had never cast a ballot
before the Civil War; he had no politics. Its passions and prejudices
had no dwelling-place in his mind. The war was over, and he quietly
accepted the result, fraternizing with all Americans. It was no great
crime.
But the peculiar circumstances favored an opportunity to make
Longstreet the long-desired scape-goat for Gettysburg. There was
an ulterior and deeper purpose, however, than merely besmirching
his military record. Short-sighted partisans seemingly argued that
the disparagement of Longstreet was necessary to save the military
reputation of Lee. But Lee’s great fame needed no such sacrifice.
The outrageous charges against Longstreet have been wholly disproved.
Much of the partisan rancor that once pursued him has died out. Many of
the more intelligent Southerners have been long convinced that he was
the victim of a great wrong.
It was unworthy of Major-General John B. Gordon, once of the army
of Northern Virginia, to revive this dead controversy. He simply
reiterates the old charges in full, produces no evidence in their
support, and gratuitously endorses a false and cruel verdict. His
contribution is of no historical value. It carries inherent evidence
that General Gordon made no critical examination of the documentary
history of Gettysburg. He assumes to render a verdict on the say-so of
others.
Gordon’s unsupported assertions would require no attention but for one
fact. Both South and North there is a widespread impression that Gordon
was a conspicuous figure at Gettysburg. This is erroneous. He was
merely a brigade commander there, stationed five miles from Longstreet.
It is not certain that he personally saw either Lee or Longstreet while
the army was in Pennsylvania.
In his official report Gordon uses this language regarding the
operations of his own small command at Gettysburg when the heaviest
fighting was going on, finely showing the scope of his opportunities
for observation:
“The movements during the succeeding days of the battle, July 2
and 3, I do not consider of sufficient importance to mention.”
It is but just to Gordon, however, to say that in his subordinate
capacity at the head of one of the thirty-seven brigades of infantry
comprising Lee’s army, he performed excellent service on the first
day’s battle. But in estimating his value as a personal witness,
the foregoing undisputed facts must be taken into consideration.
His testimony is obviously of the hearsay kind. In fact, as will be
observed from his own admission, it is no more than his own personal
conclusions, wholly deduced from the assertions of others, based on an
assumed state of facts which did not exist.
In his recent publication, “Reminiscences of the Civil War,” Gordon
says,--
“It now seems certain that impartial military critics, after
thorough investigation, will consider the following facts
established:
“First, that General Lee distinctly ordered Longstreet to attack
early on the morning of the second day, and if Longstreet had
done so two of the largest corps of Meade’s army would not have
been in the fight; but Longstreet delayed the fight until four
o’clock in the afternoon, and thus lost his opportunity of
occupying Little Round Top, the key of the position, which he
might have done in the morning without firing a shot or losing a
man.”
It is competent to point out that Longstreet’s orders from General
Lee were “to move around to gain the Emmitsburg road, on the enemy’s
left.” In short, he was “to attack up the Emmitsburg road,” as all the
authorities agree. He therefore could not well “occupy” Little Round
Top up the Emmitsburg road, because it was but a fraction less than a
mile to the east of that road. It is as clear as noonday that Lee had
no thought at first, if ever, that Little Round Top was the “key to the
position.” Lee merely contemplated driving the enemy from some high
ground on the Emmitsburg road from which the “more elevated ground” of
Cemetery Hill in its rear, more than a mile to the northward of Little
Round Top, could be subsequently assailed.
Lee’s luminous report of the battle, dated July 31, 1863, only four
weeks after, has escaped Gordon’s notice, or has been conveniently
ignored by him. It is found at page 305 _et seq._, of Part II., Vol.
XXVII., of the printed War Records, easily accessible to everybody. At
page 308, Lee’s report:
“... In front of General Longstreet the enemy held a position
from which, if he could be driven, it was thought our artillery
could be used to advantage in assailing the more elevated ground
beyond, and thus enable us to reach the crest of the ridge. That
officer was directed to carry this position.... After a severe
struggle, Longstreet succeeded in getting possession of and
holding the desired ground.... The battle ceased at dark.”
The “desired ground” captured was that held by Sickles’s Federal Third
Corps,--the celebrated peach-orchard, wheat-field, and adjacent
high ground, from which Cemetery Hill was next day assailed by the
Confederate artillery as a prelude to Pickett’s infantry assault.
It was the “crest of the ridge,” not the Round Top, that Lee wished
to assail. His eye from the first appears to have been steadily fixed
upon the Federal centre. That is why he ordered the “attack up the
Emmitsburg road.”
Longstreet’s official report is very explicit on this point. It was
written July 27, 1863. On page 358 of the same book he says,--
“I received instructions from the commanding general to move,
with the portion of my command that was up, around to gain the
Emmitsburg road, on the enemy’s left.”
Lieutenant-General R. H. Anderson, then of Hill’s corps, also makes
this definite statement:
“Shortly after the line had been formed, I received notice that
Lieutenant-General Longstreet would occupy the ground on my
right, and that his line would be in a direction nearly at right
angles with mine, and that he would assault the extreme left of
the enemy and drive him towards Gettysburg.”
Just here it is pertinent to say that General Longstreet had the
afternoon previous, and again that morning, suggested to General Lee
the more promising plan of a movement by the Confederate right to
interpose between the Federals and their capital, and thus compel
General Meade to give battle at a disadvantage. On this point General
Longstreet uses the following language in a newspaper publication[B]
more than a quarter of a century ago:
“When I overtook General Lee at five o’clock that afternoon [July
1], he said, to my surprise, that he thought of attacking General
Meade upon the heights the next day. I suggested that this course
seemed to be at variance with the plan of the campaign that had
been agreed upon before leaving Fredericksburg. He said, ‘If the
enemy is there to-morrow, we must attack him.’ I replied: ‘If he
is there, it will be because he is anxious that we should attack
him--a good reason in my judgment for not doing so.’ I urged
that we should move around by our right to the left of Meade and
put our army between him and Washington, threatening his left
and rear, and thus force him to attack us in such position as
we might select.... I called his attention to the fact that the
country was admirably adapted for a defensive battle, and that we
should surely repulse Meade with crushing loss if we would take
position so as to force him to attack us, and suggested that even
if we carried the heights in front of us, and drove Meade out, we
should be so badly crippled that we could not reap the fruits of
victory; and that the heights of Gettysburg were in themselves
of no more importance to us than the ground we then occupied,
and that the mere possession of the ground was not worth a
hundred men to us. That Meade’s army, not its position, was
our objective. General Lee was impressed with the idea that by
attacking the Federals he could whip them in detail. I reminded
him that if the Federals were there in the morning it would be
proof that they had their forces well in hand, and that with
Pickett in Chambersburg, and Stuart out of reach, we should be
somewhat in detail. He, however, did not seem to abandon the idea
of attack on the next day. He seemed under a subdued excitement
which occasionally took possession of him when ‘the hunt was up,’
and threatened his superb equipoise.... When I left General Lee
on the night of the 1st, I believed that he had made up his mind
to attack, but was confident that he had not yet determined as to
when the attack should be made.”
But General Lee persisted in the direct attack “up the Emmitsburg
road.” Hood, deployed on Longstreet’s extreme right, at once perceived
that the true direction was by flank against the southern slopes of
Big Round Top. He delayed the advance to advise of the discovery he
had made. Soon the positive order came back: “General Lee’s orders are
to attack up the Emmitsburg road.” He still hesitated and repeated
the suggestion. Again it was reiterated: “General Lee’s orders are to
attack up the Emmitsburg road.” Then the troops moved to the attack.
There was no alternative. Lee’s orders were imperative, and made after
he had personally examined the enemy’s position. Longstreet was ordered
to attack a specific position “up the Emmitsburg road,” which was _not_
Little Round Top, as assumed by Gordon. This point is particularly
elaborated because in it lies the “milk in the cocoanut” of the
charges against Longstreet. Without consulting the records Gordon
has merely followed the lead of some of General Lee’s biographers,
notably Fitzhugh Lee, who asserts that his illustrious uncle “expected
Longstreet to seize Little Round Top on the 2d of July.” The records
clearly show that nothing was farther from General Lee’s thoughts.
After the war it was discovered that a very early attack on Little
Round Top would perhaps have found it undefended, hence the afterthought
that General Longstreet was ordered to attack at sunrise. But whatever
the hour Longstreet was ordered to attack, it was most certainly not
Little Round Top that was made his objective.
CHAPTER II
LEE CHANGES PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
“General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with
soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies,
regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know as well as
any one what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen
thousand men ever arrayed for battle can take that position,”
pointing to Cemetery Hill.--LONGSTREET to LEE.
General Longstreet’s personal account of this magnificent battle “up
the Emmitsburg road” will not be out of place here. In the newspaper
article previously quoted from he very graphically describes the
advance of the two divisions of McLaws and Hood, for when he went into
battle it must be understood that even yet one of his divisions, that
of Pickett, was still absent. He states his total force at thirteen
thousand men. An account of this clash of arms must send a thrill of
pride through every Southern heart:
“At half-past three o’clock the order was given General Hood to
advance upon the enemy, and, hurrying to the head of McLaws’s
division, I moved with his line. Then was fairly commenced what I
do not hesitate to pronounce the best three hours’ fighting ever
done by any troops on any battle-field. Directly in front of us,
occupying the peach-orchard, on a piece of elevated ground that
General Lee desired me to take and hold for his artillery, was
the Third Corps of the Federals, commanded by General Sickles.
[Illustration: MAJOR-GENERAL D. E. SICKLES]
“Prompt to the order the combat opened, followed by artillery of
the other corps, and our artillerists measured up to the better
metal of the enemy by vigilant work....
“In his usual gallant style Hood led his troops through the
rocky fastnesses against the strong lines of his earnest
adversary, and encountered battle that called for all of his
power and skill. The enemy was tenacious of his strong ground;
his skilfully handled batteries swept through the passes between
the rocks; the more deadly fire of infantry concentrated as our
men bore upon the angle of the enemy’s line and stemmed the
fiercest onset until it became necessary to shorten their work
by a desperate charge. This pressing struggle and the cross-fire
of our batteries broke in the salient angle, but the thickening
fire, as the angle was pressed back, hurt Hood’s left and held
him in steady fight. His right brigade was drawn towards Round
Top by the heavy fire pouring from that quarter, Benning’s
brigade was pressed to the thickening line at the angle, and G.
T. Anderson’s was put in support of the battle growing against
Hood’s right.
“I rode to McLaws, found him ready for his opportunity, and
Barksdale chafing in his wait for the order to seize the battery
in his front. Kershaw’s brigade of his right first advanced and
struck near the angle of the enemy’s line where his forces were
gathering strength. After additional caution to hold his ranks
closed, McLaws ordered Barksdale in. With glorious bearing he
sprang to his work, overriding obstacles and dangers. Without
a pause to deliver a shot, he had the battery. Kershaw, joined
by Semmes’s brigade, responded, and Hood’s men, feeling the
impulsion of relief, resumed their bold fight, and presently the
enemy’s line was broken through its length. But his well-seasoned
troops knew how to utilize the advantage of their ground and put
back their dreadful fires from rocks, depressions, and stone
fences, as they went for shelter about Little Round Top.... The
fighting had become tremendous, and brave men and officers were
stricken by hundreds. Posey and Wilcox dislodged the forces about
the Brick House.
“General Sickles was desperately wounded!
“General Willard was dead!
“General Semmes, of McLaws’s division, was mortally wounded!...
“I had one brigade--Wofford’s--that had not been engaged in the
hottest battle. To urge the troops to their reserve power in the
precious moments, I rode with Wofford. The rugged field, the
rough plunge of artillery fire, and the piercing musket-shots
delayed somewhat the march, but Alexander dashed up with his
batteries and gave new spirit to the worn infantry ranks....
While Meade’s lines were growing my men were dropping; we had
no others to call to their aid, and the weight against us was
too heavy to carry.... Nothing was heard or felt but the clear
ring of the enemy’s fresh metal as he came against us. No other
part of the army had engaged! My seventeen thousand against the
Army of the Potomac! The sun was down, and with it went down the
severe battle.”
Surely these are not the utterances of one who had been slow, balky,
and obstructive on that field. The ring of these sentences tells no
tale of apathy or backwardness because his advice to pursue a different
line of operations had been ignored by Lee.
General Gordon, continuing, very complacently assumes that “two of the
largest corps of Meade’s army would not have been in the fight” of the
2d had Longstreet attacked early in the morning. He refers to the Union
Fifth and Sixth Corps. That statement is correct only as regards the
Sixth Corps, which, it is true, did not arrive on the field until late
in the afternoon. But it took only a slight part at dark on the 2d,
when the battle was over. Indeed, as it was so slightly engaged, the
hour of its arrival at Gettysburg is unimportant. The losses of the
different corps conclusively show what part the Sixth, which was the
largest in the army, took in the battle of the 2d of July; as given in
the Rebellion Records:
Killed and wounded: First Corps, 3980; Second Corps, 3991; Third Corps,
3662; Fifth Corps, 1976; Sixth Corps, 212; Eleventh Corps, 2353;
Twelfth Corps, 1016.
Its non-participation strongly militates against the spirit of
Gordon’s argument, in that Meade entirely frustrated Lee’s plans and
defeated the Confederate army, scarcely using the Sixth Corps, some
fifteen thousand men, at all. This is a significant commentary on the
anti-Longstreet assumption of how easy it was to win at Gettysburg if
only Longstreet had obeyed orders!
At sunrise on the 2d, the hour at which Longstreet’s critics would have
had this attack delivered, the Federal Fifth Corps was as near the
battle-ground of that day as Longstreet’s troops. Longstreet’s troops
were bivouacked the night previous at Marsh Creek, four miles west of
Gettysburg. They began to arrive near Lee’s head-quarters on Seminary
Ridge not earlier than 7 A.M. of the 2d, and the last of the column
did not get in until near noon. Then they were still five miles by the
route pursued from the chosen point of attack.
The Union Fifth Corps was bivouacked five miles east of Gettysburg
about the same hour on the 1st that Longstreet’s tired infantry reached
Marsh Creek. At four o’clock A.M. of the 2d they marched on Gettysburg,
arriving about the same hour that Longstreet’s troops were being massed
near Lee’s head-quarters, and were thereupon posted upon the extreme
Federal right.
Upon the first manifestation of Confederate movements on the right and
left, we know that the Fifth Corps was immediately drawn in closer,
and about nine o’clock massed at the bridge over Rock Creek on the
Baltimore pike, ready for developments. Meade thought Lee intended
to attack his right. That Lee contemplated it is quite certain.
Colonel Venable, of his staff, was sent about sunrise to consult with
Lieutenant-General Ewell upon the feasibility of a general attack from
his front. Lee wanted Ewell’s views as to the advisability of moving
all the available troops around to that front for such a purpose.
Venable and Ewell rode from point to point to determine if this should
be done. Finally, Venable says, Lee himself came to Ewell’s lines, and
eventually the design for an attack on the Union right was abandoned.
Where the Fifth Corps was finally massed, it was only one and a half
miles in the rear of General Sickles’s position. Moreover, it had
an almost direct road to that point. This facility for reinforcing
incidentally illustrates the advantages of the Union position. At
the same hour General Longstreet’s troops were still massed near the
Chambersburg pike, three miles on a straight line from the point of
attack. That is to say, Longstreet had twice as far to march on an
air-line to strike Sickles “up the Emmitsburg road” as Sykes had to
reinforce the threatened point. But, in fact, Sykes’s advantage was
far greater in point of time, because, by order of Lee, Longstreet was
compelled to move by back roads and lanes, out of sight of the enemy’s
signal officers on Round Top. His troops actually marched six or seven
miles to reach the point of deployment.
Longstreet eventually attacked about 4 P.M., and the Fifth Corps was
used very effectively against him. But no historian who esteems the
truth, with the undisputed records before him, will deny that it
could and would have been used just as effectively at seven or eight
o’clock in the morning. The moment Longstreet’s movement was detected
it was immediately hurried over to the left and occupied Round Top. If
Longstreet had moved earlier, the Fifth Corps also would have moved
earlier. It could have been on Sickles’s left and rear as early as
seven o’clock A.M., had it been necessary. If Ewell and not Longstreet
had delivered the general attack it would have been found in his front.
