“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: