His father having died when he was but twelve years old, General Longstreet’s mother moved shortly afterwards to Augusta, Georgia, where she resided a few years, after which she moved to Alabama. The education of young Longstreet was then intrusted to his uncle, Judge A. B. Longstreet, for many years president of Emory College, at Oxford, Georgia, and one of the most illustrious presidents of that famous old college. Judge Longstreet was noted as lawyer, judge, educator, and writer. He is a very poorly read Georgian, a rather poorly read Southerner, who has not enjoyed and talked to his friends about that book of wonderful naturalness, humor, and human philosophy, “Georgia Scenes.” The author of this book was Judge A. B. Longstreet. In later years its authorship has been often erroneously credited to General Longstreet.
Entirely immersed in his college duties, Judge Longstreet had but little time to give to his youthful nephew. Of those early days, it is only known that the boy was not much of a student; that the massive old oaks of Oxford appealed to him more than the school-room; that fishing in the streams around and chasing rabbits over the fields formed his dearest enjoyment. In his habits and feeling he was then and always near to nature. The flash of the lightning in mid-heaven interested him more than the Voltaic sparks of the lecture-room. He was mischievous, full of fun and frolic, but beneath all that he was almost from babyhood planning for a larger career in the outside world and longing to be a soldier and fight his country’s battles. The books that he loved most told of Alexander and Cæsar, of Napoleon and his marshals, of George Washington and the Revolution. He wanted to do things, not to study about them.
He received his West Point appointment through a relative in Alabama, who was a member of Congress. The appointment came naturally from Alabama, because his mother was living there. He went to West Point at the age of sixteen. This was one of the proudest days of his life; it was the beginning of the fulfilment of his dreams; he had not an idea that any human agency could turn him from the soldier course in which he was directed, or could delay him for an instant. And yet, while he was in New York City arranging for the change from the cars to the Hudson River boat, he was approached by two little boys of guileless appearance, who told him that their father had recently died away down in South Carolina, that they had no money, that their mother had no money, that they just must get to their dead father, and wouldn’t he help them out. With a tenderness of heart characteristic of him then and always, he was about to open to them his purse and take the chances of never reaching West Point, when a policeman who had observed the performance approached and prevented the innocent embryo soldier from being fleeced by the youthful bunco steerers of the city.
Arriving at West Point, he proudly went to the hotel to register and take a room, and was much chagrined upon being told by the proprietor that they didn’t “take in kids.” He was directed to the cadets’ quarters, and his first humiliation there was the further discovery that instead of being waited on as a dignified soldier should be by half a dozen servants, he had to keep his own room, make his own bed, black his own boots.
His thoughts of war had been associated with fierce fighting, the killing of many enemies, the capturing of many prisoners. His preconceived idea of a prisoner was gained while a small boy in Alabama. He had heard that a prisoner was down at the station, and ran there full of expectancy to see what a “prisoner” was like. He discovered a big buck negro, black as midnight, large as two ordinary men, with countenance ferocious. His first West Point assignment which gave promise of the heroic was to guard a “prisoner.” He was given a gun for the purpose. The figure of the Alabama darky came to his mind, and he wondered if the gun were big enough to kill him in case that should be necessary. Examining it, he discovered, alas! that it was not even loaded. Sent to guard a terrible prisoner with an unloaded gun! When he got to the place of service he was relieved, surprised, and equally disgusted by the discovery that the prisoner was a fellow-student who had broken the rules—a poor little weakly, cadaverous fellow, whom he could pick up and throw into the Hudson without half trying.
As a West Point cadet, so far as the drilling, the field practice, the athletics, all the out-door work was concerned, he sustained himself well. He was very large, very strong, well proportioned. He had dark-brown hair, blue eyes, features that might have served for a Grecian model. He was six feet two inches tall, of soldierly bearing, and was voted the handsomest cadet at West Point. As a student of books, however, he was not a success. They seemed to contain so much that did not properly belong to the life of a soldier that he could not become interested enough in them to learn them. In his third year he failed in mechanics, and did not “rise” until given a second trial. In scholarship, he always ranked much closer to the foot than to the head of his class. He was just a little better student than his friend, U. S. Grant, which was poor praise, indeed. But their after careers told a different story.
LIFE-LONG FRIENDSHIP OF GRANT AND LONGSTREET
I may be pardoned for digressing here to speak of the strong school-boy friendship which began at West Point between Grant and Longstreet and lasted throughout their lives. Grant was of the class after Longstreet, but somehow their silent serious natures were in spontaneous accord, and they became fast friends from their first meeting. That one was from the West and one from the South made no difference, just as later it made no difference in their feeling of personal affection that one led the army of the Union and the other the army of the Confederacy.
After their graduation at West Point they were both stationed at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis. The Dent family lived near by; Longstreet was a cousin. And he was particularly fond of his cousin Julia Dent! He took his friend Grant out to see her, and the result of the introduction was their marriage five years later. There was such a contrast between her tall cousin James and her short admirer, Ulysses, that her friends often joked her about “the little lieutenant with the big epaulettes.”