It is mathematically correct to say that the troops which met
Longstreet on the afternoon of the 2d could have been brought against
him in the morning. The reports of General Meade, General Sykes, the
commander of the Fifth Corps of Sykes’s brigade, and regimental
commanders, and various other documentary history bearing on the
subject, are convincing upon this point.
General Sickles’s advance was made in consequence of the Confederate
threatening, and would have been sooner or later according as that
threatening was made. The critics ignore this fact.
General Longstreet says on this point:
“General Meade was with General Sickles discussing the
feasibility of moving the Third Corps back to the line originally
assigned for it; the discussion was cut short by the opening of
the Confederate battle. If that opening had been delayed thirty
or forty minutes, Sickles’s corps would have been drawn back to
the general line, and my first deployment would have enveloped
Little Round Top and carried it before it could have been
strongly manned. The point should have been that the battle was
opened too soon.”
So much for one part of Gordon’s assumption, based upon other
assumptions founded upon an erroneous presumption, that if Longstreet
had taken wings and flown on an air-line from his bivouac at Marsh
Creek to the Federal left and attacked at sunrise he would have found
no enemy near the Round Tops.
In another equally unwarranted assumption of what the “impartial”
military critic will consider an “established fact,” Gordon declares:
“Secondly, that General Lee ordered Longstreet to attack at
daylight on the morning of the third day, and that the latter
did not attack until two or three o’clock in the afternoon, the
artillery opening at one.”
Lee himself mentions no such order. In his final report, penned six
months afterwards, he merely mentions that the “general plan was
unchanged,” and Longstreet, reinforced, ordered to attack “next
morning,” no definite hour being fixed. It is significant, however,
that in his letter to Jefferson Davis from the field, dated July 4, Lee
uses this language:
“Next day (July 3), the third division of General Longstreet’s
corps having come up, a more extensive attack was made,” etc.
The “third division” was Pickett’s, which did not arrive from
Chambersburg until 9 A.M. of the 3d. In the same report, Lee himself
states that “Pickett, with three of his brigades, joined Longstreet the
following morning.” There is no dispute, however, about the hour of
Pickett’s arrival.
So that, as Pickett was selected by Lee to lead the charge, and as Lee
knew exactly where Pickett was, it is morally impossible that it was
fixed for daylight, five hours before Pickett’s troops were up.
In one place Lee remarks in his report: “The morning was occupied in
_necessary_ preparations, and the battle recommenced in the afternoon
of the 3d.” Time was not an essential element in the problem of the
3d. The Federal army was then all up, whereas Pickett’s Confederate
division was still absent. The delay of a few hours was therefore a
distinct gain for the Confederates, and not prejudicial, as Gordon
would have the world believe.
But Longstreet’s official report is decisive of the whole question. He
says,--
“On the following morning (that is, after the fight of the 2d)
our arrangements were made for renewing the attack by my right,
with a view to pass round the hill occupied by the enemy’s left,
and gain it by flank and reverse attack. A few moments after my
orders for the execution of this plan were given, the commanding
general joined me, and ordered a column of attack to be formed of
Pickett’s, Heth’s, and part of Pender’s divisions, the assault to
be made directly at the enemy’s main position, the Cemetery Hill.”
Clearly this shows that Longstreet had no orders for the morning of
July 3. As Longstreet’s report passed through Lee’s hands, the superior
would most certainly have returned it to the subordinate for correction
if there were errors in it. This he did not do, neither did Lee indorse
upon the document itself any dissent from its tenor.
As Pickett did not come up until 9 A.M., and as General Lee says “the
morning was occupied in _necessary_ preparations,” it was logistically
and morally impossible to make an attack at daylight, and General
Longstreet states that it could not have been delivered sooner than it
was.
Finally, Longstreet emphatically denies that Lee ordered him to attack
at daylight on the 3d. He says that he had no orders of any kind on
that morning until Lee personally came over to his front and ordered
the Pickett charge. No early attack was possible under the conditions
imposed by Lee to use Pickett’s, Pettigrew’s, and Pender’s troops,
widely separated.
But without any orders from Lee, as is quite apparent, Longstreet
had already given orders for a flank attack by the southern face of
Big Round Top, as an alternative to directly attacking again the
impregnable heights from which he had been repulsed the night before.
That would have been “simple madness,” to quote the language of the
Confederate General Law. But such an act of “simple madness” was the
only daylight attack possible from Longstreet’s front on the morning
of the 3d. Lee substituted for the feasible early attack projected by
Longstreet the Pickett movement straight on Cemetery Heights which it
required hours of preparation to fulminate, and which proved the most
disastrous and destructive in Confederate annals. It was, in fact, the
death-knell of the Southern republic.
In his published memoirs,[C] page 385, General Longstreet makes this
concise statement in regard to Lee’s alleged orders for the early
morning operations on the 3d: “He [General Lee] did not give or send
me orders for the morning of the third day, nor did he reinforce me by
Pickett’s brigades for morning attack. As his head-quarters were about
four miles from the command, I did not ride over, but sent, to report
the work of the second day. In the absence of orders, I had scouting
parties out during the night in search of a way by which we might
strike the enemy’s left and push it down towards his centre. I found
a way that gave some promise of results, and was about to move the
command when he [Lee] rode over after sunrise and gave his orders.”
But in his paper of 1877, on Gettysburg, herein-before freely quoted
from, General Longstreet goes more into detail with relation to Lee’s
plans and orders for the morning of the 3d, and more fully discloses
the genesis of the Pickett charge. In this account his own opposition
to a renewal of the attack on Cemetery Hill is developed and the
obvious reasons therefor. As he is confirmed in nearly every particular
by participants and by the records, his account is here reprinted:
“On the next morning he came to see me, and, fearing that he was
still in his disposition to attack, I tried to anticipate him by
saying, ‘General, I have had my scouts out all night, and I find
that you still have an excellent opportunity to move around to
the right of Meade’s army and manœuvre him into attacking us.’ He
replied, pointing with his fist at Cemetery Hill, ‘The enemy is
there, and I am going to strike him.’ I felt then that it was my
duty to express my convictions. I said, ‘General, I have been a
soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights
by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and
armies, and should know as well as any one what soldiers can do.
It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for
battle can take that position,’ pointing to Cemetery Hill.
“General Lee, in reply to this, ordered me to prepare Pickett’s
division for the attack. I should not have been so urgent had I
not foreseen the hopelessness of the proposed assault. I felt
that I must say a word against the sacrifice of my men; and
then I felt that my record was such that General Lee would or
could not misconstrue my motives. I said no more, however, but
turned away. The most of the morning was consumed in waiting for
Pickett’s men and getting into position.”
To make the attitude of the superior and his subordinate more clear in
relation to the proposed desperate throw of General Lee for victory,
and to further explain the foregoing protest of General Longstreet,
quotations from a second paper of the series printed in 1877 are here
given, in which he says,--
“In my first article I declared that the invasion of Pennsylvania
was a movement that General Lee and his council agreed should
be defensive in tactics, while of course it was offensive in
strategy; that the campaign was conducted on this plan until
we had left Chambersburg, when, owing to the absence of our
cavalry and our consequent ignorance of the enemy’s whereabouts,
we collided with them unexpectedly, and that General Lee had
lost the matchless equipoise that usually characterized him,
and through excitement and the doubt that enveloped the enemy’s
movements, changed the whole plan of the campaign and delivered a
battle under ominous circumstances.”
CHAPTER III
PICKETT’S CHARGE
“Pickett swept past our artillery in splendid style, and the men
marched steadily and compactly down the slope. As they started
up the ridge over one hundred cannon from the breastworks of the
Federals hurled a rain of canister, grape, and shell down upon
them; still they pressed on until half-way up the slope, when
the crest of the hill was lit with a solid sheet of flame as the
masses of infantry rose and fired. When the smoke cleared away
Pickett’s division was gone. Nearly two-thirds of his men lay
dead on the field.”--LONGSTREET ON PICKETT’S CHARGE.
General Longstreet’s description of the Pickett charge itself also
throws much light on these old controversies. It is confirmed in all
essential particulars by General Alexander and others who have written
on the subject since the war, and also by the reports:
“The plan of assault was as follows: Our artillery was to be
massed in a wood from which Pickett was to charge, and it was to
pour a continuous fire upon the cemetery. Under cover of this
fire, and supported by it, Pickett was to charge. General E. P.
Alexander, a brave and gifted officer, being at the head of the
column, and being first in position, and being besides an officer
of unusual promptness, sagacity, and intelligence, was given
charge of the artillery. The arrangements were completed about
one o’clock. General Alexander had arranged that a battery of
seven 11-pound howitzers, with fresh horses and full caissons,
were to charge with Pickett, at the head of his line, but General
Pendleton, from whom the guns had been borrowed, recalled them
just before the charge was made, and thus deranged this wise plan.
“Never was I so depressed as upon that day. I felt that my men
were to be sacrificed, and that I should have to order them to
make a hopeless charge. I had instructed General Alexander,
being unwilling to trust myself with the entire responsibility,
to carefully observe the effect of the fire upon the enemy, and
when it began to tell to notify Pickett to begin the assault. I
was so much impressed with the hopelessness of the charge that I
wrote the following note to General Alexander:
“‘If the artillery fire does not have the effect to drive off
the enemy or greatly demoralize him, so as to make our efforts
pretty certain, I would prefer that you should not advise General
Pickett to make the charge. I shall rely a great deal on your
judgment to determine the matter, and shall expect you to let
Pickett know when the moment offers.’
“To my note the general replied as follows:
“‘I will only be able to judge the effect of our fire upon the
enemy by his return fire, for his infantry is but little exposed
to view, and the smoke will obscure the whole field. If, as I
infer from your note, there is an alternative to this attack, it
should be carefully considered before opening our fire, for it
will take all of the artillery ammunition we have left to test
this one thoroughly, and if the result is unfavorable, we will
have none left for another effort, and even if this is entirely
successful it can only be so at a very bloody cost.’
“I still desired to save my men, and felt that if the artillery
did not produce the desired effect I would be justified in
holding Pickett off. I wrote this note to Colonel Walton at
exactly 1.30 P.M.:
“‘Let the batteries open. Order great precision in firing. If the
batteries at the peach-orchard cannot be used against the point
we intend attacking, let them open on the enemy at Rocky Hill.’
“The cannonading which opened along both lines was grand. In a
few moments a courier brought a note to General Pickett (who was
standing near me) from Alexander, which, after reading, he handed
to me. It was as follows:
“‘If you are coming at all you must come at once, or I cannot
give you proper support; but the enemy’s fire has not slackened
at all; at least eighteen guns are still firing from the cemetery
itself.’
“After I had read the note Pickett said to me, ‘General, shall I
advance?’ My feelings had so overcome me that I would not speak
for fear of betraying my want of confidence to him. I bowed
affirmation and turned to mount my horse. Pickett immediately
said, ‘I shall lead my division forward, sir.’ I spurred my
horse to the wood where Alexander was stationed with artillery.
When I reached him he told me of the disappearance of the seven
guns which were to have led the charge with Pickett, and that
his ammunition was so low that he could not properly support
the charge. I at once ordered him to stop Pickett until the
ammunition had been replenished. He informed me that he had no
ammunition with which to replenish. I then saw that there was
no help for it, and that Pickett must advance under his orders.
He swept past our artillery in splendid style, and the men
marched steadily and compactly down the slope. As they started
up the ridge over one hundred cannon from the breastworks of the
Federals hurled a rain of canister, grape, and shell down upon
them; still they pressed on until half-way up the slope, when
the crest of the hill was lit with a solid sheet of flame as the
masses of infantry rose and fired. When the smoke cleared away
Pickett’s division was gone. Nearly two-thirds of his men lay
dead on the field, and the survivors were sullenly retreating
down the hill. Mortal man could not have stood that fire. In
half an hour the contested field was cleared and the battle of
Gettysburg was over.
“When this charge had failed I expected that of course the enemy
would throw himself against our shattered ranks and try to crush
us. I sent my staff-officers to the rear to assist in rallying
the troops, and hurried to our line of batteries as the only
support that I could give them, knowing that my presence would
impress upon every one of them the necessity of holding the
ground to the last extremity. I knew if the army was to be saved
those batteries must check the enemy.”
CHAPTER IV
GORDON’S “ESTABLISHED FACTS” AND PENDLETON’S FULMINATIONS
No officer in a position to know anything about the matter
confirmed Pendleton’s statement, while everybody who should have
been aware of such an important order directly contradicted it,
as do all the records.
Continuing on the subject of Longstreet’s alleged disobedience, Gordon
considers the following as another of the “facts established:”
“Thirdly, that General Lee, according to the testimony of Colonel
Walter Taylor, Colonel C. S. Venable, and General A. L. Long,
who were present when the order was given, ordered Longstreet
to make the attack on the last day with the three divisions of
his own corps and two divisions of A. P. Hill’s corps, and that
instead of doing so Longstreet sent only fourteen thousand men to
assail Meade’s army in the latter’s strong and heavily intrenched
position.”
This is the old story that Longstreet was culpable in not sending
McLaws and Hood to the attack with Pickett.
But, in fact, Lee’s own utterances show that McLaws and Hood were not
to join in the Pickett attack, but, on the contrary, were excluded
for other vital service by Lee’s specific directions. It is true this
was done upon Longstreet’s strenuous representations that twenty
thousand Federals were massed behind the Round Top to swoop down on
the Confederate flank if Hood and McLaws were withdrawn. After viewing
the ground himself Lee acquiesced. The eye-witnesses quoted by Gordon
heard only the original order; they evidently did not know of its
necessary modification, after Lee was made aware by his own personal
observations and by Longstreet’s explanations that it was impossible to
withdraw Hood and McLaws.
The official reports of both Lee and Longstreet are conclusive on this
point, and they substantially agree. In the paragraph quoted in the
preceding chapter, Longstreet states explicitly that “the commanding
general joined me” (on the far right on the morning of the 3d) “and
ordered a column of attack to be formed of Pickett’s, Heth’s, and part
of Pender’s divisions,” etc. If this was a misstatement, why did not
Lee correct it before sending the report to the War Department? He did
not; on the contrary, Lee corroborates Longstreet in these paragraphs
of his own official report, in which he also explains in detail why
McLaws and Hood were not ordered forward with Pickett:
“General Longstreet was delayed by a force occupying the high
rocky hills on the enemy’s extreme left, from which his troops
could be attacked in reverse as they advanced. His operations
had been embarrassed the day previous by the same cause, and
he now deemed it necessary to defend his flank and rear with
the divisions of Hood and McLaws. He was therefore reinforced
by Heth’s division and two brigades of Pender’s.... General
Longstreet ordered forward the column of attack, consisting of
Pickett’s and Heth’s divisions in two lines, Pickett on the
right.”
Now, one of Lee’s favorite officers, General Pickett, had personal
supervision of the formation of the attacking column. General Lee was
for a time personally present while this work was going on, conversing
with Pickett concerning the proper dispositions and making various
suggestions. He therefore knew by personal observation, before the
charge was made, exactly what troops were included and what were not.
He knew that the extreme right of Hood’s division was at that moment
fully three miles away, holding a difficult position in face of an
overwhelming force of Federals, and McLaws almost equally distant.
With these documents before him, how can Gordon believe it an
“established fact” that Lee expected McLaws and Hood to take part in
the Pickett charge?
It is admitted by almost if not quite all authority on the subject
that Pickett’s charge was hopeless. The addition of McLaws and Hood
would not have increased the chances of success. The Confederates
under Longstreet and R. H. Anderson had tested the enemy’s position on
that front thoroughly in the battle of the 2d, and with a much larger
force, including these same divisions of McLaws and Hood, who had been
repulsed. There was every reason to believe that the position was much
stronger on the final day than when Longstreet attacked it on the 2d.
The troops of Hood and McLaws, in view of their enormous losses, were
in no condition to support Pickett effectively, even had they been free
for that purpose. But it has been shown above by the testimony of both
Lee and Longstreet that they were required to maintain the position
they had won in the desperate struggle of the evening previous to
prevent the twenty-two thousand men of the Union Fifth and Sixth Corps
from falling _en masse_ upon Pickett’s right flank, or their own flank
and rear had they moved in unison with Pickett.
