“No Southern man suffered more or deserved it less.”
The death of General Longstreet removes from the world’s stage of action one who in time of war had his name and his deeds sounded by the trumpet of fame throughout the civilized world. He was a conspicuous figure in the eyes of the world, and his name was at one time familiar to and honored in every Confederate household. He was Lee’s Rock of Gibraltar that never failed to stem the tides of assault, and when he led, in his turn, the attack, he was a thunder-bolt of war that never failed to strike with terrible effect. In council he was calm and calculated well and closely all the chances of conflict, in scales well balanced, and, as a rule, with almost unerring exactness.
He was essentially a soldier, whose education, training, and services for a generation in years made his enforced change to civil life practically the adoption of a new life at total variance to that in which he has always been a conspicuous and a noted figure. His was a lovable nature, loyal to principle and to truth, and when his confidence was secured his trust was sure to follow.
That trait in his character was the cause of the ban under which he suffered for such a long period from the Southern people, and, as many an old Confederate veteran will now say, with such injustice.
At the time the storm of ostracism first burst in fury over his head I was an official of the State of Mississippi and resided at Jackson, the State capital, and I was then, as I am now, familiar with the cause of the outbreak of public sentiment against him. Let me explain that there had been on the part of the Southern people a practical nullification of the Federal laws regarding the negro and his rights so recently conferred, and it was hard for Southern people to swallow the doctrine of equality in anything where the negro was concerned.
The entire South was in a tempestuous turmoil that threatened the very foundations of society, by rising like the storm-tossed waves of tempestuous seas and sweeping away the barriers that had been erected against the domination of the Southern whites. At this juncture prominent and influential leaders of public thought, who saw the coming storm, at a conference held in New Orleans explained the situation to certain popular and influential ex-Confederate generals then residents of that city, and represented to them that an appeal by them to their old soldiers to accept the situation, obey the Federal laws, and maintain peace and order would result in great good and assist in allaying the suppressed, indeed often open, excitement of the people. They were appealed to as patriots to come to the rescue of their people and lead them in peace as they had in war.
The text of a letter to be written by each was then outlined, and at a second conference each submitted his letter. The substance of all the letters was identical, each with the others. They were published in the New Orleans papers simultaneously to insure the object in view, the influencing of public opinion. Their publication aroused a storm of reproach and denunciation that was without measure.
Instead of acting like oil on the troubled waters, they provoked the fury of the tempest, and the authors of the letters were overwhelmed with letters of protest and reproach.
Explanation after explanation by the authors (save General Longstreet) that amounted to public retraction, followed. Longstreet, firm as the rock of Gibraltar, bared his breast to the storm and proudly declared that he had nothing to retract. He explained the circumstances under which he had written the letter, cited its approval by leaders of public thought, and declared that the sentiment of the letter but expressed his honest convictions, and he stood by it. Every old veteran of Longstreet’s corps who reads this will say, “That’s just like old Pete.” He could have saved his popularity had he sacrificed principle. But like the noble Roman that he was, he could, in weighing one against the other, defiantly proclaim
“These walls, these columns fly
From their firm base as soon as I.”