At Appomattox Court-House, “where ceased forever the Southern soldiers’ hope,” General Lee asked his old war-horse, if the necessity should arise, to lead the remnant of the army out, and he was ready to do so, and would have done so had not General Grant granted honorable terms of surrender. Would General Lee have trusted General Longstreet after the battle of Gettysburg had he been in the least disloyal to his commands? Impartial history will ever link the names of Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet upon the brightest page of the history of the incomparable Army of Northern Virginia. One word more about Gettysburg. I happened to be there (but at the time would have liked to have been elsewhere), and I decided then and am still of the opinion that the Yankees are to blame for our defeat.

Respectfully,
J. W. Matthews.

*****

(Raleigh, North Carolina, Post.)

“The idol of the Army of Northern Virginia.”

If the conduct of some of our people towards General Longstreet, the great soldier, just dead, was not pitiful, it would be brutal.

He, the stubborn fighter of all our armies, the trusted arm of General Lee, the idol of the Army of Northern Virginia, dead, forty years after his many battles and the establishment of his undying fame, is refused by some of the daughters and granddaughters of the men who fought and fell under his banners, a wreath of flowers for his grave​—​a grave that makes hallowed the land that holds it; is refused a resolution of praise, by the sons and grandsons of the men who cheered his plume, as it waved them to victory. Why is this? A silly story attributed to General Lee, published after Lee’s death, by General Gordon upon the authority of Fitz. Lee. The story contained the charge that the faithful “Old War-Horse,” as General Lee affectionately dubbed him, failed, wilfully, or from other cause, to obey orders at Gettysburg.

Can this story be true? That depends upon two contingencies, neither of which the wildest of General Longstreet’s defamers have dared to formulate: first, that General Lee was lacking in candor, or, secondly, he did not know his best soldiers. Can either of these propositions be true? A thousand times no.

We all, or at least those of us who had the honor of serving in the Army of Northern Virginia, recall that in September, 1863, it became necessary to detach a portion of that army to send west to relieve Bragg, then being driven south by Rosecrans from Chattanooga; we also remember that, with all of his general officers to select from, including Gordon and Fitz. Lee, General Lee selected General Longstreet to lead his immortal battalion, and the fame of how well he performed that proud duty is still ringing in the ears of all who love honor and glory.

Would General Lee have selected General Longstreet, miscalled by malice and envy “the slow,” “the disobeyer of orders,” “the loser of the battle of Gettysburg,” and so of the Southern cause, if he could have found in all his army one general braver or more competent? Surely not. This fact established, and established it is (and it also establishes General Lee’s unshaken confidence in his “Old War-Horse”), what becomes of the improbable story of Fitz. Lee? It is a matter of common history that the fighting soldiers of 1861–65 have been silent since. This at least is true of the Southern soldiers, and pity ’tis true, because our own General R. F. Hoke, fighting then, silent since, could add rich chapters to the history of those Titanic days, if he would only speak.