Having proved from Lee’s own official written utterances that the
three foregoing points set up by Gordon cannot possibly be accepted as
“established facts,” we now come to his “fourthly,” which is really a
summing up of the whole case against Longstreet,--viz., that he was
disobedient, slow, “balky,” and obstructive at Gettysburg. He says,--
“Fourthly, that the great mistake of the halt on the first day
would have been repaired on the second, and even on the third
day, if Lee’s orders had been vigorously executed, and that
General Lee died believing that he lost Gettysburg at last by
Longstreet’s disobedience of orders.”
The first positive utterance holding General Longstreet responsible for
the defeat at Gettysburg, through failure to obey Lee’s orders, came
from Rev. Dr. William N. Pendleton, an Episcopal clergyman of Virginia,
on the 17th of January, 1873. General Lee had then been dead more than
two years. In view of what follows it is well to bear in mind these two
distinct dates. There had been some vague hints, particularly among
some of the higher ex-Confederates from Virginia prior to Pendleton’s
categorical story, but Pendleton was the first person to distinctly
formulate the indictment against Longstreet for disobedience of orders.
In an address delivered in the town of Lexington, Virginia, on the date
mentioned, in behalf of a memorial church to General Lee, Pendleton
uses this language, referring to the battle of Gettysburg:
“The ground southwest of the town [Gettysburg] was carefully
examined by me after the engagement of July 1.... Its practicable
character was reported to our commanding general. He informed
me that he had _ordered Longstreet to attack on that front at
sunrise next morning_. And he added to myself: ‘I want you to be
out long before sunrise, so as to re-examine and save time.’ He
also desired me to communicate with General Longstreet, as well
as himself. The reconnoissance was accordingly made as soon as it
was light enough on the 2d.... All this, as it occurred under my
personal observation, it is nothing short of imperative duty that
I thus fairly state.”
Rev. Dr. Pendleton was a brigadier-general and chief of artillery
on Lee’s staff. He was a graduate of West Point, and was the cadet
friend of Lee for more than three years in the Military Academy. After
the war they were closely associated at Lexington, Virginia. His
fulmination had the effect of a bombshell. There was a hue and cry at
once; corroborative evidence of the easy hearsay sort was forthcoming
from various interested quarters, but most markedly and noisily from
the State of Virginia, as if by preconcert. Pendleton’s fulmination
appeared to have been expected by those who had previously been
pursuing Longstreet. The late General Jubal A. Early was particularly
strenuous in unreserved endorsement of the Pendleton story. The Rev. J.
William Jones, of Richmond, the self-appointed conservator of General
Lee’s fair fame, also quickly added his testimony to the reliability of
the Rev. Dr. Pendleton’s discovery and dramatic disclosure. Those who
approved generally fortified Pendleton with additional statements of
their own.
Pendleton’s statement is characteristic of the whole, but it was for
a time the more effective because it was more definite, in that it
purported to recite a positive statement by Lee of an alleged order to
Longstreet. If Pendleton’s statement falls, the whole falls.
General Longstreet was astounded when Pendleton’s Lexington story was
brought to his attention. He had previously paid but little attention
to indefinite gossip of a certain coterie that he had been “slow” and
even “obstructive” at Gettysburg, and had never heard before that he
was accused of having disobeyed a positive order to attack at any given
hour. That false accusation aroused him to action. He categorically
denied Pendleton’s absurd allegations, and at once appealed to several
living members of Lee’s staff and to others in a position to know the
facts, to exonerate him from the charge of having disobeyed his chief,
thereby causing disaster.
Colonel Walter H. Taylor, a Virginian, and General Lee’s
adjutant-general, promptly responded as follows:
“NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, April 28, 1875.
“DEAR GENERAL,--I have received your letter of the 20th inst. I
have not read the article of which you speak, nor have I ever
seen any copy of General Pendleton’s address; indeed, I have
read little or nothing of what has been written since the war.
In the first place, because I could not spare the time, and in
the second, of those of whose writings I have heard I deem but
very few entitled to any attention whatever. I can only say that
I never before heard of ‘the sunrise attack’ you were to have
made as charged by General Pendleton. If such an order was given
you I never knew of it, or it has strangely escaped my memory.
I think it more than probable that if General Lee had had your
troops available the evening previous to the day of which you
speak he would have ordered an early attack, but this does not
touch the point at issue. I regard it as a great mistake on the
part of those who, perhaps because of political differences, now
undertake to criticise and attack your war record. Such conduct
is most ungenerous, and I am sure meets the disapprobation of
all good Confederates with whom I have had the pleasure of
associating in the daily walks of life.
“Yours very respectfully,
“W. H. TAYLOR.
“TO GENERAL LONGSTREET.”
Two years afterwards Colonel Taylor published an article strongly
criticising General Longstreet’s operations at Gettysburg, but in that
article was this candid admission:
“Indeed, great injustice has been done him [Longstreet] in the
charge that he had orders from the commanding general to attack
the enemy at sunrise on the 2d of July, and that he disobeyed
these orders. This would imply that he was in position to attack,
whereas General Lee but anticipated his early arrival on the
2d, and based his calculations upon it. I have shown how he was
disappointed, and I need hardly add that the delay was fatal.”
The fact that Colonel Taylor was himself a somewhat severe critic of
General Longstreet, through a misapprehension of certain facts and
conditions, gives additional force and value to this statement.
Colonel Charles Marshall, then an aide on Lee’s staff, who succeeded
Long as Military Secretary and subsequently had charge of all the
papers left by General Lee, wrote as follows:
“BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, May 7, 1875.
“DEAR GENERAL,--Your letter of the 20th ult. was received
and should have had an earlier reply but for my engagements
preventing me from looking at my papers to find what I could
on the subject. I have no personal recollection of the order
to which you refer. It certainly was not conveyed by me, nor
is there anything in General Lee’s official report to show the
attack on the 2d was expected by him to begin earlier, except
that he notices that there was not proper concert of action on
that day....
“Respectfully,
“CHARLES MARSHALL.
“TO GENERAL LONGSTREET, NEW ORLEANS.”
Colonel Charles S. Venable, another of Lee’s aides and after the war
one of his firmest partisans, made the following detailed statement,
which not only refutes Pendleton’s Lexington story, but bears
luminously upon every other point at issue concerning the alleged early
attack order of the 2d:
“UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, May 11, 1875.
“GENERAL JAMES LONGSTREET:
“DEAR GENERAL,--Your letter of the 25th ultimo, with regard
to General Lee’s battle order on the 1st and 2d of July at
Gettysburg, was duly received. I did not know of any order for an
attack on the enemy at sunrise on the 2d, nor can I believe any
such order was issued by General Lee. About sunrise on the 2d of
July I was sent by General Lee to General Ewell to ask him what
he thought of the advantages of an attack on the enemy from his
position. (Colonel Marshall had been sent with a similar order
on the night of the 1st.) General Ewell made me ride with him
from point to point of his lines, so as to see with him the exact
position of things. Before he got through the examination of the
enemy’s position General Lee came himself to General Ewell’s
lines. In sending the message to General Ewell, General Lee was
explicit in saying that the question was whether he should move
all the troops around on the right and attack on that side. I do
not think that the errand on which I was sent by the commanding
general is consistent with the idea of an attack at sunrise by
any portion of the army.
“Yours very truly,
“CHAS. S. VENABLE.”
General A. L. Long, a Virginian, was General Lee’s Military Secretary
and aide at Gettysburg. After the war he wrote a book,--“Memoirs of
General Lee,”--in which he endeavored to hold Longstreet largely
responsible for the Gettysburg disaster. But in it he made no assertion
that Longstreet had disobeyed an order for a sunrise attack on the 2d,
or at any other specific hour on that or the next day. He wrote as
follows:
“BIG ISLAND, BEDFORD, VIRGINIA, May 31, 1875.
“DEAR GENERAL,--Your letter of the 20th ult., referring to an
assertion of General Pendleton’s, made in a lecture delivered
several years ago, which was recently published in the _Southern
Historical Society Magazine_ substantially as follows: ‘That
General Lee ordered General Longstreet to attack General Meade
at sunrise on the morning of the 2d of July,’ has been received.
I do not recollect of hearing of an order to attack at sunrise,
or at any other designated hour, pending the operations at
Gettysburg during the first three days of July, 1863....
“Yours truly,
“A. L. LONG,
“TO GENERAL LONGSTREET.”
The foregoing letters, all written by members of General Lee’s military
family, all his close friends and personal partisans, are worth a
careful study. They not only negative General Pendleton’s “sunrise”
story, but as a whole they go to prove that it was not expected by Lee,
Longstreet, Pendleton, nor any other high officer, that an early attack
was to have been delivered on the 2d of July. Both Generals McLaws and
Hood, Longstreet’s division commanders, made statements disclosing that
they were totally unaware at Gettysburg of any order for a sunrise
attack on that day. No officer in a position to know anything about the
matter confirmed Pendleton’s statement, while everybody who should have
been aware of such an important order, directly contradicted it, as do
all the records.
The statement of General McLaws appeared in a narrative of Gettysburg
published in a Savannah paper nearly thirty years ago. Besides
its direct bearing on the Pendleton story, it furnishes valuable
information as to some of the causes of delay encountered by
Longstreet’s troops in their long march from Chambersburg on the 1st of
July:
“On the 30th of June I had been directed to have my division
in readiness to follow General Ewell’s corps. Marching towards
Gettysburg, which it was intimated we would have passed by
ten o’clock the next day (the 1st of July), my division was
accordingly marched from its camp and lined along the road in the
order of march by eight o’clock the 1st of July. When the troops
of Ewell’s corps (it was Johnston’s division in charge of Ewell’s
wagon-trains, which were coming from Carlisle by the road west of
the mountains) had passed the head of my column I asked General
Longstreet’s staff-officer, Major Fairfax, if my division should
follow. He went off to inquire, and returned with orders for
me to wait until Ewell’s wagon-train had passed, which did not
happen until after four o’clock P.M.
“The train was calculated to be fourteen miles long, when I
took up the line of march and continued marching until I arrived
within three miles of Gettysburg, where my command camped along
a creek. This was far into the night. My division was leading
Longstreet’s corps, and of course the other divisions came up
later. I saw Hood’s division the next morning, and understood
that Pickett had been detached to guard the rear.
“While on the march, at about ten o’clock at night I met General
Longstreet and some of his staff coming from the direction of
Gettysburg and had a few moments’ conversation with him. He said
nothing of having received an order to attack at daylight the
next morning. Here I will state that until General Pendleton
mentioned it about two years ago, when he was on a lecturing
tour, after the death of General Lee, I never heard it intimated
even that any such order had ever been given.”
The following is an extract from a letter[D] of General Hood to General
Longstreet on the subject of the sunrise order, which indirectly,
though conclusively, shows there could have been no such order, besides
being interesting and instructive as to other points:
“I arrived with my staff in front of the heights of Gettysburg
shortly after daybreak, as I have already stated, on the morning
of the 2d of July. My division soon commenced filing into an
open field near me, when the troops were allowed to stack arms
and rest until further orders. A short distance in advance of
this point, and during the early part of the same morning, we
were both engaged in company with Generals A. P. Hill and Lee
in observing the position of the Federals. General Lee, with
coat buttoned to the throat, sabre belt around his waist, and
field-glasses pending at his side, walked up and down in the
shade of large trees near us, halting now and then to observe
the enemy. He seemed full of hope, yet at times buried in
deep thought. Colonel Fremantle, of England, was ensconced in
the forks of a tree not far off with glasses in constant use
examining the lofty position of the Federal army.
“General Lee was seemingly anxious that you should attack that
morning. He remarked to me, ‘The enemy is here, and if we do not
whip him he will whip us.’ You thought it better to await the
arrival of Pickett’s division, at that time still in the rear, in
order to make the attack, and you said to me subsequently, while
we were seated together near the trunk of a tree, ‘General Lee is
a little nervous this morning. He wishes me to attack. I do not
wish to do so without Pickett. I never like to go into a battle
with one boot off.’”
Another letter, which in a way is still more important than any of the
foregoing, is one from Colonel John W. Fairfax, a member of General
Longstreet’s staff. It tends to show that the sunrise-order story was
conjured up by Dr. Pendleton and others at Lexington after Lee’s death;
in other words, it is strong circumstantial confirmation of General
Longstreet’s belief in a conspiracy. Written more than twenty-six years
ago, the manner in which it dovetails with all the foregoing statements
and documents as to the various events involved is peculiarly
significant. Colonel Fairfax is a Virginian and was always an ardent
admirer of General Lee, but not to the extent of desiring to uphold his
fame at the expense of honor or the ruin of another:
“FREESTONE P. O., PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, VIRGINIA.
“November 12, 1877.
“MY DEAR GENERAL LONGSTREET,-- ... The winter after the death
of General Lee I was in Lexington, visiting my sons at the
Virginia Military Institute. General Pendleton called to see me
at the hotel. General Custis Lee was in my room when he came in.
After General Lee left, General Pendleton asked me if General
Longstreet was not ordered to attack on the 2d of July at six
o’clock in the morning, and did not attack until four in the
evening. I told him it was not possible. When he left me I was
under the impression I had convinced him of his mistaken idea. I
told General Pendleton that you and General Lee were together the
greater part of the day up to about three o’clock or later; that
you separated at the mouth of a lane not long thereafter. You
said to me, ‘Those troops will be in position by the time you get
there; tell General Hood to attack.’
“When I gave the order to General Hood he was standing within a
step or two of his line of battle. I asked him to please delay
his attack until I could communicate to General Longstreet that
he can turn the enemy--pointing to a gorge in the mountain, where
we would be sheltered from his view and attack by his cavalry.
General Hood slapped me on the knee, and said, ‘I agree with you;
bring General Longstreet to see for himself. When I reported to
you, your answer was, ‘It is General Lee’s order; the time is
up,--attack at once.’ I lost no time in repeating the same to
General Hood, and remained with him to see the attack, which was
made instantly. We had a beautiful view of the enemy’s left from
Hood’s position, which was close up to him. He gave way quickly.
General Hood charged, and I spurred to report to you; found you
with hat in hand, cheering on General McLaws’s division....
“Truly your friend,
“JOHN W. FAIRFAX.”
General Longstreet’s views at the time of the Gettysburg operations are
conveyed in a personal letter of a confidential nature, written only
twenty days after the event to his uncle in Georgia, upon being made
aware that there was a sly undercurrent of misrepresentation of his
course current in certain circles of the army:
“CAMP CULPEPER COURT-HOUSE,
“July 24, 1863.
“MY DEAR UNCLE,--Your letters of the 13th and 14th were received
on yesterday. As to our late battle I cannot say much. I have
no right to say anything, in fact, but will venture a little
for you alone. If it goes to aunt and cousins it must be under
promise that it will go no farther. The battle was not made as
I would have made it. My idea was to throw ourselves between the
enemy and Washington, select a strong position, and force the
enemy to attack us. So far as is given to man the ability to
judge, we may say with confidence that we should have destroyed
the Federal army, marched into Washington, and dictated our
terms, or at least held Washington and marched over as much of
Pennsylvania as we cared to, had we drawn the enemy into attack
upon our carefully chosen position in his rear. General Lee chose
the plans adopted, and he is the person appointed to choose and
to order. I consider it a part of my duty to express my views
to the commanding general. If he approves and adopts them, it
is well; if he does not, it is my duty to adopt his views and
to execute his orders as faithfully as if they were my own. I
cannot help but think that great results would have been obtained
had my views been thought better of, yet I am much inclined to
accept the present condition as for the best. I hope and trust
that it is so. Your programme would all be well enough had it
been practicable, and was duly thought of, too. I fancy that no
good ideas upon that campaign will be mentioned at any time that
did not receive their share of consideration by General Lee.
The few things that he might have overlooked himself were, I
believe, suggested by myself. As we failed, I must take my share
of the responsibility. In fact, I would prefer that all the blame
should rest upon me. As General Lee is our commander, he should
have the support and influence we can give him. If the blame, if
there is any, can be shifted from him to me, I shall help him
and our cause by taking it. I desire, therefore, that all the
responsibility that can be put upon me shall go there and shall
remain there. The truth will be known in time, and I leave that
to show how much of the responsibility of Gettysburg rests on my
shoulders....
