“Lee was a great military student. He had before him Napoleon’s great victory at Wagram, when he ordered MacDonald, with sixteen thousand men, to charge the enemy’s centre. But few of that number were alive when success crowned that daring military movement. If Pickett’s charge had been successful, it would have crowned the Southern Confederacy as one of the nations of the world, for it would not only have had foreign recognition, but valuable assistance. Upon every field except one Lee had been successful, and that was a drawn battle.
“He had great confidence in himself, and thought that it was impossible to defeat him with his Southern legions under his command. Longstreet differed from him on that charge, and I am truly glad, for the sake of my country, that Lee did not listen to him. They are both gone forever, but it seems strange to me that any military mind cannot recognize the foresight of Longstreet at Gettysburg.”
*****
(Lost Cause.)
“Pendleton’s charge a discharge of hot air.”
The recent death of the gallant old war-horse of the Army of Northern Virginia, General James Longstreet, has again revived some of the slanderous and unfounded reports of his lack of duty, unfaithfulness, and disobedience of orders at the battle of Gettysburg. I want to offer some thoughts in regard to this matter, and the first thing I want to say is that General Longstreet retained the love and confidence of the soldiers of Lee’s army up to the surrender at Appomattox, on the 9th of April, 1865. His soldiers never for one moment questioned his loyalty, his courage, or his patriotism. If these late reports of his default of duty at Gettysburg be true, is it not passing strange that he retained the love and confidence of General Lee until the close of the war? If Longstreet had disobeyed Lee’s orders at Gettysburg, thereby causing the battle to fail of success to Southern arms, does any one pretend to believe that General Lee would have continued to place faith and confidence in him (his first lieutenant) until the close of the war? No man who has a proper conception of the character of Robert E. Lee as a soldier and as a great military commander will believe it. Another remarkable circumstance in connection with these grave charges against General Longstreet is, that the men composing the Army of Northern Virginia never heard a word of them until long after the death of General Lee, who could and would have refuted or confirmed them. The fame and character of General Lee as a great military chieftain does not need that the fame and reputation of another great and gallant soldier of the Confederate army shall be besmirched. Another remarkable fact is, these charges came from men that were only brigadier-generals at the battle of Gettysburg. Brigadier-General Pendleton, it seems, first made this charge against General Longstreet in a public speech at Lexington, Virginia, in 1873, in which he said that General Lee told him that he had ordered Longstreet to attack at sunrise on the 2d of July. Longstreet emphatically denied that General Lee ever gave him any such orders, and Colonel W. H. Taylor, Colonel C. S. Venable, Colonel Charles Marshall, and General A. L. Long, all of General Lee’s staff, testified, after this charge was made by Pendleton, that they never heard of any such orders. Colonel Venable, replying to General Longstreet, said, “I did not know of any order for an attack on the enemy at sunrise on the 2d of July, nor can I believe any such order was issued by General Lee. About sunrise on the 2d 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. 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.”
It seems clearly by the testimony of these eminent officers and soldiers who were at that time members of General Lee’s official family and were active participants in that supreme struggle of Gettysburg, that this charge by General Pendleton was only a discharge of hot air. I think the general view taken by the best authority upon the history of the fighting at Gettysburg on July the 2d, which was the second day of these battles, that up to 11 A.M. General Lee was undecided as to whether he would attack on the right or left. No matter in what eloquent words we may clothe our admiration for him as a soldier, the soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia would regard all these eloquent words of praise as inadequate to express the admiration we feel for the brave deeds in war, and the unselfish and gallant service rendered the Confederate army by this grand old hero, General James Longstreet. General Lee told General Pickett and the Army of Northern Virginia that the lack of their success at Gettysburg was his fault. This man of glorious and immortal fame, as the greatest military leader of modern times, realized that he himself had overrated the ability of his army, and underrated the army of his enemy, who had the advantage of numbers and of far better position. General Lee realized then, as the world has since, that he made a mistake in attacking the Union army at Gettysburg after General Meade had secured and to some extent had fortified an almost impregnable position. Grant made the same mistake when Lee caught him on the fly in the Wilderness, at Spottsylvania, and at Cold Harbor, with this difference, Grant was depending upon his superior numbers and equipment, while Lee was depending upon the morale and fighting qualities of his army. And while the morale and fighting qualities of Lee’s army were never equalled in the history of modern warfare, even they could not accomplish the impossible. And the traducers of General Longstreet’s fidelity are strangely oblivious of the fact that General Longstreet at the battle of the Wilderness made a forced march that taxed his soldiers to their utmost capacity to get there in time, and when he arrived on the field he found the Southern line was being driven back by superior numbers, and throwing his troops into line and with his accustomed impetuosity drove the Federal line rapidly back and saved the day and gave the Southern army the victory at the Wilderness. In this fight he was severely wounded, and the gallant Jenkins of South Carolina at the same time was killed. Pendleton said that General Lee died believing that but for the disobedience of Longstreet at Gettysburg that battle would have been a victory for the Southern army. How did he know that Lee died with that belief? Did General Lee ever tell any one so? If so, whom? It is one thing to make an assertion, but quite a different thing to prove it. I have seen men in my day look pretty cheap in court when called on to prove some things they had said on the streets.
In conclusion, I want to say that while we all regretted and were grieved when General Longstreet joined the Republican party, that fact ought not to have created prejudice sufficient to have caused us to ignore, and belittle, and cast any reproach upon his character, or unjust reflection upon his long and brilliant career as a soldier. He was a soldier by profession, and, according to his own testimony, he never cast a ballot in civil life prior to the Confederate war. He and General Grant were warm personal friends. They were school-mates at West Point, comrades in the Mexican and some Indian wars. General Grant clasped his hand and called him Jim at the surrender at Appomattox. Grant at Appomattox was a Democrat and a slave-holder, and he went over to the Republican party and was elected President of the United States. What influence General Grant brought to bear upon General Longstreet may have been very great, for all the outside world knows. Be that as it may, we do know that up to the close of the war he had taken no active part in politics in any party. We also have every reason to believe that if General Longstreet had espoused the Democratic party, and become a strong partisan in that party, we never would have heard a word of this imaginary default at Gettysburg.
The soldiers of Longstreet’s corps do not believe he disobeyed General Lee’s orders at Gettysburg, or at any other time. We don’t believe it now; we never did believe it, and we never will believe it.—W. H. Edwards.