CHAPTER V
LONGSTREET’S VERSION OF THE OPERATIONS OF JULY 2
“General Lee never in his life gave me orders to open an attack at a specific hour. He was perfectly satisfied that when I had my troops in position and was ordered to attack, no time was ever lost.”—Longstreet On the Second Day at Gettysburg.
The hour, the feasibility, and point of attack have now been thoroughly discussed, mainly from the stand-point of the official records. As supplementary to the recitations of the official reports of Lee, Longstreet, Pendleton, and others quoted on these heads, it seems desirable to introduce just here General Longstreet’s version of his operations on July 2, published so long ago as 1877, only twelve years after Appomattox and two decades before he knew the tenor of Pendleton’s report. It was given to the world long before the publication of the official records by the government, to which he could therefore have had no access. How closely he is confirmed in all essential particulars by the records is marvellous. In this regard it is to be noted that in all these controversies his statements have always stood analysis in the light of all the evidence far better than those of his reckless critics. The following is useful because it comprehensively sums up from Longstreet’s stand-point all the movements relating to fixing the point and time of his attack, the movement and disposition of his troops, and other incidents:
“General Lee never in his life gave me orders to open an attack at a specific hour. He was perfectly satisfied that when I had my troops in position and was ordered to attack, no time was ever lost. On the night of the 1st I left him without any orders at all. On the morning of the 2d I went to General Lee’s head-quarters at daylight and renewed my views against making an attack. He seemed resolved, however, and we discussed the probable results. We observed the position of the Federals and got a general idea of the nature of the ground. About sunrise General Lee sent Colonel Venable, of his staff, to General Ewell’s head-quarters, ordering him to make a reconnoissance of the ground in his front, with a view of making the main attack on his left. A short time afterwards he followed Colonel Venable in person. He returned at about nine o’clock and informed me that it would not do to have Ewell open the attack. He finally determined that I should make the main attack on the extreme right. It was fully eleven o’clock when General Lee arrived at this conclusion and ordered the movement. In the mean time, by General Lee’s authority, Law’s brigade, which had been put upon picket duty, was ordered to rejoin my command, and upon my suggestion that it would be better to await its arrival, General Lee assented. We waited about forty minutes for these troops and then moved forward. A delay of several hours occurred in the march of the troops. The cause of this delay was that we had been ordered by General Lee to proceed cautiously upon the forward movement so as to avoid being seen by the enemy. General Lee ordered Captain Johnston, of his engineer corps, to lead and conduct the head of the column. My troops therefore moved forward under guidance of a special officer of General Lee, and with instructions to follow his directions. I left General Lee only after the line had stretched out on the march, and rode along with Hood’s division, which was in the rear. The march was necessarily slow, the conductor frequently encountering points that exposed the troops to the view of the signal station on Round Top. At length the column halted.
“After waiting some time, supposing that it would soon move forward, I sent to the front to inquire the occasion of the delay. It was reported that the column was awaiting the movements of Captain Johnston, who was trying to lead it by some route by which it could pursue its march without falling under view of the Federal signal station. Looking up towards Round Top, I saw that the signal station was in full view, and, as we could plainly see this station, it was apparent that our heavy columns were seen from their position and that further efforts to conceal ourselves would be a waste of time.
“I became very impatient at this delay, and determined to take upon myself the responsibility of hurrying the troops forward. I did not order General McLaws forward because, as the head of the column, he had direct orders from General Lee to follow the conduct of Colonel Johnston. Therefore I sent orders to Hood, who was in the rear and not encumbered by these instructions, to push his division forward by the most direct route so as to take position on my right. He did so, and thus broke up the delay. The troops were rapidly thrown into position and preparations were made for the attack.
“We had learned on the night of the 1st, from some prisoners captured near Seminary Ridge, that the First, Eleventh, and Third Corps had arrived by the Emmitsburg road and had taken position on the heights in front of us, and that reinforcements had been seen coming by the Baltimore road just after the fight of the 1st. From an intercepted despatch we learned that another corps was in camp about four miles from the field. We had every reason, therefore, to believe that the Federals were prepared to renew the battle. Our army was stretched in an elliptical curve, reaching from the front of Round Top around Seminary Ridge, and enveloping Cemetery Heights on the left; thus covering a space of four or five miles. The enemy occupied the high ground in front of us, being massed within a curve of about two miles, nearly concentric with the curve described by our forces. His line was about fourteen hundred yards from ours. Any one will see that the proposition for this inferior force to assault and drive out the masses of troops upon the heights was a very problematical one. My orders from General Lee were ‘to envelop the enemy’s left and begin the attack there, following up as near as possible the direction of the Emmitsburg road.’