“Most affectionately yours,
“J. LONGSTREET.
“TO A. B. LONGSTREET, LL.D., COLUMBUS, GA.”
Aside from all this irrefragable personal testimony of conspicuous
participants disproving Pendleton’s apocryphal story, there is other
evidence still more conclusive that no sunrise order for attack by
Longstreet was given by Lee, and equally strong that an early attack on
that day was out of the question. The position of Longstreet’s troops,
all still absent from the field and on the march, forbade an attack by
him at sunrise, or at any other hour much before noon, at the point
designated by Lee. General Lee was well aware of its impossibility. At
sunrise Longstreet’s infantry was still distant from the field, but
rapidly coming up. One brigade (Law’s) was not less than twenty miles
away at the very hour Pendleton would have had Longstreet attack.
McLaws’s and Hood’s divisions had encamped at Marsh Creek, four miles
from Gettysburg, at midnight of the 1st, and did not begin to arrive on
Seminary Ridge until more than three hours after sunrise on the 2d.
The corps artillery did not get up until nine or ten o’clock, and part
of it not until noon or after. Pickett’s division did not begin its
march from the vicinity of Chambersburg, some thirty miles away, until
the 2d. Pendleton’s report, herein quoted, shows how the artillery was
delayed, and the deterrent effect that delay had upon Longstreet’s
advance after he received the order. Pendleton himself was the chief of
artillery, and largely responsible for its manœuvres.
After their arrival upon Seminary Ridge, the infantry of Hood and
McLaws was massed in a field within musket shot of General Lee’s
head-quarters, and there rested until the troops took arms for the
march to the point of attack. From this point of rest near Lee’s
head-quarters to the point of attack, by the circuitous route selected
by Pendleton, was between five and seven miles.
So that Longstreet’s infantry, the nearest at hand, had from nine
to eleven miles to march to reach the selected point of attack, the
greater part of which march by the back roads and ravines, to avoid
the observation of the enemy, was necessarily slow at best, and made
doubly so by the mistakes of Pendleton’s guides, who put the troops
upon the wrong routes. The artillery, still back on the Chambersburg
road, did not all get up until noon, causing a further delay of the
whole column, as shown by the Pendleton report. General Law’s brigade,
marching from 3 A.M., arrived about noon.
After they came up all movements were still several hours delayed,
awaiting Lee’s personal reconnoissances on the left and right to
determine the point of attack.
Colonel Venable says that “about sunrise” he was sent to General
Ewell on the left to inquire if it were not more feasible to attack
in that quarter. While he was riding from point to point with Ewell,
Lee himself came over to see Ewell in person. Lee did not return
to Longstreet’s front until about nine o’clock. Meanwhile, his
staff-officers, Pendleton, Long, Colonel Walker, and Captain Johnston,
by Lee’s orders, had been examining the ground to the right. Upon Lee’s
return from the left he rode far to the right and joined Pendleton.
Not until then was the attack on the enemy’s left by Longstreet finally
decided upon. Longstreet said it was not earlier than eleven o’clock
when he received his orders to move; from the time consumed by Lee and
his staff it was probably later. The front of the Confederate army was
six miles in extent.
Hence matters on the morning of July 2 were not awaiting Longstreet’s
movements. All that long forenoon everything was still in the air,
depending upon Lee’s personal examinations and final decisions.
It is perfectly clear from this indecision on the 2d that Lee could not
have arrived at a decision the previous night, as asserted by Pendleton
at Lexington long after the war.
CHAPTER V
LONGSTREET’S VERSION OF THE OPERATIONS OF JULY 2
“General Lee never in his life gave me orders to open an attack
at a specific hour. He was perfectly satisfied that when I had my
troops in position and was ordered to attack, no time was ever
lost.”--LONGSTREET ON THE SECOND DAY AT GETTYSBURG.
The hour, the feasibility, and point of attack have now been thoroughly
discussed, mainly from the stand-point of the official records. As
supplementary to the recitations of the official reports of Lee,
Longstreet, Pendleton, and others quoted on these heads, it seems
desirable to introduce just here General Longstreet’s version of his
operations on July 2, published so long ago as 1877, only twelve
years after Appomattox and two decades before he knew the tenor
of Pendleton’s report. It was given to the world long before the
publication of the official records by the government, to which he
could therefore have had no access. How closely he is confirmed in all
essential particulars by the records is marvellous. In this regard it
is to be noted that in all these controversies his statements have
always stood analysis in the light of all the evidence far better than
those of his reckless critics. The following is useful because it
comprehensively sums up from Longstreet’s stand-point all the movements
relating to fixing the point and time of his attack, the movement and
disposition of his troops, and other incidents:
[Illustration: SECOND DAY’S BATTLE, GETTYSBURG.]
“General Lee never in his life gave me orders to open an attack
at a specific hour. He was perfectly satisfied that when I had
my troops in position and was ordered to attack, no time was
ever lost. On the night of the 1st I left him without any
orders at all. On the morning of the 2d I went to General Lee’s
head-quarters at daylight and renewed my views against making
an attack. He seemed resolved, however, and we discussed the
probable results. We observed the position of the Federals and
got a general idea of the nature of the ground. About sunrise
General Lee sent Colonel Venable, of his staff, to General
Ewell’s head-quarters, ordering him to make a reconnoissance of
the ground in his front, with a view of making the main attack on
his left. A short time afterwards he followed Colonel Venable in
person. He returned at about nine o’clock and informed me that it
would not do to have Ewell open the attack. He finally determined
that I should make the main attack on the extreme right. It was
fully eleven o’clock when General Lee arrived at this conclusion
and ordered the movement. In the mean time, by General Lee’s
authority, Law’s brigade, which had been put upon picket duty,
was ordered to rejoin my command, and upon my suggestion that
it would be better to await its arrival, General Lee assented.
We waited about forty minutes for these troops and then moved
forward. A delay of several hours occurred in the march of the
troops. The cause of this delay was that we had been ordered by
General Lee to proceed cautiously upon the forward movement so
as to avoid being seen by the enemy. General Lee ordered Captain
Johnston, of his engineer corps, to lead and conduct the head
of the column. My troops therefore moved forward under guidance
of a special officer of General Lee, and with instructions to
follow his directions. I left General Lee only after the line had
stretched out on the march, and rode along with Hood’s division,
which was in the rear. The march was necessarily slow, the
conductor frequently encountering points that exposed the troops
to the view of the signal station on Round Top. At length the
column halted.
“After waiting some time, supposing that it would soon move
forward, I sent to the front to inquire the occasion of the
delay. It was reported that the column was awaiting the movements
of Captain Johnston, who was trying to lead it by some route by
which it could pursue its march without falling under view of the
Federal signal station. Looking up towards Round Top, I saw that
the signal station was in full view, and, as we could plainly
see this station, it was apparent that our heavy columns were
seen from their position and that further efforts to conceal
ourselves would be a waste of time.
“I became very impatient at this delay, and determined to take
upon myself the responsibility of hurrying the troops forward.
I did not order General McLaws forward because, as the head of
the column, he had direct orders from General Lee to follow the
conduct of Colonel Johnston. Therefore I sent orders to Hood,
who was in the rear and not encumbered by these instructions, to
push his division forward by the most direct route so as to take
position on my right. He did so, and thus broke up the delay. The
troops were rapidly thrown into position and preparations were
made for the attack.
“We had learned on the night of the 1st, from some prisoners
captured near Seminary Ridge, that the First, Eleventh, and
Third Corps had arrived by the Emmitsburg road and had taken
position on the heights in front of us, and that reinforcements
had been seen coming by the Baltimore road just after the fight
of the 1st. From an intercepted despatch we learned that another
corps was in camp about four miles from the field. We had every
reason, therefore, to believe that the Federals were prepared to
renew the battle. Our army was stretched in an elliptical curve,
reaching from the front of Round Top around Seminary Ridge, and
enveloping Cemetery Heights on the left; thus covering a space of
four or five miles. The enemy occupied the high ground in front
of us, being massed within a curve of about two miles, nearly
concentric with the curve described by our forces. His line was
about fourteen hundred yards from ours. Any one will see that
the proposition for this inferior force to assault and drive out
the masses of troops upon the heights was a very problematical
one. My orders from General Lee were ‘to envelop the enemy’s left
and begin the attack there, following up as near as possible the
direction of the Emmitsburg road.’
“My corps occupied our right, with Hood on the extreme right
and McLaws next. Hill’s corps was next to mine, in front of the
Federal centre, and Ewell was on our extreme left. My corps, with
Pickett’s division absent, numbered hardly thirteen thousand
men. I realized that the fight was to be a fearful one; but
being assured that my flank would be protected by the brigades of
Wilcox, Perry, Wright, Posey, and Mahone, moving _en echelon_,
and that Ewell was to co-operate by a direct attack on the
enemy’s right, and Hill to threaten his centre and attack if
opportunity offered, and thus prevent reinforcements from being
launched either against myself or Ewell, it seemed that we might
possibly dislodge the great army in front of us.”
CHAPTER VI
PENDLETON’S REPORT
“Pendleton’s report will destroy many illusions of Lee’s
misguided friends who are unwittingly doing deadly injury to
his military fame by magnifying the mistakes of Gettysburg and
ascribing them to another.”--LESLIE J. PERRY, formerly of the War
Records Department.
There is even more positive proof than has yet been produced. That
Lee gave no such order as described in Pendleton’s Lexington lecture,
or for an “early attack,” as asserted by Gordon now, is absolutely
proved by an official report of Gettysburg, penned by General Pendleton
himself. That Pendleton was an oral falsifier of history is established
by his own hand, under date of September 12, 1863, only nine weeks
after the battle.
Confident in his own rectitude of purpose and conduct, and far from
being an expert controversialist, for he was without guile himself,
it is not at all singular that the significance of Pendleton’s report
in connection with the Lexington story should for years have entirely
escaped General Longstreet’s notice. He knew that the document was
printed in its sequence in the Gettysburg volumes of the War Records,
and for certain purposes had even quoted from it regarding other
questions. He was also fully aware that General Pendleton had long
been distinguished for the unreliability of his memory. Nevertheless
General Longstreet had never analyzed the report to the extent of
observing that it made ridiculous the reverend gentleman’s version of
1873.
It is most striking that the extraordinary tenor of this old
Pendletonian exhumation of the War Records office in Washington
should so long have passed entirely unnoticed by everybody, despite
the researches of the most industrious. It remained for Mr. Leslie J.
Perry, one of the historical experts then in charge of the government
publication of the Union and Confederate records of the Civil War, to
point out some nine years ago how glaringly the Pendleton report of
1863 stultified the Pendleton story of 1873.
The immediate result of the exploitation of the Pendleton report
was the elimination of the sunrise story from the repertory of the
anti-Longstreet crusaders. In the subsequent literature of the
subject a decided change of tone regarding other allegations was
soon perceived, more favorable to Longstreet. General Longstreet was
astounded by this bald disclosure of his old military associate’s
tergiversation, to call it nothing worse. For a time after the
appearance of the Lexington story, he had charitably presumed that, in
an excess of zeal to protect General Lee’s military fame, Pendleton
might really have harbored in good faith the belief that his Lexington
statements were true. But after reading the detailed analysis of the
Pendleton report, and carefully studying the report itself, General
Longstreet speedily arrived at the conclusion that he was the victim
of a deliberate conspiracy. It is not strange that he found it hard
to forgive the conspirators, even after becoming fully aware that the
world was practically convinced that he had been cruelly misrepresented.
Let us see how “fairly” Pendleton stated the case against General
Longstreet in his Lexington lecture. His official report[E] of
Gettysburg was written only about sixty days after the battle. It was
dated September 12, 1863. It is a detailed report of the operations of
the Confederate artillery in the Pennsylvania campaign, embodying a
minute description of General Pendleton’s personal movements on that
day. That is its only value to this discussion. The paragraphs having a
bearing upon the time of Longstreet’s attack are as follows:
“From the farthest occupied point on the right and front, in
company with Colonels Long and Walker and Captain Johnston
(engineer), soon _after sunrise_ I surveyed the enemy’s position
towards some estimate of the ground and best mode of attack.
So far as judgment could be formed from such a view, assault
on the enemy’s left by our extreme right might succeed, should
the mountain there offer no insuperable obstacle. The attack on
that side, if practicable, I understood to be the purpose of the
commanding general.
“Returning from this position more to the right and rear, for the
sake of tracing more exactly the mode of approach, I proceeded
some distance along the ravine road noticed the previous evening,
and was made aware of having entered the enemy’s lines by meeting
two armed dismounted cavalrymen. Apparently surprised, they
immediately surrendered, and were disarmed and sent to the rear.
“Having satisfied myself of the course and character of this
road, I returned to an elevated point on the Fairfield road,
which furnished a very extensive view, and despatched messengers
to General Longstreet and the commanding general. This front was,
after some time, examined by Colonel Smith and Captain Johnston
(engineers), and about midday General Longstreet arrived and
viewed the ground. He desired Colonel Alexander to obtain the
best view he then could of the front. I therefore conducted the
colonel to the advanced point of observation previously visited.
Its approach was now more hazardous from the fire of the enemy’s
sharp-shooters, so that special caution was necessary in making
the desired observation. Just then a sharp contest occurred in
the woods to the right and rear of this forward point. Anderson’s
division, Third Corps, had moved up and was driving the enemy
from these woods. These woods having thus been cleared of the
enemy, some view of the ground beyond them, and much farther
to the right than had yet been examined, seemed practicable. I
therefore rode in that direction, and when about to enter the
woods, met the commanding general _en route_ himself to survey
the ground.
“There being here still a good deal of sharp-shooting, the front
had to be examined with caution.... Having noticed the field and
the enemy’s batteries, etc., I returned to General Longstreet
for the purpose of conducting his column to this point, and
supervising, as might be necessary, the disposition of his
artillery. He was advancing by the ravine road (as most out of
view), time having already been lost in attempting another, which
proved objectionable because exposed to observation. On learning
the state of facts ahead, the general halted, and sent back to
hasten his artillery. Members of my staff were also despatched to
remedy, as far as practicable, the delay. Cabell’s, Alexander’s,
and Henry’s battalions at length arrived, and the whole column
moved towards the enemy’s left.... The enemy opened a furious
cannonade, the course of which rendered necessary a change in
the main artillery column. Cabell’s deflected to the left, while
Alexander’s was mainly parked for a season, somewhat under cover,
till it could advance to better purpose.... Soon after, at about
4 P.M., the general assault was made.”
Here is the whole of Pendleton’s celebrated report, so far as it bears
upon the hour of Longstreet’s attack on the 2d of July. Nothing is
omitted relating to the preliminary movements of Longstreet’s column
of attack, or that in any manner modifies the tenor of the parts
introduced.
CHAPTER VII
PENDLETON’S UNRELIABLE MEMORY
All the battle worthy the name for the Southern cause at
Gettysburg on the 2d and 3d was made by Longstreet. The whole
superstructure of the contentions against his honor as a soldier
is based solely on the statements since the war, and since Lee’s
death, of two or three obscure individuals. They are easily
exploded by the records of the battles; they are corroborated by
none.
When the Rev. Dr. Pendleton told that dramatic story to his breathless
hearers at Lexington in 1873, under “pressure of imperative duty,” had
he forgotten the tenor of his official report, made in 1863? The story
as modified by the prior report forms the greatest anticlimax in all
history. Several decisive facts are disclosed by this unbiassed report.
1. Instead of being dilatory and obstructive, Pendleton himself
establishes that Longstreet was personally exerting himself to “hasten
forward” the very artillery of which he, Pendleton, was the chief.
2. As late certainly as eleven o’clock, if not noon, General Lee and
his staff-officers were still rambling all over a front six miles
long, yet undetermined either as to the point or proper route of
attack. According to both Pendleton and Venable, they did not _begin_
this necessary preliminary survey until “about sunrise,” the specific
hour at which General Lee on the night previous had already ordered
Longstreet to begin his attack, as asserted by Pendleton at Lexington.
