James Longstreet

Born:January 8, 1821, Edgefield District, South Carolina, Died: Gainesville, Ga. January 2, 1904 (by Brian Hampton)

An elderly man sat in his parlor, his eyesight too poor to read the newspaper, listening to his son voice the words written by Reverend William Pendleton, Robert E. Lee's head of artillery during the Civil War. The prose was harsh, some would say vicious, as it repeated the charges he, Jubal Early, John Gordon, and others leveled against General Longstreet, accusing him of being insubordinate to the beloved Robert E. Lee and a traitor to the Southern people. "Liars! Liars!" he shouted out, and then, "the light of battle passing once more into his eyes," he stood and defended the General against these outrageous accusations, speaking to no one in particular except his son, who had heard these words before. Even in death, it seemed, Longstreet knew no rest from the controversies that surrounded his tenure as a soldier.

J.C. Gaither, the man's son, stopped him in mid-sentence and asked that he be allowed to read another article, this one written by Helen Dortch Longstreet, the General's widow. In her rebuttal to Reverend Pendleton, Helen alluded to her recently published book in which she attempted to restore the reputation of the man who would come to be known in modern times as Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant. Hearing the benevolence of Longstreet's young widow, the elder Gaither calmed, sat down, and began to cry.

Early life

James Longstreet was born in the Edgefield District of South Carolina on January 8, 1821 during a visit by his mother with her mother-in-law. Within weeks, young James was back at home on his parent's cotton plantation in the region of northern Georgia where Gainesville now stands and where his father, also named James, nicknamed him "Pete" for its meaning of "sturdy and trustworthy," a name into which Longstreet certainly grew.

Longstreet owed his birth to South Carolina, his appointment to West Point in 1838 to the state of Alabama, and much of his income to Louisiana and the Federal Government, but he always thought of Georgia as home. He was educated at Westover near Augusta and received another kind of valuable education in the rugged Georgia woods that would serve him well as a soldier. He spent his formative years, and eventually died there. Still the perception among many Southerners in the latter years of Longstreet's life was that he had no home, no state which to call his own. In an age where one's state citizenship was a measure of one's worth as a human, this fact, after the war, added further ammunition to his critics' charges.

Civil War

James Longstreet first offered his services to the Confederacy through the state of Alabama after resigning his commission as a Major in the United States army. He expected nothing more prestigious that a job as paymaster, his last appointment in the Federal army, but to his surprise he received a colonel's commission commanding infantry. By 1st Manassas (Bull Run) he had already been promoted to brigadier-general in command of three Virginia infantry regiments (1st, 11th, and 17th) which covered Blackburn's Ford during that battle. With an odd bit of irony, General Longstreet was supported by the brigade under Colonel Jubal Early who wrote in his official report of the action at the ford that Longstreet "was actively engaged in the thickest of the fire in directing and encouraging the men under his command, and I am satisfied he contributed very largely to the repulse of the enemy by his own personal exertions." This was likely the first and last compliment Early ever directed at Longstreet, and one might be pardoned for musing as to whether or not Early even remembered making this comment in the years after the war as he mounted a premeditated smear campaign against General Longstreet.

Be sure to see the links to other Longstreet sites and pages at the end of this biography
After the Confederate victory at Manassas, Longstreet continued to rise in rank and stature in the Confederate command structure. He formed close associations with P.G.T Beauregard and Joseph Johnston, the latter desiring Longstreet to be given the distinction of second in command. This appointment was not securable, however, due to several generals ranking Longstreet and Johnston's own squabbles with the Richmond government. By the time McClellan invaded the Virginia Peninsula, Longstreet was a Major-General, and he performed an important and well executed rear guard action at Williamsburg during Johnston's retreat towards Richmond.