“My corps occupied our right, with Hood on the extreme right and McLaws next. Hill’s corps was next to mine, in front of the Federal centre, and Ewell was on our extreme left. My corps, with Pickett’s division absent, numbered hardly thirteen thousand men. I realized that the fight was to be a fearful one; but being assured that my flank would be protected by the brigades of Wilcox, Perry, Wright, Posey, and Mahone, moving en echelon, and that Ewell was to co-operate by a direct attack on the enemy’s right, and Hill to threaten his centre and attack if opportunity offered, and thus prevent reinforcements from being launched either against myself or Ewell, it seemed that we might possibly dislodge the great army in front of us.”
CHAPTER VI
PENDLETON’S REPORT
“Pendleton’s report will destroy many illusions of Lee’s misguided friends who are unwittingly doing deadly injury to his military fame by magnifying the mistakes of Gettysburg and ascribing them to another.”—Leslie J. Perry, formerly of the War Records Department.
There is even more positive proof than has yet been produced. That Lee gave no such order as described in Pendleton’s Lexington lecture, or for an “early attack,” as asserted by Gordon now, is absolutely proved by an official report of Gettysburg, penned by General Pendleton himself. That Pendleton was an oral falsifier of history is established by his own hand, under date of September 12, 1863, only nine weeks after the battle.
Confident in his own rectitude of purpose and conduct, and far from being an expert controversialist, for he was without guile himself, it is not at all singular that the significance of Pendleton’s report in connection with the Lexington story should for years have entirely escaped General Longstreet’s notice. He knew that the document was printed in its sequence in the Gettysburg volumes of the War Records, and for certain purposes had even quoted from it regarding other questions. He was also fully aware that General Pendleton had long been distinguished for the unreliability of his memory. Nevertheless General Longstreet had never analyzed the report to the extent of observing that it made ridiculous the reverend gentleman’s version of 1873.
It is most striking that the extraordinary tenor of this old Pendletonian exhumation of the War Records office in Washington should so long have passed entirely unnoticed by everybody, despite the researches of the most industrious. It remained for Mr. Leslie J. Perry, one of the historical experts then in charge of the government publication of the Union and Confederate records of the Civil War, to point out some nine years ago how glaringly the Pendleton report of 1863 stultified the Pendleton story of 1873.
The immediate result of the exploitation of the Pendleton report was the elimination of the sunrise story from the repertory of the anti-Longstreet crusaders. In the subsequent literature of the subject a decided change of tone regarding other allegations was soon perceived, more favorable to Longstreet. General Longstreet was astounded by this bald disclosure of his old military associate’s tergiversation, to call it nothing worse. For a time after the appearance of the Lexington story, he had charitably presumed that, in an excess of zeal to protect General Lee’s military fame, Pendleton might really have harbored in good faith the belief that his Lexington statements were true. But after reading the detailed analysis of the Pendleton report, and carefully studying the report itself, General Longstreet speedily arrived at the conclusion that he was the victim of a deliberate conspiracy. It is not strange that he found it hard to forgive the conspirators, even after becoming fully aware that the world was practically convinced that he had been cruelly misrepresented.
Let us see how “fairly” Pendleton stated the case against General Longstreet in his Lexington lecture. His official reportE of Gettysburg was written only about sixty days after the battle. It was dated September 12, 1863. It is a detailed report of the operations of the Confederate artillery in the Pennsylvania campaign, embodying a minute description of General Pendleton’s personal movements on that day. That is its only value to this discussion. The paragraphs having a bearing upon the time of Longstreet’s attack are as follows:
“From the farthest occupied point on the right and front, in company with Colonels Long and Walker and Captain Johnston (engineer), soon after sunrise I surveyed the enemy’s position towards some estimate of the ground and best mode of attack. So far as judgment could be formed from such a view, assault on the enemy’s left by our extreme right might succeed, should the mountain there offer no insuperable obstacle. The attack on that side, if practicable, I understood to be the purpose of the commanding general.
“Returning from this position more to the right and rear, for the sake of tracing more exactly the mode of approach, I proceeded some distance along the ravine road noticed the previous evening, and was made aware of having entered the enemy’s lines by meeting two armed dismounted cavalrymen. Apparently surprised, they immediately surrendered, and were disarmed and sent to the rear.
“Having satisfied myself of the course and character of this road, I returned to an elevated point on the Fairfield road, which furnished a very extensive view, and despatched messengers to General Longstreet and the commanding general. This front was, after some time, examined by Colonel Smith and Captain Johnston (engineers), and about midday General Longstreet arrived and viewed the ground. He desired Colonel Alexander to obtain the best view he then could of the front. I therefore conducted the colonel to the advanced point of observation previously visited. Its approach was now more hazardous from the fire of the enemy’s sharp-shooters, so that special caution was necessary in making the desired observation. Just then a sharp contest occurred in the woods to the right and rear of this forward point. Anderson’s division, Third Corps, had moved up and was driving the enemy from these woods. These woods having thus been cleared of the enemy, some view of the ground beyond them, and much farther to the right than had yet been examined, seemed practicable. I therefore rode in that direction, and when about to enter the woods, met the commanding general en route himself to survey the ground.