3. Not until Lee and Pendleton had devoted the entire forenoon to the
examination of the ground, did Pendleton go to conduct Longstreet to
the point of attack thereupon decided upon. Evidently Longstreet was
not delaying action; he was awaiting their motions.
The following general conclusions upon the state of facts disclosed by
Pendleton’s remarkable report are therefore inevitable and unavoidable.
1. At sunrise of the 2d, General Lee himself did not know where to
attack. He did not know as late as ten or eleven o’clock. His mind
was not fully made up until after he came back from Ewell’s front
(about nine o’clock, according to all authorities), and had made the
final examination on the right. General Longstreet says he received
his orders to move about eleven o’clock, and this corresponds with
Pendleton’s report. But if anything, it was later, rather than earlier.
2. These painstaking, time-consuming reconnoissances of the commanding
general and his staff-officers, the journey of Colonel Venable to
Ewell, three miles to the left, and Lee’s later visit to Ewell,
together with the unavoidable absence of General Longstreet’s troops
until late in the morning, prove absolutely that Lee issued no order
for Longstreet to attack at any specific hour on July 2.
3. Longstreet’s preliminary movements from start to finish were
under the personal supervision of Lee’s confidential staff-officer,
Pendleton, and the subordinate staff-officers. So Longstreet has
positively stated, so has General McLaws, and both are confirmed by
Pendleton’s report. The staff guide caused a loss of three hours by
putting the head of McLaws’s column upon a wrong road. This compelled
Longstreet to “hasten matters” by assuming personal direction of the
movement, and pushing Hood’s division rapidly to the front past McLaws.
4. Pendleton’s official utterances make it an “established fact” that
General Longstreet made his tremendous and successful attack on July
2 at the earliest moment possible after receiving Lee’s orders to
advance, under the conditions imposed by Lee,--viz., to be conducted to
the point of attack by Pendleton himself and the other staff-officers.
Thus the misapprehensions respecting Longstreet’s great part at
Gettysburg were cleared away, and a better general understanding of
what actually occurred was obtained from the Rev. Mr. Pendleton’s
report of September 12, 1863. Few military students now hold that
Longstreet was in the remotest degree culpable for Lee’s defeat. On
the contrary, most of them severely criticise Lee’s operations from
start to finish, particularly the hopeless assaults he persisted in
making, and for the lack of concert. It is held generally now that the
dreadful result fully justified Longstreet’s protests against attacking
the Federals in that position, and that his suggestion of a turning
movement was far more promising of success.
In all the circumstances it is not only entirely improbable, but the
developed facts of the battle make it impossible that “General Lee died
believing that he lost Gettysburg at last by Longstreet’s disobedience
of orders.” Longstreet disobeyed no orders at Gettysburg, and Lee
was well aware of the fact. General Gordon has simply reiterated the
claque set up after Lee’s death by his fond admirers to shift the
responsibility of defeat from his shoulders upon Longstreet. It was
necessary to the success of that folly to make the world believe Lee
always quietly held that view, and only imparted it in the strictest
confidence to close friends like the ex-army chaplain, Rev. J. William
Jones, and the Rev. William N. Pendleton.
The evidence is totally insufficient. Its gauzy character is fully
exposed by the Pendleton report. But apocryphal after-war evidence of
this kind was the only reliance of the conspirators. It is absolutely
certain that there is no evidence of any such belief in any of Lee’s
official utterances during the progress of the war, nor a hint of it
in his private correspondence then or afterwards, so far as has been
produced. The whole superstructure of the contention is based solely on
the statements since the war, and since Lee’s death, of two or three
obscure individuals. Pendleton’s Lexington yarn is an example. They are
easily exploded by the records of the battle; they are corroborated
by none. All the battle worthy the name for the Southern cause at
Gettysburg on the 2d and 3d was made by Longstreet.
Another evidence of the falsehoods concerning Longstreet’s disobedience
and Lee’s alleged belief is found in the relations of the two men.
Their personal friendship continued after Gettysburg as it was before.
It was of the closest and most cordial description. General Lee always
manifested the highest regard for General Longstreet, and continued to
manifest undiminished confidence in his military capacity, fighting
qualities, and subordination. There is no manifestation of a withdrawal
of that confidence after Gettysburg. I here cite a few illustrations of
their relations after Gettysburg. Just after his corps was ordered to
reinforce Bragg before Chattanooga, Longstreet wrote Lee from Richmond,
where he had temporarily stopped on his journey to the new field:
“If I did not think our move a necessary one, my regrets at
leaving you would be distressing to me.... Our affections for you
are stronger, if it is possible for them to be stronger, than our
admiration for you.”
[Illustration: RETREAT FROM GETTYSBURG. ACCIDENT DURING THE
NIGHT-CROSSING OF THE POTOMAC ON A PONTOON BRIDGE]
After the battle of Chickamauga Lee wrote to Longstreet:
“... My whole heart and soul have been with you and your brave
corps in your late battle.... Finish the work before you, my
dear General, _and return to me. I want you badly, and you cannot
get back too soon._”
These letters, printed in the official records, were written less than
ninety days after the battle of Gettysburg.
“I want you badly” does not indicate that Longstreet had ever failed
General Lee. They are significant words, so soon after the event
wherein Longstreet, by mere obstinacy and obduracy, had defeated
his chief’s plans, if we may believe Gordon, Pendleton, and Jones.
After the forlorn campaign in East Tennessee against overwhelming
numbers, when General Longstreet was on his way back to the Army of
Northern Virginia with his troops to aid in repelling Grant, Lee’s
adjutant-general wrote him as follows at Gordonsville or Orange
Court-House:
“HEAD-QUARTERS ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA,
“April 26, 1864.
“MY DEAR GENERAL,--I have received your note of yesterday and
have consulted the General about reviewing your command. He
directs me to say that he has written to the President to know if
he can visit and review the army this week, and until his reply
is received, the General cannot say when he can visit you. He is
anxious to see you, and it will give him much pleasure to meet
you and your corps once more. He hopes soon to be able to do
this, and I will give you due notice when he can come. I really
am beside myself, General, with joy of having you back. It is
like the reunion of a family.
“Truly and respectfully yours,
“W. H. TAYLOR, A.A.G.
“To GENERAL LONGSTREET.”
After the war was over and the Southern cause lost, there are warm
letters from General Lee, written before Longstreet had accepted
appointment at the hands of a Republican President. A few months after
the surrender General Lee wrote:
[Illustration: Fac-simile of General Lee’s Letter to General Longstreet]
Lexington Va: 19 Jan ’66
My dear Genl
Upon my return from Richmond, where I have been for a week,
on business connected with Washington College, I found your
letter of the 26th ulto. I regret very much that you never
recd my first letter, as you might then perhaps have given me
the information I desired, with more ease to yourself, & with
more expedition than now. I did not know how to address it,
but sent it to a friend in Richmond, who gave it to one of our
officers going south, who transferred it to another etc., & after
travelling many weary miles, has been recently returned to me. I
start it again in pursuit of you, though you did not tell me how
to address you. I have almost forgotten what it contained, but I
hope it will inform you of my purpose in writing a history of the
campaigns in Viga, & of the object that I have in view so that
you may give me all the information in your power. I shall be in
no hurry in publishing, & will not do so, until I feel satisfied
that I have got the true story, as my only object is to
disseminate the truth. I am very sorry to hear that your records
were destroyed too, but I hope Sorrel & Latrobe will be able to
supply you with all you require. I wish to relate the acts of all
the corps of the Army of N. Va. wherever they did duty, & do not
wish to omit so important a one as yours. I will therefore wait
as long as I can.
I shall be very glad to receive anything you may give to Mr.
Washington McLean, as I know you recommend no one but those who
deserve your good opinion.
I am delighted to hear that your arm is still improving & hope it
will soon be restored. You are however becoming so accomplished
with your left hand, as not to need it. You must remember me
very kindly to Mrs. Longstreet & all your children. I have
not had an opportunity yet to return the compliment she paid
me. I had while in Richmond a great many inquiries after you, &
learned that you intended commencing business in New Orleans. If
you become as good a merchant as you were a soldier I shall be
content. No one will then excel you, & no one can wish you more
success & more happiness than I. My interest & affection for
you will never cease, & my prayers are always offered for your
prosperity--
I am most truly yours
R E Lee
“If you become as good a merchant as you were a soldier I shall be
content. No one will then excel you, and no one can wish you more
success and more happiness than I. My interest and affection for
you will never cease, and my prayers are always offered for your
prosperity.” Strange words from the commander to the subordinate whose
disobedience at Gettysburg, according to Rev. Dr. Pendleton and others,
led the way to Appomattox.
While General Longstreet held General Lee to be a great strategist, he
thought him to be less able as an offensive battle tactician. Those
views are shared by many other military officers, who have of late
given free expression to them. The Gettysburg controversies, followed
by such criticisms, led to the belief that Longstreet was the open
enemy of Lee’s fame, and lost no opportunity to maliciously decry his
military ability. But this is a mistake. General Longstreet’s intimate
friends know that he has always born for General Lee the most profound
love and respect, both as a man and as a commander. His views of Lee’s
military capacity are discriminating and just, and they are probably
correct. Longstreet saw things military with a practical eye. A fine
professional soldier himself, who had taken hard knocks on many great
fields, he clearly discerned General Lee’s incomparable attributes as
a commander, and was never loath to praise them. He also knew Lee’s
weaknesses, and has sometimes spoken of them, but never in malice or
contemptuously. Those who read his utterances in that sense are very
narrow indeed. He has never, like the mass of Southerners, looked upon
Lee as infallible, yet in one particular Longstreet has held him to be
one of the very greatest of commanders.
As an example of General Longstreet’s estimate of Lee’s professional
place in history, one of his interviews when on a visit to the Antietam
battle-field, published a few years ago, is quoted: “General Lee, as
a rule, did not underestimate his opponents or the fighting qualities
of the Federal troops. But after Chancellorsville he came to have
unlimited confidence in his own army, and undoubtedly exaggerated its
capacity to overcome obstacles, to march, to fight, to bear up under
deprivations and exhaustion. It was a dangerous confidence. I think
every officer who served under him will unhesitatingly agree with me on
this point.”
In answer to a question as to which he regarded as Lee’s best
battle: “Well, perhaps the second battle of Manassas was, all things
considered, the best tactical battle General Lee ever fought. The grand
strategy of the campaign was also fine, and seems to have completely
deceived General Pope. Indeed, Pope failed to comprehend Lee’s purpose
from start to finish. Pope was outgeneralled and outclassed by Lee,
and through improper dispositions his fine army was out-fought. Still,
it will not do to underrate Pope; he was an enterprising soldier and a
fighter.”
General Longstreet, in the interview at Antietam, summed up Lee’s
characteristics as a commander in the following succinct manner:
“General Lee was a large-minded man, of great and profound learning in
the science of war. In all strategical movements he handled a great
army with comprehensive ability and signal success. His campaigns
against McClellan and Pope fully illustrate his capacity. On the
defensive General Lee was absolutely perfect. Reconciled to the single
purpose of defence, he was invincible. But of the art of war, more
particularly that of giving offensive battle, I do not think General
Lee was a master. In science and military learning he was greatly the
superior of General Grant, or any other commander on either side.
But in the art of war I have no doubt that Grant and several other
officers were his equals. In the field his characteristic fault was
headlong combativeness. His impatience to strike, once in the presence
of the enemy, whatever the disparity of forces or relative conditions,
I consider the one weakness of General Lee’s military character.
This trait of aggressiveness led him to take too many chances--into
dangerous situations. At Gettysburg, all the vast interests at
stake and the improbability of success would not deter him. In the
immediate presence of the enemy General Lee’s mind, at all other times
calm and clear, became excited. The same may be said of most other
highly educated, theoretical soldiers. General Lee had the absolute
confidence of his own troops, and the most unquestioning support of his
subordinates. He was wholesomely feared by the Federal rank and file,
who undoubtedly considered him the easy superior of their own generals.
These were tremendous advantages.”
It is very difficult to detect malice or hatred in these calm and
dispassionate conclusions.
It is most probable that General Longstreet would have never written or
uttered one word concerning Gettysburg had it not been for the attempt
of wordy soldiers to specifically fix upon him the whole burden of that
battle, their rashness carrying them so far as to lead them to put
false orders in the mouth of the great captain, and charge Longstreet
with having broken them. To disprove these untrue assertions, and
to give the world the truth concerning the battle, then became what
General Longstreet considered an imperative duty. He has always
regretted deeply that this discussion was not opened before the death
of General Lee. If the charges so vehemently urged had been preferred
or even suggested in Lee’s lifetime, Longstreet does not believe they
would have needed any reply from him. General Lee would have answered
them himself and set history right.
But after all, Longstreet does not fear the verdict of history on
Gettysburg. He holds that time sets all things right. Error lives but a
day--truth is eternal.
CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL LONGSTREET’S AMERICANISM
“The strongest laws are those established by the sword. The ideas
that divided political parties before the war--upon the rights of
the States--were thoroughly discussed by our wisest statesmen,
and eventually appealed to the arbitrament of the sword. The
decision was in favor of the North, so that her construction
becomes the law, and should be so accepted.”--GENERAL LONGSTREET
in “From Manassas to Appomattox.”
It seems advisable here to introduce General Longstreet’s personal
version of the animus of the after-the-war criticism of his operations
on the field of Gettysburg, taken from his war history, “From Manassas
to Appomattox:”
“As the whole animus of the latter-day adverse criticisms upon, and
uncritical assertions in regard to, the commander of the First Corps
of the Army of Northern Virginia had its origin in this matter of
politics, a brief review of the circumstances is in order.
“As will be readily recalled by my older readers (while for the
younger it is a matter of history), President Johnson, after the war,
adopted a reconstruction policy of his own, and some of the States
were reorganized under it with Democratic governors and legislatures,
and all would have followed. But Congress, being largely Republican,
was not satisfied, and enacted that the States could not be accepted
unless they provided in their new constitutions for _negro suffrage_.
In case they would not, the State governments should be removed and the
States placed in the hands of general officers of the army as military
governors, who should see that the States were reorganized and
restored to the Union under the laws.
“Under the severe ordeal one of the city papers of New Orleans called
upon the generals of Confederate service to advise the people of the
course that they should pursue,--naming the officers. I thought it
better policy to hold the States, as they were organized, under the
President’s policy, shape their constitutions as directed by Congress,
and have the States not yet reorganized follow the same course. My
letter upon the subject was as follows:
“‘NEW ORLEANS, LA., June 3, 1867.
“‘J. M. G. PARKER, ESQ.:
“‘DEAR SIR,--Your esteemed favor of the 15th ultimo was duly
received.
“‘I was much pleased to have the opportunity to hear Senator
Wilson, and was agreeably surprised to meet such fairness and
frankness from a politician whom I had been taught to believe
harsh in his feelings towards the people of the South.
“‘I have considered your suggestion to wisely unite in efforts
to restore Louisiana to her former position in the Union,
“through the party now in power.” My letter of the 6th of April,
to which you refer, clearly indicates a desire for practical
reconstruction and reconciliation. There is only one route left
open, which practical men cannot fail to see.
“‘The serious difficulty arises from want of that wisdom so
important for the great work in hand. Still, I will be happy
to work in any harness that promises relief to our discomfited
people and harmony to the nation, whether bearing the mantle of
Mr. Davis or Mr. Sumner.
“‘It is fair to assume that the strongest laws are those
established by the sword. The ideas that divided political
parties before the war--upon the rights of the States--were
thoroughly discussed by our wisest statesmen, and eventually
appealed to the arbitrament of the sword. The decision was in
favor of the North, so that her construction becomes the law, and
should be so accepted.
“‘The military bill and amendments are the only peace-offerings
they have for us, and should be accepted as the starting-point
for future issues.
“‘Like others of the South not previously connected with
politics, I naturally acquiesced in the ways of Democracy, but,
so far as I can judge, there is nothing tangible in them, beyond
the issues that were put to test in the war and there lost. As
there is nothing left to take hold of except prejudice, which
cannot be worked for good for any one, it seems proper and right
that we should seek some standing which may encourage hope for
the future.
