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:
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.
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.
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.”
“‘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.’
“‘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.’
“‘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.’
“‘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.’
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:
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.”
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:
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.
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.