Lee and Longstreet at High Tide: Gettysburg in the Light of the Official Records

by Helen Dortch Longstreet

General Thomas L. Rosser, of Virginia, who commanded a regiment at Gettysburg, and who was with the Army of Northern Virginia from the first battle to the surrender, bitterly resents the criticism of General Longstreet’s course at Gettysburg. General Rosser was appointed an officer in the Spanish War by President McKinley, and in recent years has been acting with the Republican party. Reviewing the work of some of the great Confederate generals, General Rosser said to a reporter for the Star:

“With the death of General Longstreet passes the last of the great soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia. He fought alone the battle of the 18th of July, 1861, and won the first victory of that splendid army. He shared in the glory of the great battles that army fought.

“Longstreet and Lee, as soldiers, were similar in many respects. Both were great defensive generals, but neither can be classed among the successful offensive generals of history.

“Take Jackson, for instance. His campaign from Kernstown to Port Republic, in the Valley of Virginia, in 1862, was as brilliant as the first Italian campaign of the great Napoleon. He drew McDowell from Fredericksburg. He left Shields, Fremont, and Banks confused as to his whereabouts, dashed across the mountains, joined Lee on the 26th of June, striking McClellan the surprise blow, forced him to the James, and raised the siege of Richmond. With the despatch of lightning he wheeled around, met Pope at Cedar Mountain, stopped his advance upon Lee’s rear and flank, held him until Lee could arrive with reinforcements, passed to his rear, and fought the battle of the 28th of September at Groveton Heights; opened the way for Lee to press on with his army, and crowned the campaign with the successful battle of the second Bull Run. He crossed the Potomac with Lee, was detached, sent back, captured Harper’s Ferry, and joined Lee at Sharpsburg in time to stop McClellan and save Lee’s army. In May, 1863, when Lee was hesitating in the Wilderness, believing that Hooker’s movement below Fredericksburg was a serious one, with the foresight of genius Jackson pronounced it a feint, urged Lee to allow him to move around Hooker’s right, which, in audacity, boldness, and brilliancy seemed to paralyze Lee, and while on this wonderful march Sickles got between him and Lee with an army nearly equal his own. Jackson pressed on, turned Hooker’s right, as he contemplated, dissipated the Eleventh Corps and all its support, and was within a half-mile of his goal, the Bullock house, had he gained possession of which Hooker’s retreat would have been impossible and he would have been at the mercy of the Confederate army, when he was shot and mortally wounded by his own men.

“Lee, then in command of an army that knew no defeat, and not realizing that his great offensive general had been taken from the army, committed the fatal blunder of attempting an invasion of the North. At no time during that campaign did he move with celerity, manœuvre to the surprise of the enemy, or do anything of a brilliant character marking him with the genius of war. The battle of Gettysburg was lost the first day, although the Confederates claimed a victory, and it might have been turned into a victory had Lee been a master of the art of aggressive warfare. But he followed up the first day with a stubborn attack of the enemy in an intrenched position, and, failing to dislodge him, seemed to hesitate and his plans seemed to be confused. Finally he committed a great error in attacking a superior enemy in an intrenched position at the strongest point.

“In the history of battles very few generals have ever made an attack of the centre of the enemy’s position, and history gives only one example of where such an attack has been successful. That was the battle of Wagram, where the great Napoleon deceived the Archduke Charles by so threatening his flank as to cause him to weaken his centre, when, quick as a flash, Napoleon struck the centre of the enemy with MacDonald and his reserves. But then the world has only given us one Napoleon, and the Western hemisphere has given us only one Jackson.

“When Lee’s army was beaten from the fatal attack which he ordered on the 3d of July, he rode among his fleeing soldiers, begging them to rally and reform on Seminary Ridge, telling them that it was his fault that they had failed and not their own. No criticism was made of Longstreet at that time. Longstreet was retained in the most important corps of Lee’s army and served honorably and faithfully under Lee to the end.

“At Appomattox Longstreet, with Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, at the close of a most glorious achievement, honestly surrendered. The Southern Confederacy was eliminated from the map of the world, its flag was forever furled, and all soldiers who surrendered there had either to return to the Union and become loyal to the flag of their country or remain hypocrites and traitors, which they could not do if they had honestly surrendered and accepted the terms that Grant had given them.

“Longstreet came out of the war with a record for courage, devotion to the cause he had espoused, and loyalty to the Stars and Bars second to none. Disabled by wounds, his right arm hanging lifeless and helpless at his side, his profession, that of a soldier, gone, he turned his attention to civil pursuits, and was struggling for a living when his old friend Grant, the President of the United States, offered him service in the government. Lee was dead. Southern politicians had expected Longstreet to keep the fires of Southern antipathy to the North alive, and as they were seeking to inflame the passions of the people as a basis upon which to unite the South and to fuse with the copperhead party in the North, as a means for repossessing themselves of a government they had lost by the results of the war, this action of Longstreet in accepting the offer of Grant tended to break their influence with the old soldiers of the South.

“To counteract that they brought up the charge of disloyalty and disobedience to Lee at Gettysburg, never having thought of it before, and never, in fact, having had a foundation for it. This, in a measure, served their purpose, because the old soldiers and their sons in the South are always ready to resent anything said or done unfavorable to Lee. Now, I am mortified to see that even the ladies have taken this matter up, and the Daughters of the Confederacy at Savannah refused to lay a wreath of laurels on the tomb of the great hero. I was surprised that Fitzhugh Lee should have charged Longstreet with disobedience, for I don’t believe that General Lee ever made such a charge himself. After the war I went to Lexington and studied law and saw Lee every day and every night. Our comrades and enemies were often discussed, but I never heard him speak of Longstreet but in the most affectionate manner. Colonel Venable was professor of mathematics when I moved back to Charlottesville eighteen years ago, and my relations with him up to his death were close and intimate. I never heard him suggest the idea that Longstreet disobeyed orders or failed to do his duty at Gettysburg or anywhere else. General Lee relieved General Ewell, one of his corps commanders at Gettysburg, from duty with his army. He criticised A. P. Hill severely for his failure and mismanagement at Bristow station, but no man ever heard him say one word against Longstreet.