“‘If I appreciate the issues of Democracy at this moment, they
are the enfranchisement of the negro and the rights of Congress
in the premises, but the acts have been passed, are parts of the
laws of the land, and no power but Congress can remove them.
“‘Besides, if we now accept the doctrine that the States only can
legislate on suffrage, we will fix the negro vote upon us, for he
is now a suffragan, and his vote, with the vote that will go with
him, will hold to his rights, while, by recognizing the acts of
Congress, we may, after a fair trial, if negro suffrage proves
a mistake, appeal and have Congress correct the error. It will
accord better with wise policy to insist that the negro shall
vote in the Northern as well as the Southern States.
“‘If every one will meet the crisis with proper appreciation
of our condition and obligations, the sun will rise to-morrow
on a happy people. Our fields will again begin to yield their
increase, our railways and water will teem with abundant
commerce, our towns and cities will resound with the tumult of
trade, and we will be reinvigorated by the blessings of Almighty
God.
“‘Very respectfully yours,
“‘JAMES LONGSTREET.’
“I might have added that not less forceful than the grounds I gave
were the obligations under which we were placed by the terms of our
paroles,--‘To respect the laws of Congress,’--but the letter was enough.
“The afternoon of the day upon which my letter was published the
paper that had called for advice published a column of editorial
calling me traitor! deserter of my friends! and accusing me of joining
the enemy! but did not publish a line of the letter upon which it
based the charges! Other papers of the Democracy took up the garbled
representation of this journal and spread it broadcast, not even giving
the letter upon which they based their evil attacks upon me.
“Up to that time the First Corps, in all of its parts, in all of its
history, was above reproach. I was in successful business in New
Orleans as cotton factor, with a salary from an insurance company of
five thousand dollars per year.
“The day after the announcement old comrades passed me on the streets
without speaking. Business began to grow dull. General Hood (the only
one of my old comrades who occasionally visited me) thought that he
could save the insurance business, and in a few weeks I found myself at
leisure.
“Two years after that period, on March 4, 1869, General Grant was
inaugurated President of the United States, and in the bigness of his
generous heart called me to Washington. Before I found opportunity to
see him he sent my name to the Senate for confirmation as surveyor of
customs at New Orleans. I was duly confirmed, and held the office until
1873, when I resigned. Since that time I have lived in New Orleans,
Louisiana, and in Gainesville, Georgia, surrounded by a few of my old
friends, and in occasional appreciative touch with others, South and
North.”
CHAPTER IX
FINALE
Mr. Valiant summoned. His will. His last words.
Then, said he, “I am going to my Father’s.... My sword I give to
him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and
skill to him that can get it.” ... And as he went down deeper, he
said, “Grave, where is thy victory?”
So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the
other side.--BUNYAN’S “Pilgrim’s Progress.”
The personal letters and official reports of Robert E. Lee, reproduced
in this work, clearly established that from Gettysburg to Appomattox
Longstreet continued to be Lee’s most trusted Lieutenant; their mutual
affection and admiration had no diminution.
The official reports of Lee and Pendleton herein given make it clear as
noonday that Longstreet disobeyed no orders of his chief at Gettysburg,
and was at no time “slow” or “obstructive” on that great field.
The man who, under the weight of official evidence massed in this
little story, can still raise his voice to assert that “Longstreet was
slow and balky” at Gettysburg, takes direct issue with the official
reports of Robert E. Lee and the Rev. Mr. Pendleton, and his becomes a
quarrel with the war records.
Longstreet had unhesitatingly thrown up his commission in the old
army and joined the Southern cause at the very outset. He was a
chief participant in the first and last great scenes of the drama in
Virginia. He had copiously shed his blood for the South. The sum of
General Longstreet’s offending was,--
1. When the war was over he placed himself on the high plane of
American citizenship, where all patriots now stand. He accepted office
at the hands of a Republican President (pardonable offence in this good
day); these were crimes which the temper of the South could not condone
some forty years ago.
2. He had protested against wrecking the Confederate cause on the
rocks of Cemetery Hill. In sheer self-defence he was compelled to
recapitulate in plainest terms General Lee’s tactical mistakes and
their fatal consequences. To many that was a crime never to be
forgiven. Yet at the time and on the spot General Lee was morally brave
enough to place the blame where it belonged,--on his own shoulders. Lee
never sought a scape-goat for the mistakes of Gettysburg.
This is the story, short enough for the busy; clear and straight enough
for the young. It is the story of sentiment as well as reverence and
admiration, growing up from childhood, of him who led the forlorn hope
at Gettysburg.
But behind the sentiment is the unassailable truth. It is undeniably
the story of the records, of the events exactly as they occurred. It
is fully corroborated by all the probabilities; in no part disputed by
one. It is the story told by General Longstreet himself, and nobody
familiar with his open character and candid manner of discussing its
various phases can doubt for one instant that he tells the details of
Gettysburg exactly as they occurred, in so far as his personal part was
concerned.
[Illustration: GENERAL LONGSTREET IN 1901]
Of him I would say, as his sun slants towards the west and the evening
hours draw near, that his unmatched courage to meet the enemies of the
peace time outshines the valor of the fields whereon his blood was
shed so copiously in the cause of his country. I would tell him that
his detractors are not the South; they are not the Democratic party;
they represent nobody and nothing but the blindness of passion that
desires not light. I would tell him that the great, loyal South loves
him to-day as in the old days when he sacrificed on her altars a career
in the army of the nation; when the thunder of his guns was heard
around the world and the earth shook beneath the tread of his soldiers.
And as he journeys down to the Valley of Silence, the true sentiment of
the generous South that he loves so well is voiced by Hon. John Temple
Graves, in the Atlanta, Georgia, _News_:
“As there walks ‘thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore of that
vast ocean he must sail so soon,’ one of the last of the great
figures that moved colossal upon the tragic stage of the Civil
War,--Longstreet, the grim and tenacious, the bulldog of war
whose grip never relaxed, whose guns never ceased to thunder,--as
the eye grows dim that blazed like lightning over so many stormy
fields, let the noble woman who bears his name read to her heroic
soldier the message that the South of the present, the not
ignoble offspring of the past, compasses the couch of Longstreet
with love, and covers his fading years with unfading admiration
and unforgetting tenderness.”
WASHINGTON, D. C., December, 1903.
LONGSTREET THE MAN
HIS BOYHOOD DAYS
The original plan of this little work was to publish only the short
story of Gettysburg which was written while General Longstreet lived.
My friends have insisted that the generous public, although it has
received the prospectus of the work with such warm appreciation, will
be disappointed if I discuss only the one event of his most eventful
life. And so have been added the paper on the Mexican War and chapters
on his famous campaigns of the Civil War.
They have insisted further that I must speak of Longstreet the man.
I have replied that I could not. My heart is sore. I cannot forget
that he poured out his heroic blood in defence of the Southern people,
and when there was not a flag left for him to fight for many of them
turned against him and persecuted him with a bitterness that saddened
his last years. They undertook to rob him of the glories of his many
peerless campaigns; to convict him of treason to his cause on the field
of battle. And when he lay dead, forty years after his world-famous
victories, perhaps from an opening of the old wound received at the
Wilderness, a Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy of the State
beneath whose sod rests his valiant dust, refused to send flowers to
his grave, because, they said, he disobeyed orders at Gettysburg. And
a Southern Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans refused, for the
same alleged reason, to send a message of sympathy to his family. If I
should now undertake to write about him I might speak of such things as
these with bitterness; and I must not so speak, because I am a Southern
woman, and the Southern people--my people--must forever be to me as
they were to him, “dear as the ruddy drops about his heart.”
I must not write about him until I can write bravely, sweetly,
cheerfully, and in this hour it is, perhaps, more than my human nature
can do. And I cannot take the public into my confidence about the man
I loved. The subject is too sacred. But my friends demand at least one
page on the man as I knew him, that the South at last--the dear South
that I love with all my heart--may know him and love him as I did.
And so I undertake to string together disjointedly a few incidents
of a life that was lived upon high levels, brave and blameless, and
that the days give back to me a glorified memory, coupled with a great
thankfulness that I had a small part in it.
From my childhood he had been the fine embodiment of my ideals of
chivalry and courage. The sorrows of his later years aroused all the
tender pity of my heart. His wounds and sufferings enveloped him with
poetic interest. He was fighting the battles of my country before I was
born. The blood of my ancestors had dyed the brilliant fields whereon
he led. He was ever the hero of my young dreams; and throughout a long
and checkered career always to me a figure of matchless splendor and
gallantry.
His life was set to serious work. His father died before he was old
enough to understand the meaning of a father’s care. He had but little
schooling before he went to West Point as cadet of the Military
Academy. From West Point he went into service in the Mexican War,
and was in every battle, save one, of the war that gave to us an
empire in wealth and territory; winning promotions for gallantry on
the field. After the Mexican War he saw long service on the Western
frontier. He entered the Civil War of 1861-65, and the greatest
Confederate victories of that greatest war of civilized times are
inscribed upon his battle-flags. The glories of Manassas, Williamsburg,
Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, the East Tennessee campaigns, the
Wilderness, the campaigns about Richmond, and the last desperate
struggles on the way to Appomattox, gather about his name.
After the Civil War came the most trying period of his life,--the dark
days of reconstruction, the fierce dissensions between the sections,
and between those holding different views in the same section, the
hot feeling and prejudices of the time, the struggle to repair the
ruined fortunes of war. When he was finally gathered to his fathers,
at the ripe old age of eighty-three, he was still in harness, holding
the position under the government of United States Commissioner of
Railroads.
This busy, exciting, and strenuous life was calculated to develop
in him the qualities of the soldier, the man of affairs, the blood
and iron of nature rather than her gentler qualities. Nevertheless,
his heart was as tender as a woman’s, the sentiment and romance of
his being never ceased to be exerted, and he exhibited to the last a
tenderness of feeling and thoughtfulness regarding others which were in
singular and beautiful contrast to the main currents of his life. This,
I think, will appear without any special effort to show it as this
sketch goes on.
General Longstreet was born in Edgefield District, South Carolina,
January 8, 1821. His early years were spent in the country. His father
was a planter. Natural to him was all the vigor and fire of that heroic
section, and still there was in him a coolness, conservatism, and iron
will tempered by justice and fair judgment embracing the best of his
Dutch ancestry. His ancestors on this side of the water were chiefly
the Dents, Marshalls, and Randolphs, of Virginia. On the maternal side,
his grandfather, Marshall Dent, traced his line back to the Conqueror.
His mother was Mary Ann Dent, of the family that furnished the lady who
became famous as the wife of the soldier-President, Grant. His father
was James Longstreet. His grandfather on his father’s side was William
Longstreet.
It is interesting here to note that this William Longstreet was the
inventor of the steamboat. He discovered the principle in a series of
experiments about the kitchen and the mills, and after much care and
trouble he was able to apply the principle. He made a rather pudgy
steamboat, rigged it up with all necessary equipment, and successfully
ran it for some miles up and down the Savannah River. He did not have
the means to develop it to such extent as to demonstrate to the world
its possibilities. Fully appreciating the importance of the invention,
he appealed to Governor Telfair, the then governor of Georgia, for
aid. Very naturally, the aid was refused him, for that was a day of
scepticism regarding new-fangled things. He was made sport of by the
people around, and called “Billy Boy,” the dreamer, and made the
subject of doggerel poetry. As an authentic part of the story, I give
here the letter which he wrote to Governor Telfair, which is still
preserved in the State archives of Georgia:
“AUGUSTA, GEORGIA, September 26, 1790.
“SIR,--I make no doubt but you have often heard of my steamboat,
and as often heard it laughed at, but in this I have only shared
the fate of other projectors, for it has uniformly been the
custom of every country to ridicule the greatest inventions until
they had proved their utility. In not reducing my scheme to
active use it has been unfortunate for me, I confess, and perhaps
the people in general; but, until very lately, I did not think
that artists or material could be had in the place sufficient.
However, necessity, that grand mother of invention, has furnished
me with an idea of perfecting my plan almost entirely of wooden
material, and by such workmen as may be had here; and, from a
thorough confidence of its success, I have presumed to ask your
assistance and patronage. Should it succeed agreeably to my
expectations, I hope I shall discover that sense of duty which
such favors always merit; and should it not succeed, your reward
must lay with other unlucky adventures.
“For me to mention all of the advantages arising from such
a machine would be tedious, and, indeed, quite unnecessary.
Therefore I have taken the liberty to state, in this plain and
humble manner, my wish and opinion, which I hope you will excuse,
and I shall remain, either with or without your approbation,
“Your Excellency’s most obedient and humble servant,
“WM. LONGSTREET.
“GOVERNOR TELFAIR.”
Some time afterwards Robert Fulton took up and developed the idea.
At first he, too, was laughed at and discredited fully as much as
was William Longstreet; but he finally succeeded in enlisting the
patronage of Gouverneur Morris, a rich New Yorker, and the success of
the steamboat, with all its tremendous meaning to civilization, was the
result.
His father having died when he was but twelve years old, General
Longstreet’s mother moved shortly afterwards to Augusta, Georgia,
where she resided a few years, after which she moved to Alabama. The
education of young Longstreet was then intrusted to his uncle, Judge A.
B. Longstreet, for many years president of Emory College, at Oxford,
Georgia, and one of the most illustrious presidents of that famous
old college. Judge Longstreet was noted as lawyer, judge, educator,
and writer. He is a very poorly read Georgian, a rather poorly read
Southerner, who has not enjoyed and talked to his friends about that
book of wonderful naturalness, humor, and human philosophy, “Georgia
Scenes.” The author of this book was Judge A. B. Longstreet. In later
years its authorship has been often erroneously credited to General
Longstreet.
Entirely immersed in his college duties, Judge Longstreet had but
little time to give to his youthful nephew. Of those early days, it is
only known that the boy was not much of a student; that the massive old
oaks of Oxford appealed to him more than the school-room; that fishing
in the streams around and chasing rabbits over the fields formed his
dearest enjoyment. In his habits and feeling he was then and always
near to nature. The flash of the lightning in mid-heaven interested him
more than the Voltaic sparks of the lecture-room. He was mischievous,
full of fun and frolic, but beneath all that he was almost from
babyhood planning for a larger career in the outside world and longing
to be a soldier and fight his country’s battles. The books that he
loved most told of Alexander and Cæsar, of Napoleon and his marshals,
of George Washington and the Revolution. He wanted to do things, not to
study about them.
He received his West Point appointment through a relative in Alabama,
who was a member of Congress. The appointment came naturally from
Alabama, because his mother was living there. He went to West Point at
the age of sixteen. This was one of the proudest days of his life; it
was the beginning of the fulfilment of his dreams; he had not an idea
that any human agency could turn him from the soldier course in which
he was directed, or could delay him for an instant. And yet, while
he was in New York City arranging for the change from the cars to the
Hudson River boat, he was approached by two little boys of guileless
appearance, who told him that their father had recently died away down
in South Carolina, that they had no money, that their mother had no
money, that they just must get to their dead father, and wouldn’t he
help them out. With a tenderness of heart characteristic of him then
and always, he was about to open to them his purse and take the chances
of never reaching West Point, when a policeman who had observed the
performance approached and prevented the innocent embryo soldier from
being fleeced by the youthful bunco steerers of the city.
Arriving at West Point, he proudly went to the hotel to register and
take a room, and was much chagrined upon being told by the proprietor
that they didn’t “take in kids.” He was directed to the cadets’
quarters, and his first humiliation there was the further discovery
that instead of being waited on as a dignified soldier should be by
half a dozen servants, he had to keep his own room, make his own bed,
black his own boots.
His thoughts of war had been associated with fierce fighting, the
killing of many enemies, the capturing of many prisoners. His
preconceived idea of a prisoner was gained while a small boy in
Alabama. He had heard that a prisoner was down at the station, and
ran there full of expectancy to see what a “prisoner” was like. He
discovered a big buck negro, black as midnight, large as two ordinary
men, with countenance ferocious. His first West Point assignment which
gave promise of the heroic was to guard a “prisoner.” He was given
a gun for the purpose. The figure of the Alabama darky came to his
mind, and he wondered if the gun were big enough to kill him in case
that should be necessary. Examining it, he discovered, alas! that
it was not even loaded. Sent to guard a terrible prisoner with an
unloaded gun! When he got to the place of service he was relieved,
surprised, and equally disgusted by the discovery that the prisoner
was a fellow-student who had broken the rules--a poor little weakly,
cadaverous fellow, whom he could pick up and throw into the Hudson
without half trying.