From that point onward, with the single exception of Seven Pines, Longstreet gave exemplary service to the Confederate army. When Robert E. Lee took command and formed the Army of Northern Virginia, Longstreet found in him both a friend and a valuable guide through his career as a soldier. With Lee's unqualified recommendation, he rose in rank to the senior lieutenant-general in the Confederate army and was given command of the 1st Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, the premier subordinate of the premier army of the Confederacy. All across Virginia, into Maryland and Pennsylvania, Longstreet led his soldiers into battle after battle and received the love and affection of his men and the appreciation of his fellow generals. During the Seven Days and 2nd Manassas campaigns, Longstreet displayed his brilliance on the offensive, and at Sharpsburg and Fredericksburg, he showed he was equal to the tasks of the defensive as well. He was known as the bulldog, the staff in Lee's right hand, and the Old War-Horse, and as the war progressed, he would live up to each of these titles. But, Longstreet could hear the guns of war echoing all across the Confederacy, not just in Virginia, and as 1863 opened, he found himself seeding the controversy that followed him for the rest of his life. He disagreed with Robert E. Lee.

The Road to Gettysburg

Prior to the campaign that resulted in the battle of Gettysburg, Longstreet offered a plan to Lee and the Richmond government designed to relieve pressure on the important Mississippi River port of Vicksburg, then under attack from the forces under U.S. Grant. The loss of this port would have the disastrous effect of closing the Confederacy's overland link to the states of Arkansas, Texas, and most of Louisiana, and sealing the Mississippi from use by the Confederacy. Additionally, Braxton Bragg and his Army of Tennessee was being pushed back towards the important rail center of Chattanooga, a loss which would further strangle the already suffering Confederacy. "Old Pete" knew that this possibility had to be countered as well.

Robert E. Lee never criticized Longstreet
Longstreet's plan was not adopted that June. The strategy employed was Lee's plan to invade the North, designed to relieve Virginia from the trampling feet of Federal soldiers, giving farmers time to bring in their badly needed crops. Lee also desired to threaten major Northern cities in the hopes of convincing the Union government that a continued war was useless. As indicated by a letter he sent to Richmond after the battle, Lee also hoped that the invasion of Northern soil would have the effect of relieving other parts of the Confederacy then under pressure from Grant and Rosecrans. While Longstreet had argued for direct relief, Lee seemed to believe that one of these armies would be compelled to move east and assist the Army of the Potomac if the Confederates were able to threaten major Northern cities.

Lee's strategy depended on a grand victory, a literal destruction of the Army of the Potomac, and unfortunately for him, that highly sought after prize was not forthcoming. The Army of the Potomac moved faster than had been expected. Caught unaware with Stuart and his cavalry away from the main body of the army, Lee was forced to give battle in a location of which he had little knowledge and under circumstances which did not favor his desire to utilize an offensive strategy and employ defensive tactics. Longstreet was adamant throughout the entire battle that the plans being enacted were doomed to failure, and he was proven correct. The disagreements between Lee and Longstreet, then only a footnote to the campaign, provided fuel for the fiery attacks of Early, Pendleton, and fellow Georgian John Gordon after the war. Gettysburg was the spark that ignited the Lost Cause mythology that has dominated much of what we have learned of that pivotal event in our nation's history.

Western Theater action

In the aftermath of Gettysburg, as the Army of Northern Virginia refitted and rested from its recent exertions, Longstreet again raised his proposal for a western concentration, utilizing the Confederacy's only real advantage of interior lines. This time, Lee and Richmond officials endorsed his idea; however, by the time his plans were adopted, Longstreet's dire predictions of the fate of the Confederacy in the West had largely come true, leaving him an even larger task than he originally envisioned. Vicksburg had fallen, leaving Grant free to maneuver at will, and Bragg had been pushed even further back, south of Chattanooga and into northern Georgia. As Longstreet and two of his divisions began arriving to reinforce Bragg and the Army of Tennessee along the banks of Chickamauga Creek in north Georgia, Federal General Rosecrans was threatening to push past the Confederates and into the heart of Georgia, splitting the Confederacy into dangerously smaller sections.