James Longstreet

• 1. Introduction

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  James Longstreet was born on the 8th of January 1821 in Edgefield District, South Carolina, and by the end of the Civil War he had become the man Robert E. Lee called his "Old War Horse". That nickname captures the paradox at the center of Longstreet's life: he was trusted absolutely by the greatest Confederate commander, yet became one of the most reviled figures in the postwar South. How does a man earn both titles? And how does a general who held his lines at Antietam and Fredericksburg, who shattered the Union army at Second Bull Run, end up carrying the blame for an entire nation's defeat? The answers begin with a boy sent to live on his uncle's plantation outside Augusta, Georgia, run through the bloody fields of Gettysburg, and land in the strange second life Longstreet built among his former enemies. He would go on to lead African-American militia against a white supremacist mob, trade letters with presidents, and spend his final years with a second wife who refused to let history bury him.

• 2. From Georgia Frontier to West Point

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  Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, James's uncle, was a lawyer, judge, newspaper editor, and Methodist minister who held fierce states'-rights views during the Nullification crisis of 1828-1833. He also drank whiskey and played cards in an era when many Americans thought both were immoral. James absorbed all of it, living eight years on the Westover plantation outside Augusta while attending the Academy of Richmond County. Northern Georgia was rough frontier territory in those years, and aristocratic Southern manners had not yet taken hold. Longstreet dressed carelessly, used coarse language when women were not present, and showed little interest in politics. His father, impressed by what he called the boy's "rocklike" character, gave him the nickname Peter. James was known as Pete, or Old Pete, for the rest of his life.

  His father died of cholera during a visit to Augusta in 1833, when James was still a boy. The rest of the family moved to Somerville, Alabama, but James stayed on with his aunt and uncle. In 1837, Augustus tried to secure his nephew an appointment to West Point, only to find the congressional district vacancy already filled. The appointment came the following year through a relative, Reuben Chapman, who represented Alabama's First District, where James's mother lived.

  Longstreet's record at the academy was not distinguished. By his own admission in his memoirs, he found "horsemanship, exercise, and the outside game of foot-ball" more compelling than coursework. He ranked in the bottom third of every subject across four years and graduated 54th out of 56 cadets in 1842. One engineering instructor, Dennis Hart Mahan, did leave a lasting mark. Mahan stressed swift maneuvering, protecting interior lines, and positioning troops at strategic points rather than trying to destroy the enemy outright. Longstreet earned modest grades in the course, but he returned to those ideas again and again during the war. Among his classmates were George Pickett, William Rosecrans, who was his roommate, and Ulysses S. Grant.

• 3. Mexico and the Making of a Soldier

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  Longstreet served with the 8th U.S. Infantry in the Mexican-American War under Zachary Taylor, fighting at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma in May 1846. When Worth's division was pulled from Taylor's command and placed under General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, it was sent first to Lobos Island, then sailed 180 miles south to Veracruz. Scott besieged the city, bombarding it until it surrendered on the 29th of March.

  At Churubusco, the 8th Infantry was the only unit in Worth's division to reach the Mexican earthworks. Longstreet carried the regimental banner under heavy fire. When the men found themselves trapped in a ditch, unable to scale the defenses without standing on each other, they fought their way through in fierce hand-to-hand combat. He received a brevet promotion to captain for his actions there, and another brevet to major for Molino del Rey.

  At Chapultepec on the 12th of September, Longstreet was wounded in the thigh while charging up the hill with his regimental colors. Falling, he passed the flag to his friend Lieutenant Pickett, who carried it to the summit. The capture of Chapultepec led directly to the fall of Mexico City. Longstreet recovered in the home of the Escandón family, which cared for wounded American soldiers, and did not leave until December. He went to Missouri to see Maria Louisa Garland, called Louise by her family, the daughter of his commanding officer at Jefferson Barracks. They married on the 8th of March 1848, and the marriage produced ten children. When Grant married Longstreet's fourth cousin Julia Dent that same year in St. Louis, Longstreet attended the wedding on the 22nd of August, though whether he served as best man remained a matter of dispute even among Grant's own biographers.

• 4. The Weight of Three Children

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  Longstreet's prewar decade in the army consisted of frontier duty in Texas and New Mexico, scouting against Comanche raiders, and paperwork. An 1889 fire destroyed his personal papers. The letters that survived could be counted on one hand. He left no diary. Then, in January 1862, something happened that those around him said changed him permanently.

  On the 10th of January, Longstreet traveled to Richmond to meet with President Jefferson Davis about conscription. He spent the intervening days with Louise and their children before returning to army headquarters in Centreville by the 20th. A day or two later, a telegram arrived: all four children were gravely ill with scarlet fever. Longstreet returned immediately. He arrived before his one-year-old daughter Mary Anne died on the 25th of January. Four-year-old James died the following day. Eleven-year-old Augustus Baldwin died on the 1st of February. A thirteenth-year-old son, Garland, remained ill but appeared to survive.

  George Pickett and his future wife LaSalle Corbell were with the Longstreets throughout. They arranged the funerals and burials, which neither Longstreet nor Louise attended for reasons that were never explained. Longstreet returned to the army on the 5th of February, and those who knew his headquarters noted the change. In 1861, it had been known for parties, drinking, and poker. Afterward, the social atmosphere became somber. He rarely drank. His religious devotion increased. Moxley Sorrel, his chief of staff, left vivid accounts of the man who came back to the field that spring: a general of enormous steadiness, almost stone-like under fire, who had learned something about the price of lost ground.

