And the memory of his actions on the boisterous stage of battle and of the single-hearted, loyal rôle he played through all the shifting scenes of that greatest war-drama of the century should in itself constitute a rebuke to those who have sought to rebuke him for certain generally misunderstood actions in his subsequent career. He became an office-holder under General Grant, a very, very human thing to do. It was a very, very natural thing that General Grant, who had married the cousin of the “Old War-Horse,” and who was, besides, actuated by the spirit of a remembered, youthful comradeship, should give his friend, comrade, and relative an office when Longstreet was walking along thorny financial paths. And his acceptance, urged as he was to accept by his Confederate comrades, was, under the circumstances, very human and very natural. He made a good public servant—where could Grant have found a better in those reconstruction days, which were not noted for the excellence of their public servants? Where could Longstreet have better served his own people than by taking an office which might otherwise have been given to men who were still so inflamed by partisan prejudice as to hate those people? His motives were of the highest in this acceptance, and his attitude of silently bearing the remarks of those who criticised him under a misapprehension stamps his moral courage with the golden seal of a serene nobility.
He was misjudged, but he happily lived to see most of those who misjudged him silenced by an exposition of facts which he was too proud to set forth himself.
The debtor years have rendered back to him the refined coin of a fixed fame for his life labor. He is dead, and his place—a high one in the world’s history—is enduring.
*****
(Newport, Virginia, News.)
“The bravest of the brave.”
The Savannah Daughters of the Confederacy, whose custom it is to send a laurel wreath for the tomb of deceased Confederates, refused to send one upon the death of General Longstreet a few days ago.
The Daughters at Savannah have, we suppose, satisfactorily to themselves, settled the mooted question of the Gettysburg controversy, but we do not believe their action will find applause generally among the ex-Confederate soldiers. Whatever may have been the fact at Gettysburg, it is beyond dispute that his actions there did not estrange his loyal soldiers, nor impair the esteem in which he was held by General Lee. The close of the war found him in command of the left wing of the army, and he joined General Lee on the way to Appomattox. In referring to his death the Richmond Times-Dispatch says,—
“We recall General Longstreet as one of the bravest of the brave, one who struck many blows for the Confederacy, and one on whom General Lee often leaned and whose name is identified with world-famous battles. These are things we cannot forget, nor do we wish to.”
Whatever may be said of the attitude of the South since the war towards General Longstreet, the fact remains that his espousal of the Republican cause in politics did most to invite criticism, and this he always felt was unjust to him.