Lee and Longstreet at High Tide: Gettysburg in the Light of the Official Records

by Helen Dortch Longstreet

LOYAL TO THE SOUTH.

The Southern cause had no more loyal supporter nor courageous soldier than General Longstreet, as the honorable wounds and scars which he carried to his death abundantly attest. He had the unbounded confidence of his commander-in-chief. The history of that great war gives but one record of Longstreet being absent from his command, and that was on account of serious wounds received on the field of the Wilderness in May, 1864, where, in preparing to lead in person his forces against General Hancock’s corps, he momentarily halted to receive a word of congratulation from General Micah Jenkins, of South Carolina, when Longstreet’s own men, mistaking these two generals, with the little group of horsemen composing their staff surrounding them, for the enemy, fired, killing General Jenkins and wounding General Longstreet in the throat and shoulder, from which he was ever afterwards maimed.

We would not omit to mention that in 1863, when several of his divisions were ordered from Virginia to Georgia to reinforce the Army of Tennessee, on his arrival in Atlanta, and when at the old Trout House, at the junction of Decatur and Pryor Streets, where the old Austell building now stands, he was called to the balcony of the hotel to speak to the large and enthusiastic multitude of soldiers and citizens who thronged every inch of the two streets, he said “I came not to speak; I came to meet the enemy.” The inspiration of his presence and this short and pithy declaration called forth from the assembled multitude the exclamation, “What a magnificent looking man and soldier.” How well he fulfilled his mission in the battle of Chickamauga history makes no mistake in its record. How his forces were hurled against those of General Thomas, and how his army turned the tide of battle into victory, are too well known to need repetition. In this battle, like others where he led, his advance was stubborn and decisive.

He followed with unfaltering bravery and devotion the fortunes of the Confederacy until the last drama was enacted at Appomattox, and was a member of the last council of war held in the woods on the night of April 8, 1865, and was the senior commissioner, on the part of the Confederate forces appointed by the commander-in-chief, to arrange the details and terms of the surrender of that little shattered band which, through fire and smoke, hunger and cold, had stood by the flag of the Confederacy through all the trying ordeals of four years’ grim and bloody strife.

IN THE VERY FIRST RANK.

The name and fame of General Longstreet are the common heritage of the South and the whole American people. The names of his immediate ancestors are historic and dear especially to every Georgian. His qualities as a soldier have won for him the highest encomiums not only of the Southern people, but from the Northern people as well. All true history, including that written from an English stand-point, places Longstreet in the very first rank as to ability and generalship among any of Lee’s subordinates.

No time nor mere political differences can affect or dim the lustre of that name. The past is secure, the future is safe. We can say with all the emphasis that the words import that he was one of the bravest, truest, safest, and the most devoted of the Confederate leaders. In the generations to come, when passion and prejudice shall vanish like the mists of the morning at the presence of the clear sunlight of truth, Longstreet’s name shall receive at the hands of the entire civilized world the praise and honor to which it is justly entitled.

LONGSTREET AND DAVIS.

We may be permitted to refer briefly to an incident that occurred on the occasion of the unveiling of the Ben Hill monument in Atlanta. Among the many distinguished ex-Confederate chieftains seated on the platform was ex-President Jefferson Davis. General Longstreet came down from his home in Gainesville, clad in the full uniform of a lieutenant-general of the Confederate army, wearing his sword. Providing himself with a superb mount, he rode out Peachtree Street to the site of the monument, and, dismounting, walked unannounced to the platform into the outstretched arms of Jefferson Davis. As they embraced each other, they presented a scene worthy of the brush of a Raphael or a Rubens. Once heroes in common victory, they were now heroes in common defeat. This was a beautiful and shining example for all latter day critics.

This silent episode, as if too impressive to be broken, stilled the vast multitude for a moment, and then spontaneously from forty thousand Confederate veterans and citizens, the ladies joining in the demonstration by waving their handkerchiefs, there went up a loud and continuous shout of applause that rent the air.