Three Strikes

Winston Churchill famously quipped, “History will treat me well-I plan to write it.” He did, and it has, though he certainly remains a controversial titan with many enemies and variegated interpretations. In American history, lesser men’s reputations as moral or military failures have not prevented the keepers of the memorial flames from writing their histories and erecting large and heroic monuments to remember them. One thinks of the impressive equestrian statue of the arrogant loser, Union General Joseph Hooker in front of the Massachusetts State House or even the lonely boot on a pedestal, in memory of the traitor Benedict Arnold who was wounded in defense of liberty in the Battle of Saratoga.

At the other end of the heroic spectrum, an avenue of Confederate champions’ statues still look out over the City of Richmond, Virginia-JEB Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis. Union General Gouvernour K. Warren surveys the Gettysburg battlefield at the summit of Little Round Top and George B. McClellan prances in all his enigmatic glory over DuPont Circle in Washington D.C.

Of all the American soldiers, both deserving and undeserving, who have been remembered in bronze or marble in the United States, there was one General who outshone almost all his contemporaries. His leadership and his troops were integral to victory in many major battles, and he fought to the end in a losing cause. Yet, when the Civil War was over, not only was he shut out of the markers of remembrance, he was vilified by old comrades and, importantly, by the women of the South who erected the memorials.

General Robert E. Lee called James Longstreet “my old war horse,” and the esteem in which he was held across the south during the war was exceeded by very few. The stories of his tactical skills and fearless leadership include I Manassas, The Peninsula Campaign, II Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, the Overland Campaign and Petersburg. He was at Lee’s side to the very end.

As Southerners wrote their memoirs and analyzed the campaigns, certain ex-generals and others,  searched for reasons for Confederate defeat. They looked everywhere for explanations and scapegoats. Well, almost everywhere; rarely did the guardians of the army’s reputation suggest they were beaten by excellent generalship and brave fighters from the north. In any case, the fight for the past began with a controversy over Gettysburg which was fought out in the pages of the Southern Historical Society Papers, a historical journal of Confederate veteran reminiscences and opinion makers.

James Longstreet came in for severe criticism for the defeat at Gettysburg. Self-serving editors and contributors claimed his heart wasn’t in the battle, he disobeyed orders, and, at least indirectly brought about the Confederate repulse. In the mid-1870s, Longstreet, ever the “bull of the woods,” took up his literary cudgel against his post-war enemies. His analysis of the battle implied that General Lee had made mistakes in the campaign. Lee was no longer alive (he had shouldered the blame anyway) but the vilification of Longstreet took on a life of its own.

Prior to the war, James Longstreet had been friends with Ulysses S. Grant, serving as best man in his wedding and loaning him money once to get out of tight spot. After the war, Grant offered a political appointment to his former battlefield enemy, and it was accepted, making him the highest ranking Confederate to join the Republican Party during Reconstruction. He supported re-unification and expressed sympathy for the freedmen.  The anger against Longstreet was expressed by the literary guardians of the war history, boiling over into newspaper editorials, private letters, and public denunciations. Strike one against Old Pete. The perceived criticism of Robert E. Lee’s generalship at Gettysburg brought further denunciation, strike two. James Longstreet lived into the 20th century, battling his detractors to the very end.

Having lived in New Orleans after the war, Longstreet converted to Roman Catholicism, the third and final strike against him with the monument builders. Until 1998, there were no monuments to General Longstreet. That year the Longstreet Memorial Association dedicated an equestrian statue to him on the Gettysburg battlefield. Since then a likeness has been erected at his gravesite in Gainesville, Georgia. One of the ironies of the Longstreet saga is the great love and esteem the veterans who served under him always accorded him. His every appearance, though sometimes uninvited, at Confederate memorial marches and celebrations was greeted with loud huzzahs and the Rebel yell from the men who had been willing to fight and die under his command.

Thursday night, October 16th, the Circa History Guild will honor General Longstreet’s memory with a program by a historian who knows how to set the record straight.

Bill Potter