• 5. Lee's Right Hand

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  Robert E. Lee took command of the Army of Northern Virginia on the 1st of June 1862. Longstreet, by his own account, had doubts about Lee at the start. He wrote in his memoirs that Lee's arrival "was far from reconciling the troops to the loss of our beloved chief" Johnston, and that there were "misgivings" about Lee's capacity for field command.

  Those doubts dissolved quickly. During the Seven Days Battles in late June, Longstreet held operational command of roughly half of Lee's army, some 15 brigades, as it drove George McClellan's forces back down the Peninsula. At Gaines's Mill on the 27th of June, his fresh brigades under Pickett and Richard H. Anderson, joined by Hood's men, charged the Union lines and forced a retreat across the Chickahominy. Sorrel wrote of Longstreet during those battles: "He was like a rock in steadiness when sometimes in battle the world seemed flying to pieces." Shortly after, Lee called him "the staff in my right hand."

  After Seven Days, Lee reorganized the army and increased Longstreet's command from six brigades to 28. The relationship between the two men deepened into genuine friendship. Lee set up headquarters near Longstreet's and the two grew close. Biographer William Garrett Piston speculated that the relaxed atmosphere at Longstreet's headquarters, which still included gambling and drinking, let Lee unwind in ways that his relationship with the more austere Stonewall Jackson did not allow. At Second Bull Run in August 1862, Longstreet launched a massive assault on the exposed Union left flank with more than 25,000 men, pressing the attack for over four hours and routing Pope's army from roughly the same ground where the Union had been embarrassed the previous year. He called the campaign "clever and brilliant" and credited the victory entirely to Lee. The experience fixed his strategic vision: the ideal, he believed, was defensive tactics within a strategic offensive.

• 6. Gettysburg and the Lost Cause

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  Longstreet arrived at Gettysburg at about 4:30 in the afternoon on the 1st of July 1863, hours ahead of his troops. He took one look at the Union defensive position on elevated ground south of the town and told Lee that occupying those heights was precisely what Meade wanted the Confederates to do. He advocated instead for a strategic movement around the Union left flank to find good ground between the enemy and Washington, which would force Meade to attack. Lee replied: "If the enemy is there tomorrow, I will attack him." Longstreet answered: "If he is there tomorrow it is because he wants you to attack."

  On the 2nd of July, Longstreet's assault on the Union left, though fierce, came late. Law's brigade had covered 28 miles in eleven hours to reach the field, but did not arrive until noon. Three of Longstreet's brigades were still in march column. His men were forced to take a long detour because reconnaissance had failed to find a concealed approach route. He was not ready until around 4 in the afternoon, by which time Meade had used the delay to bring more troops forward. The attacks suffered more than 4,000 casualties. General Hood was wounded. Brigade commanders Barksdale and Semmes were mortally wounded. Union Brigadier General Gouverneur Warren had used the Confederate delay to fill Little Round Top with troops before the Confederates reached it.

  On the morning of the 3rd, Lee found Longstreet had been planning an independent flanking operation through the night, unaware that Union VI Corps troops blocked the route. Lee ordered instead the massive assault on Cemetery Ridge that became known as Pickett's Charge. The force would include roughly 14,000 to 15,000 men crossing close to a mile of open ground. Longstreet told Lee he believed the attack would fail. When the moment came to order Pickett forward, Longstreet could not speak the order. He only nodded. The assault was a disaster. Pettigrew and Trimble were wounded. Garnett was killed. Kemper was wounded. Armistead fell mortally wounded after briefly breaching Hancock's stone wall. Lee told his men afterward: "It is all my fault."

  After the war, authors of what became known as the Lost Cause movement pointed to Longstreet's conduct at Gettysburg as the principal reason the South lost the Civil War. Generals Jubal Early and William Pendleton testified that Lee had ordered Longstreet to attack at sunrise and that Longstreet had disobeyed. Lee's own staff officers Walter Taylor and Charles Marshall denied this account, and Lee himself had agreed to the delays and did not issue his formal attack order until 11 in the morning. But the campaign against Longstreet's reputation had found its target.

• 7. After the War

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  Longstreet built an active postwar career in the service of the U.S. government: diplomat, civil servant, administrator. His friendship with Ulysses Grant, dating to their days together at Jefferson Barracks in 1843, translated into genuine political alliance. He joined the Republican Party at a time when that affiliation was unforgivable to most former Confederates in the South. He wrote critical assessments of Lee's wartime generalship that made him anathema to men who had served alongside him.

  In 1874, Longstreet commanded African-American militia against the anti-Reconstruction White League at the Battle of Liberty Place in New Orleans. He was wounded in the fighting. In the eyes of those already hostile to him, it was confirmation of everything they suspected.

  Longstreet's first wife Louise died, and in later life he married Helen Dortch Longstreet, a woman considerably younger than him, who made the restoration of her husband's reputation a mission of her own life. An 1889 fire had already destroyed his personal papers, and his lengthy memoirs, which focused almost entirely on defending his Civil War record, revealed little about his inner life. Helen worked after his death on the 2nd of January 1904 to push back against the Lost Cause narrative that had diminished him. Since the late twentieth century, the reassessment she worked toward has gradually taken hold. Many Civil War historians now consider Longstreet among the most gifted tactical commanders the war produced, and the arguments he made at Gettysburg, which his enemies called insubordination, look in retrospect like some of the clearest strategic thinking of the entire campaign.