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thousand Federals were massed behind the Round Top to swoop down on the Confederate flank if Hood and McLaws were withdrawn.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,—