As a West Point cadet, so far as the drilling, the field practice,
the athletics, all the out-door work was concerned, he sustained
himself well. He was very large, very strong, well proportioned. He
had dark-brown hair, blue eyes, features that might have served for a
Grecian model. He was six feet two inches tall, of soldierly bearing,
and was voted the handsomest cadet at West Point. As a student of
books, however, he was not a success. They seemed to contain so much
that did not properly belong to the life of a soldier that he could not
become interested enough in them to learn them. In his third year he
failed in mechanics, and did not “rise” until given a second trial. In
scholarship, he always ranked much closer to the foot than to the head
of his class. He was just a little better student than his friend, U.
S. Grant, which was poor praise, indeed. But their after careers told a
different story.
LIFE-LONG FRIENDSHIP OF GRANT AND LONGSTREET
I may be pardoned for digressing here to speak of the strong school-boy
friendship which began at West Point between Grant and Longstreet and
lasted throughout their lives. Grant was of the class after Longstreet,
but somehow their silent serious natures were in spontaneous accord,
and they became fast friends from their first meeting. That one was
from the West and one from the South made no difference, just as later
it made no difference in their feeling of personal affection that one
led the army of the Union and the other the army of the Confederacy.
After their graduation at West Point they were both stationed at
Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis. The Dent family lived near by;
Longstreet was a cousin. And he was particularly fond of his cousin
Julia Dent! He took his friend Grant out to see her, and the result of
the introduction was their marriage five years later. There was such a
contrast between her tall cousin James and her short admirer, Ulysses,
that her friends often joked her about “the little lieutenant with the
big epaulettes.”
Grant and Longstreet went through the Mexican War together, and their
boyhood friendship was indissolubly cemented by the associations of
camp life on the Mexican border. Longstreet went in as a lieutenant
and came out as a major. General Worth apologized, giving Longstreet’s
youth as an excuse for not recommending him for higher promotion.
Promotions in the army in those days were not so rapid as at the
present time.
The first meeting of Grant and Longstreet during the Civil War was not
a personal meeting; it was when they were leading opposing forces at
the battle of the Wilderness. It is known to all students of our Civil
War history that the Confederate forces led by Longstreet were getting
all the better of it at the Wilderness and that the Union forces under
Grant were being driven back, when Longstreet was shot down and carried
from the field. He was _leading_ his men, after his custom,--he never
followed, never told them to go, but always bade them come. He was at
this crucial point at the battle of the Wilderness far in advance of
his men--so far in advance that they mistook him for the enemy and
fired upon him. Shot through the shoulder and the throat, wounded nigh
unto death, he was taken from the field. With this calamity discovered,
the Confederates held up in their swift advance. The impression rapidly
spread that Longstreet was killed. The surgeons and attendants who
were bearing him to the rear called out to the soldiers and asked that
the cry be sent down the lines: “Longstreet is not killed, he is only
wounded.” The men who had seen him fall cried out, “They are fooling
us; he is dead.” General Longstreet has said that he heard both cries;
he knew he was not dead, but did not know how soon he might be; he had
just strength enough left to lift his hat. For this purpose he exerted
that strength, and waved his hat to his men that they might see that he
still lived. But the genius of the battle of the Wilderness borne to
the rear, even the ever dauntless Confederates could not follow up the
advantage they had won.
The next meeting of these two personal friends and opposing generals
was at Appomattox. In the beginning of that momentous conference
General Lee called General Longstreet to him and asked him, in case
honorable terms of surrender should not be offered, and in the ensuing
developments it should be necessary for the Confederates to fight their
way out, if he would stand by him. Longstreet replied that he would
fight and die fighting.
General Longstreet often spoke of the details of the capitulation at
Appomattox. He said that when he went into the conference-room, in
the McLean residence, as one of the Confederate Commissioners, he was
compelled to pass through the room occupied by General Grant as his
head-quarters. He felt curious to know how General Grant would receive
him. He had loved Grant as one of his closest boyhood friends, but
times were much changed. Grant was victor, he was vanquished. He was
therefore prepared to observe the rigid demeanor of those between whom
ceremony only forces recognition. But immediately he entered the room
Grant rose, approached him with a greater show of demonstration than
ever in the olden days, and slapped him on the shoulder, exclaiming,
“Well, Old Pete, can’t we get back to the good old days by playing a
game of brag?” At West Point the nickname among the boys for General
Longstreet was “Old Pete.” No one ever knew why, any more than they
know why this or that college president is designated Peleg or Squeers.
It has often been related by General Longstreet and by others that
General Lee went into the Appomattox conference dressed in full
uniform, and making withal the best appearance that this most noble
soldier in his dire defeat could make. General Grant, on the contrary,
had not dressed up for the occasion. He wore his old fighting uniform,
mud bespattered, evidencing no acquaintance even with a dusting-brush.
The important part of that meeting, the splendid bearing of the
conquered Confederates, the modest demeanor of the Union victors,
and, above all, the noble generosity of Grant in refusing to accept
the sword of Lee and in giving the fairest terms possible under the
existing conditions,--these are known to all who have read United
States history. When General Lee rode back to his head-quarters
from this fateful conference, his half-starved, ragged, worn-out,
worshipful followers saluted him from both sides of the road. Overcome
with emotion, he dared not look directly into their faces. He held
his hat in his hand and fixed his eyes straight between his horse’s
ears. The parting at Appomattox between Lee and his officers was
most kindly, affectionate, and touching in every instance. But when
General Longstreet approached, General Lee threw his arms about him,
and, locked in each other’s embrace, the two wept with a bitterness of
regret that ordinary mortals can never understand.
Soon after the war General Longstreet visited Washington and was
invited to be the guest of a Union officer. He protested against
accepting the invitation, saying that it was too soon after the
fighting. But the insistence was so cordial as to leave no excuse for
refusal. Once under an officer’s roof, it became his pleasant duty
to pay his respects to the commanding general, who was, of course,
General Grant. Grant received him with all his old-time cordiality, and
invited him to take supper at his house that evening, saying quickly,
as enforcement of the invitation, that his wife would be anxious to
see him. The evening was pleasantly spent, and upon taking his leave,
General Grant walked to the gate with General Longstreet, where he
said, “Now that it is all over, would you not like to have pardon?”
General Longstreet replied, with a touch of Southern fire, that he
was unaware of having done anything in need of pardon. General Grant
replied that he had perhaps used the wrong word, as he was more of a
soldier than a linguist; that he meant to ask if General Longstreet
would like to have amnesty. General Longstreet answered that he was
back in the Union, meant to live in the Union, was ready at that
moment to fight for the Union, and would be happy if his old friend
could place him in the way of restored citizenship. General Grant
requested him to come again to his office the following morning, and
said that in the mean time he would see the President and Secretary
of War in General Longstreet’s behalf. In the morning he gave General
Longstreet a letter to President Johnson full of warm interest and
broad-mindedness characteristic of Grant, which is here reproduced:
“HEAD-QUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES,
WASHINGTON, D. C., November 7, 1865.
“HIS EXCELLENCY, A. JOHNSON,
“President:
“Knowing that General Longstreet, late of the army which was in
rebellion against the authority of the United States, is in the
city, and presuming that he intends asking executive clemency
before leaving, I beg to say a word in his favor.
“General Longstreet comes under the third, fifth, and eighth
exceptions made in your proclamation of the 29th of May, 1865.
I believe I can safely say that there is nowhere among the
exceptions a more honorable class of men than those embraced
in the fifth and eighth of these, nor a class that will more
faithfully observe any obligation which they may impose upon
themselves. General Longstreet, in my opinion, stands high among
this class. I have known him well for more than twenty-six years,
first as cadet at West Point and afterwards as an officer of
the army. For five years from my graduation we served together,
a portion of the time in the same regiment. I speak of him,
therefore, from actual personal acquaintance.
“In the late rebellion, I think, not one single charge was ever
brought against General Longstreet for persecution of prisoners
of war or of persons for their political opinions. If such
charges were ever made, I never heard them. I have no hesitation,
therefore, in recommending General Longstreet to your Excellency
for pardon. I will further state that my opinion of him is such
that I shall feel it as a personal favor to myself if this pardon
is granted.
“Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
“U. S. GRANT,
“_Lieutenant-General_.”
Armed with this letter, General Longstreet sought President Johnson.
In the interview that followed the presentation of the letter the
President was nervous, ill at ease, and somewhat resentful. He would
not decide to grant the request, and he would not positively refuse.
Finally, he asked General Longstreet to call again the following
morning. At this next meeting he was still non-committal, and at
length closed the interview by saying, “There are three men this
Union will never forgive. They have given it too much trouble.
They are Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and James Longstreet.”
General Longstreet said, “Those who are forgiven much, love much,
Mr. President.” Johnson answered, “You have high authority for that
statement, General, but you cannot have amnesty.” It was shortly
afterwards granted by act of Congress, General Longstreet’s name being
added to a list of prominent Confederate officers by the especial
request of Grant.
These incidents in the associations of Grant and Longstreet come in
naturally in a paper of this kind. I always think of them together,--as
chums at West Point; as comrades in the West and on the fields
of Mexico; as opposing forces in the mightiest war the world has
witnessed; and after that war was ended, as good friends again in the
stronger nation.
President Johnson, who had started out with the plan of being generous
to the South, and for some unknown reason departed from that policy,
conceived the idea of having arrested and thrown into prison and tried
for treason a number of the high officers of the Confederacy. He called
for a Cabinet meeting to get an endorsement of this plan, and sent for
General Grant to attend the meeting. He forcibly presented his reasons
for the procedure, and asked for the opinions of those present. After
much discussion there was general acquiescence by the Cabinet. “The
silent man of destiny” was the last member of the conference to open
his lips. He said, “I will resign my commission in the army before I
will, as commanding general, sign a warrant for the arrest of any of
these Confederate officers as long as they observe the honorable terms
of surrender made to me.”
It would be easy to write a book about a statement like that, but the
book when written would not be as good as the unadorned statement.
The illustrious Union general’s noble generosity to the conquered South
is an old tale. But it is so beautiful that it bears repetition, and I
love to repeat it. I have digressed from the main line of this paper
to pay to General Longstreet’s boyhood friend the modest tribute of my
admiration. From early childhood I reverenced Grant. I always regarded
him as the greatest man, the greatest general, the greatest hero on
the Union side. I have now a life-size steel-engraving of him that I
secured when a girl. This was long before I knew much of that side of
his life which has since most appealed to me. My admiration of him
has been in every way strengthened by the stories General Longstreet
told me of him, particularly the stories showing his generosity to his
foes and his many private and official kindnesses to the widows and
orphans of Confederate officers and privates. Of these stories I give
one typical of many: When Grant was President, a widow of a Confederate
officer applied for a post-office in a small Southern town. Hearing
nothing of her application, she came to Washington to press it. She was
unable to move the authorities at the Post-Office Department, and was
about to go home in despair, when a friend suggested that it might be
worth while for her to see the President. With much effort she summoned
courage and appeared at the White House. The President received her
in a most friendly manner, and after hearing her story took her
application and wrote a brief but strong endorsement on the back of
it. She hurried in triumph to the Post-Office Department. The official
to whom she presented the application frowned and pondered over it
for some time, and then wrote under the President’s endorsement:
“This being a fourth-class office, the President does not have the
appointing power.” The application was handed back to her, and she
went away in deep distress, and was again preparing to return home,
when another friend told her by all means to take the paper back to the
President so that he might see how his endorsement had been received.
She did so. The President wrote under the last endorsement: “While the
President does not have the appointing power in this office, he has the
appointment of the Postmaster-General,” and, summoning his secretary,
directed him to accompany the lady to the Department and in person
deliver her application to the Postmaster-General. It is needless to
add that she received the commission before leaving the office.
While on a tour through the West in 1899, General Longstreet was
entertained in San Diego, California, at a dinner at the home of U.
S. Grant, Jr. After dinner he requested the company to stand while he
proposed a toast. We expected, perhaps, some pleasantry or gallant
compliment to the hostess. He said: “Thirty-odd years ago I first met
General Grant in the Civil War at the Wilderness, and there received
the wound that paralyzed my right arm. During the fiercest warfare this
nation has seen, General Grant was the strongest obstacle that stood
between me and my people and the consummation of the dearest hopes that
they then cherished. Now, in this day of peace and union, with not a
cloud upon the sky of a reunited country, in the presence of General
Grant’s descendants, under the roof of his namesake son, I want to
drink this toast to the memory of Grant, revered alike by the brave men
who fought with him and the equally brave men who fought him.”
HIS FIRST ROMANCE
Fifty years before the pleasant day in San Diego, fresh from the fields
of his honors and victories in Mexico, young Major Longstreet had come
home to wed the daughter of his old brigade commander, Colonel John
Garland. She was Marie Louise Garland, a very charming woman, and so
small of figure as to be in striking contrast to her husband of six
feet two. They were engaged for some time before the breaking out of
the Mexican War. With a lofty deference, which he bravely overcame in
later life, he had never kissed his fiancée. In setting out for the
Mexican War, he said that he thought, inasmuch as he might get killed
and never see her again, it might not be improper, under all the sad
circumstances, to kiss her. They had ten children, five of whom died
in infancy. A word as to the living five. A son born in Virginia
during the war was named Robert Lee, after the Southern Commander.
This son served in the recent Spanish-American War, and was, by happy
fortune, a member of the staff of General Fitzhugh Lee. He is now in
the government service at Washington City. Another son, named James,
after his father, was born in Virginia not long after the surrender. At
the time, General Longstreet wrote to an absent relative: “This is my
Union son, but he has a yell like the rebel yell when trying to reach
the breastworks. I have named him James, after myself, and I know he
will always be as good a Union man as I am going to be hereafter.”
This son likewise saw volunteer service in the Spanish-American War.
He afterwards received a commission in the regular army, and is now
serving in the Philippines in the Thirteenth Cavalry. This Union
officer son is a strong Democrat; his brother in Washington is an
equally strong Republican. The General always taught that political
alignment should be based upon conviction alone. His oldest son, John,
an architect, lives in Atlanta, the youngest son, Randolph, a farmer,
lives on the home place at Gainesville; the only daughter is Mrs.
Whelchel, of Gainesville, Georgia. There are five grandchildren.
General Longstreet said that he started out in his married life with
the purpose of preserving military discipline in the family,--managing
the family as he would manage soldiers on the field. He soon found that
this would not work, and turned over the chief control of his home to
his wife.
General Longstreet was a great admirer of ladies, and has often said
that he never saw enough of them, never knew as many as he wanted to
know. Into his soldier life few ladies had come. When he got into
civil life he wondered where all the ladies came from. After the
Civil War he was much petted and kissed by the ladies of the South,
as was the custom with the old heroes of the war. He submitted to it
with something more than willingness, particularly from the younger
and prettier girls. He always had for woman in the abstract the
tenderest love and reverence. He considered her the human temple of all
loveliness. He preserved to the end of his long life the romance and
sentiment which, having but half a chance to develop in his youth, had
continued to develop in his later years. The home was ever to him the
holy of holies.
Last summer, at Chicago, he met the daughter of his first sweetheart,
and told her, with beautiful _naïveté,_ that her mother had been his
sweetheart before going to West Point; that he had meant to marry her
when he got back, though he had not told her so; and on returning, to
his disgust, he found her married to another fellow.
After the Mexican War General Longstreet served extensively in the
Indian campaigns out West. He considered it his duty and made it his
delight, as do all good soldiers, to go willingly where he was sent.
When choice was allowed him he went where the service was hardest. He
did not ask to dine nicely nor to sleep warm. A storm cloud was not
too rough a covering for him. He did not seek Olympian sunshine. He
could gladly make the Rocky Mountains his bed, and the war-whoop of
the Indian seeking to disturb the peace of his country was music to
his ears. The highest word that he knew was duty. His country he loved
above all things else. He served in the United States army for almost a
quarter of a century, nearly always west of the Mississippi.
