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.