When the Civil War broke out he was paymaster at Albuquerque, New
Mexico, with the rank of major. The country had for years been in
comparative peace, and he had given up the cherished idea of military
glory and high promotion. Where did his duty lie in this hour? He had
loyally served in the Union army for nearly twenty-five years and
through the war that gave to the nation a rich empire. His State and
his people were now going to fight the Union. The Union officers with
whom he was serving and the Union soldiers whom he had commanded,
pleaded with him to stay with the Union; their wives and daughters
entreated him and wept over him; the power of vast association appealed
wonderfully to him; but he thought that duty called him to the service
of the South, and no earthly power could keep him from that service.
He sent in his resignation, and set out at once for Richmond. His
relatives and friends along the way, only taking time to speak to him
as he passed, hastened him on to Richmond. It was a gala journey that
he made through the Southern country. The music of Southern songs was
borne upon every breeze. The wildest enthusiasm electrified town
and hamlet; from the open doors of every farm-house came salutations
cheering the passengers on to Richmond. He was not allowed to pay for
entertainment at any Southern hotel. Everything was free for those who
were going to join “Jeff. Davis for Dixie and for Southern rights.”
HEROIC CITIZEN OF THE RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD
Longstreet entered the Confederate service as brigadier-general,
and reported for duty to General Beauregard at the first Manassas.
After the baptism of fire at Antietam, in 1862, Longstreet was made
lieutenant-general, next in rank to Lee. This rank he retained to the
end of the war, ranking even Stonewall Jackson. This fact is especially
mentioned, because the last generation of the South have often confused
the rank secured by their fathers in the war with the paper ranks given
by the Confederacy when the war was over and that government, heroic in
its ruins, had nothing else to give.
I have heard it said by many Union officers that Longstreet’s corps,
the First Corps, was the terror of the Union army. I have heard it
said that Longstreet was the only officer in the Confederate army whom
Grant and Lincoln wholesomely feared. He was Lee’s right arm in very
truth. The morning of the battle of the Wilderness, while President
Lincoln was at the War Department, some one asked him, “What is the
best thing that can happen to the Union to-day?” He answered, “To kill
Longstreet.” It nearly happened, but by the bullets of Longstreet’s own
men, because in so gallantly leading them he went too far in front.
After the fall of the curtain at Appomattox General Longstreet went
to New Orleans and engaged in the cotton and insurance business.
He developed in business the splendid ability that marked him as a
soldier. He was making ten thousand dollars a year at the time the
celebrated difference of opinion came up as to the course the South
should pursue in the rehabilitation of the war-wasted land. It was
then that he wrote the famous political letter of 1867 that turned the
South against him and made it practically impossible for him to do
business in that section of the country. The idea that this letter was
written to secure political preferment from the powers in authority is
perfectly absurd. He was making more in business, and would have made
still more and more as the years went on, than he could make then or
ever afterwards in politics. Besides, to me, and to any one who ever
knew the real man, the idea of his changing his convictions a hair’s
breadth for any sort of gain is too far-fetched for serious discussion.
The very head and front of his offending consisted in his belief that
it was better for the South to accept the situation then presented;
better for the high-class men of the South to hold the offices than
to have the negroes and scallawags hold them; better for the South
to keep faith with its Appomattox parole, which promised obedience
to constituted authority. It was a few years after this letter that
President Grant appointed him Surveyor of the Port at New Orleans.
He never asked for this appointment, and was not consulted about it.
President Grant, in the generosity of his heart, voluntarily sent his
name to the Senate, and the first news General Longstreet had of it
came through the press.
General Longstreet never affiliated with the controlling element of the
Republican party in the South. He believed in a white man’s Republican
party in the South, and therefore was never in favor with the dominant
Republican party in that section that believed differently. The
political appointments that came to him came because of his high
character and his record of substantial achievement, and in spite of
the opposition of miscellaneous competitive place-seekers. He led a
political movement that has had no following in the Southern section.
It would seemingly have been easy for him to have acquiesced in the
methods of the Republican machinery in the Southern States which would
naturally have made him the head and front of the Southern Republican
party. It would have seemed easier in an earlier day for him to have
gone with the Democracy, which would have made him the political idol
of the South, as he had been its military idol. Is is so much easier
to be a demagogue than it is to be a man. It requires no unusual
moral caliber to take a seat on the band-wagon and go with the crowd.
Conscience compelled James Longstreet to oppose politically, for their
own good, as he saw it, his Southern fellow-countrymen. He announced
his convictions and stood by them. He never profited, as we measure
material benefits; he lost. The qualities he exhibited in these crucial
periods of his life differentiated the man from the time-server and
place-seeker.
One who loved him and was close to him in life said, regretfully,
not long ago, in speaking of him, that he never did anything after
Appomattox that “turned out for his own good.” I felt a sudden
tightening about my heart at this criticism. Perhaps as we view worldly
honors and earthly goods the things he did after Appomattox did not
“turn out for his own good.” But to me he has always been a figure of
more sublime courage in the gathering storms of ’67 and the years that
followed than on any of the brilliant fields of the Civil War. And
I love best to think of him, not as the warrior leading his legions
to victory, but as the grand citizen after the war was ended, nobly
dedicating himself to the rehabilitation of his broken people, offering
a brave man’s homage to the flag of the established government, and
standing steadfast in all the passions, prejudices, and persecutions
of that unhappy period. It was the love and honor and soul of the man
crystallized into a being of wonderful majesty, immovable as Gibraltar.
“There be things, O sons of what has deserved birthright in the land
of freedom, the ‘good of which’ and ‘the use of which’ are beyond all
calculation of earthly goods and worldly uses--things that cannot
be bought with a price and do not die with death;” these, gathering
strength and beauty in James Longstreet’s character, through the four
terrible years of warfare, assumed colossal proportions in the dark
reconstruction era. And when the story of his life has finally been
told, in all its grandeur, the finer fame will settle not about the
valorous soldier, but about Longstreet, the patriot-citizen.
THE CHRISTIAN PATRIOT LOVED THE SOUTH TO THE LAST
When General Longstreet quit fighting, he quit fighting for good. He
considered that the South was back in the Union to stay. There is
no doubt in the minds of many with whom I have talked that General
Longstreet’s conciliatory course, because of its effect in holding
thousands obedient to the laws of the government, prevented the
confiscation of much property in the South immediately after the war,
and greatly alleviated the trials of that distressing period. The
local ostracism of that day and subsequently cut General Longstreet
deeply. He loved the South with all the tenderness of one who was
willing to die for it. In all the quiet hours that he discussed the
misrepresentations of the Southern people, the resentment they bore
him, the criticisms and slanders that had been hurled at him, I never
heard him utter a word against them or give expression to a note of
bitterness. But I think towards the last, exhausted by much suffering,
he had a pitiful yearning for complete reconciliation with all his
people. Not many months before he died an officer of the Northern
armies was calling on him at his hotel in Washington, and in discussing
the Civil War and subsequent events, and General Longstreet’s part
therein, said, “The Southern people have not appreciated you since the
war, General, but when you are dead they will build monuments to you.”
General Longstreet said nothing, but his eyes slowly filled. While he
bore unjust criticism in silence, he was visibly moved by any evidence
of affection from the Southern people.
I recall two very beautiful press tributes that appeared last summer
while he was lying desperately ill at his home in Gainesville, Georgia;
one was from the pen of Hon. John Temple Graves, in the Atlanta,
Georgia, _News_; the other by Mrs. W. H. Felton, an old-time friend,
in the Atlanta _Journal_. Mr. Graves, a representative of the splendid
new South, spoke of the new generations as worthy descendants of the
heroic days, and the place General Longstreet would always hold in
their hearts; and Mrs. Felton, one of the important figures of the
old South, told of the undying love for him of the soldiers of the
Confederacy, and of the place he had worthily won in the affections of
all the people; she wanted to speak these words to him for the comfort
they would give him; and because he had nobly earned the right to hear
them, and ten thousand times more from the people whose battles he had
fought. When he seemed out of immediate danger, and strong enough to
understand, I read these tributes to him, and he wept like a child.
The forbearance of the man and his generous feeling towards those who
used him harshly finally became a wonder, and is to-day a joy for me to
remember. I will here give an instance or two touchingly illustrative
of this side of his character. General Wade Hampton, as stoical as ever
a Roman was, felt very bitterly against General Longstreet because
of his Republican politics. He expressed his feelings freely both in
public and private, and was embittered to the extent that he refused
to speak to General Longstreet. When General Longstreet succeeded him
as United States Commissioner of Railroads, he would not come to the
office to turn it over to his successor. General Longstreet went to the
office, took the oath alone, and endeavored as best he could to make
himself acquainted with the duties of the position. When he came home
that evening and told me, with evident surprise, that General Hampton
was still bitter against him, I asked, rather in the hope of getting
a reply in criticism of General Hampton, “What sort of a soldier was
General Hampton, since he seems so intractable in civil life?” General
Longstreet replied, without a moment’s hesitation: “There was not a
finer, braver, more gallant officer in the Confederate service than
Wade Hampton.” And when General Hampton died, I think the most splendid
tribute paid him came from the pen of General Longstreet.
Years ago there were political differences between General Longstreet
and Judge Emory Speer, now of the Federal Bench of Georgia, then a
member of Congress from the old Eighth District of Georgia. General
Longstreet felt that he had been wronged. The summer before his death
we were at Mt. Airy, Georgia, for a short time. One day I saw Judge
Speer in the hotel where we were stopping, and asked General Longstreet
how he was going to receive him if Judge Speer should come to speak
to him, in view of their past differences. The General replied, “As I
would receive any other distinguished American. And as for our past
differences, that has been a long time ago, and I have forgotten what
it was all about.”
General John B. Gordon, during recent years, did General Longstreet
injustice. I know he caused him much pain. At a time when General
Longstreet was suffering horribly,--one eye had already been destroyed
by the dreadful disease; he had long been deaf and paralyzed from war
service; the wound in his throat was giving him severest pain,--at this
sad time General Gordon revived the old, threadbare story that he had
disobeyed orders at Gettysburg. But when a reporter from one of the
New York dailies called to interview him about General Gordon and his
charges, he refused to say one word. It was then that I said, “If you
will not reply to General Gordon, I will. And in the future, so long
as I shall live, whenever your war record is attacked, I will make
answer.” And so it happened that the little story of Gettysburg was
written while General Longstreet was nearing the grave. During these
last, sorrowful days he had heard that General Gordon was not in good
health, and he asked me, with touching concern, about his condition.
I expected to tell General Gordon of these occurrences, but I never
saw him again. The Reaper gathered him in, ten days after General
Longstreet answered the call.
General Longstreet was a most devout churchman. In early life he was
an Episcopalian, and he regularly attended that church in New Orleans
until the political differences developed between himself and his
friends. After that he noticed that even his church associates avoided
him. They would not sit in the same pew with him. Cut to the quick
by such treatment, he began to wonder if there was any church broad
enough to withstand differences caused by political and sectional
feeling. He discovered that the Roman Catholic priests extended him
the treatment he longed for. He began to attend that church, and has
said that its atmosphere from the first appealed to him as the church
of the sorrow-laden of earth. He was converted under the ministration
of Father Ryan. After accepting the faith of the Catholic Church he
followed it with beautiful devotion. He regarded it as the compensation
sent him by the Almighty for doing his duty as he saw it. He clung to
it as the best consolation there was in life. He went to his duties as
devoutly as any priest of the church, and was on his knees night and
morning, with the simple, loving faith of a little child.
WORSHIPPED BY THE SOLDIERS OF THE CONFEDERACY
The political estrangements between General Longstreet and many of the
leaders of the South never extended to the soldiers who did any large
amount of fighting for the South. There was a Confederate reunion in
Atlanta in 1898. A camp of Confederate Veterans, of Augusta, Georgia,
made up of his old command, sent General Longstreet a special request
to come down from his home in Gainesville, and to wear his old uniform.
He replied that his uniform had been destroyed years ago in the fire
which burned his home and practically everything else he had, but that
he would gladly go down with what was left of himself--that his old
trunk of a body was the only relic of the Confederacy remaining to him.
They then secured his measure and had a new Confederate uniform made
for him to represent the old as nearly as possible. During all his
stay at that reunion the old soldiers flocked about him with a devotion
that Napoleon would have envied. They went wild over him. When he went
to the dining-room at the hotel, the doors had to be closed so that he
could take his meals without interruption. One evening, in the Kimball,
his old “boys” surged about him by the thousands for hours, eager to
touch his hand, to touch his garments, to look into his face, and the
tears streamed down his cheeks. Just before that, one day, outraged at
some unkindness that had come from the South, I had said to General
Longstreet, “The Southern people are no longer my people. I have no
home and no country.” In the midst of the splendid demonstration at the
reunion of 1898, when the thousands who had followed his colors stood
with uncovered heads in his honored presence, I said to him, “This is
the South that I love, because it loves you; it is the magnificent,
generous, loyal South that I love with every impulse of my heart; these
are my people.”
I think he never forgot the Confederate reunion in Atlanta in 1898. His
old soldiers came to his room in a continuous stream. One afternoon,
when he was asleep, utterly worn out, a one-legged, one-armed veteran,
poorly clad, looking poorly fed, came to his room. I told him of the
General’s exhausted condition--that he needed the rest, and I was
really afraid to disturb him. Then he said, “Won’t you let me go in and
look at my old commander, asleep. I haven’t seen him since Appomattox.
I came all the way from Texas to see him, and I may never see him
again.” Without a word I opened the door, and as the worn veteran
looked upon his old chieftain we both cried. In the midst of it General
Longstreet wakened and called the veteran to him. They embraced like
brothers and wept together.
On the eve of the Spanish-American War General Longstreet received
hundreds of letters from his old soldiers in every part of the country,
asking for the privilege of seeing service with him under the flag of
the Union. One of them wrote: “If this country is going to have another
war, I want to be in it, and I want to follow my old commander.”
General Longstreet answered that he was seventy-eight, deaf, and
paralyzed; that he had two sons he would send to fight for him, but
that if his country needed his services, his sword was at its command.
As Commissioner of Railroads, General Longstreet made a tour of the
West in 1899. He was received with beautiful consideration everywhere,
but the welcome which touched him most was that of his old soldiers who
greeted him in every State. It was marvellous to see how the veterans
of a war that was over forty years ago had scattered through the West,
and it certainly seemed that every one there had heard that General
Longstreet was coming, and came to the nearest station to see him. With
them were many Union veterans who gave him an equally cordial greeting.
I will digress here to say that General Longstreet could never stand
on a foot of Northern soil where he was not received with every
manifestation of earthly honor and esteem by the Union veterans and
their descendants, and this touched him as nothing else in the world
could have done. I wish to offer the humble tribute of my love to the
chivalrous section that is to-day so close to my heart; the honors
they paid General Longstreet, their tributes to him, did not end with
the grave. Two weeks after the prospectus of this little volume had
been sent out, the first edition had been bought, long before it was
ready for delivery, by the Grand Army of the Republic, and the orders
were accompanied by testimonials to General Longstreet as soldier and
patriot that would make a memorial volume of rich value, and a brief
selection, at least, I hope to give in future editions.
At one place, on his Western tour in 1899, it became necessary for him
to telegraph to an official of the Rock Island road to ask if he would
“pass” his car. It happened that this official had been a Union officer
who had received hard blows from Longstreet on many bloody fields. He
replied that in the old days that tried the courage of men he was much
more anxious to “pass” Longstreet than to meet him; that now he was
going to insist on meeting him first, and afterwards he would “pass”
anything the General wanted him to “pass.”
Next to the pleasure of meeting his old friends on this Western tour,
General Longstreet most enjoyed the wonderful development of the
country that had taken place since he was chasing wild Indians across
its wide plains. The smiling farms that greeted him, the magnificent
cities, the marvellously fertile irrigated sections that he had last
beheld as deserts, the net-work of competing railroads which had
taken the place of the trail and the half-worked wagon-roads, the
evidences everywhere of a magnificent country built up by progressive
people,--all these, with all the suggestiveness attaching to them,
appealed with mighty force to his heart and to
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/44459