“There being here still a good deal of sharp-shooting, the front had to be examined with caution.... Having noticed the field and the enemy’s batteries, etc., I returned to General Longstreet for the purpose of conducting his column to this point, and supervising, as might be necessary, the disposition of his artillery. He was advancing by the ravine road (as most out of view), time having already been lost in attempting another, which proved objectionable because exposed to observation. On learning the state of facts ahead, the general halted, and sent back to hasten his artillery. Members of my staff were also despatched to remedy, as far as practicable, the delay. Cabell’s, Alexander’s, and Henry’s battalions at length arrived, and the whole column moved towards the enemy’s left.... The enemy opened a furious cannonade, the course of which rendered necessary a change in the main artillery column. Cabell’s deflected to the left, while Alexander’s was mainly parked for a season, somewhat under cover, till it could advance to better purpose.... Soon after, at about 4 P.M., the general assault was made.”
Here is the whole of Pendleton’s celebrated report, so far as it bears upon the hour of Longstreet’s attack on the 2d of July. Nothing is omitted relating to the preliminary movements of Longstreet’s column of attack, or that in any manner modifies the tenor of the parts introduced.
CHAPTER VII
PENDLETON’S UNRELIABLE MEMORY
All the battle worthy the name for the Southern cause at Gettysburg on the 2d and 3d was made by Longstreet. The whole superstructure of the contentions against his honor as a soldier is based solely on the statements since the war, and since Lee’s death, of two or three obscure individuals. They are easily exploded by the records of the battles; they are corroborated by none.
When the Rev. Dr. Pendleton told that dramatic story to his breathless hearers at Lexington in 1873, under “pressure of imperative duty,” had he forgotten the tenor of his official report, made in 1863? The story as modified by the prior report forms the greatest anticlimax in all history. Several decisive facts are disclosed by this unbiassed report.
1. Instead of being dilatory and obstructive, Pendleton himself establishes that Longstreet was personally exerting himself to “hasten forward” the very artillery of which he, Pendleton, was the chief.
2. As late certainly as eleven o’clock, if not noon, General Lee and his staff-officers were still rambling all over a front six miles long, yet undetermined either as to the point or proper route of attack. According to both Pendleton and Venable, they did not begin this necessary preliminary survey until “about sunrise,” the specific hour at which General Lee on the night previous had already ordered Longstreet to begin his attack, as asserted by Pendleton at Lexington.
3. Not until Lee and Pendleton had devoted the entire forenoon to the examination of the ground, did Pendleton go to conduct Longstreet to the point of attack thereupon decided upon. Evidently Longstreet was not delaying action; he was awaiting their motions.
The following general conclusions upon the state of facts disclosed by Pendleton’s remarkable report are therefore inevitable and unavoidable.
1. At sunrise of the 2d, General Lee himself did not know where to attack. He did not know as late as ten or eleven o’clock. His mind was not fully made up until after he came back from Ewell’s front (about nine o’clock, according to all authorities), and had made the final examination on the right. General Longstreet says he received his orders to move about eleven o’clock, and this corresponds with Pendleton’s report. But if anything, it was later, rather than earlier.
2. These painstaking, time-consuming reconnoissances of the commanding general and his staff-officers, the journey of Colonel Venable to Ewell, three miles to the left, and Lee’s later visit to Ewell, together with the unavoidable absence of General Longstreet’s troops until late in the morning, prove absolutely that Lee issued no order for Longstreet to attack at any specific hour on July 2.
3. Longstreet’s preliminary movements from start to finish were under the personal supervision of Lee’s confidential staff-officer, Pendleton, and the subordinate staff-officers. So Longstreet has positively stated, so has General McLaws, and both are confirmed by Pendleton’s report. The staff guide caused a loss of three hours by putting the head of McLaws’s column upon a wrong road. This compelled Longstreet to “hasten matters” by assuming personal direction of the movement, and pushing Hood’s division rapidly to the front past McLaws.
4. Pendleton’s official utterances make it an “established fact” that General Longstreet made his tremendous and successful attack on July 2 at the earliest moment possible after receiving Lee’s orders to advance, under the conditions imposed by Lee,—viz., to be conducted to the point of attack by Pendleton himself and the other staff-officers.
Thus the misapprehensions respecting Longstreet’s great part at Gettysburg were cleared away, and a better general understanding of what actually occurred was obtained from the Rev. Mr. Pendleton’s report of September 12, 1863. Few military students now hold that Longstreet was in the remotest degree culpable for Lee’s defeat. On the contrary, most of them severely criticise Lee’s operations from start to finish, particularly the hopeless assaults he persisted in making, and for the lack of concert. It is held generally now that the dreadful result fully justified Longstreet’s protests against attacking the Federals in that position, and that his suggestion of a turning movement was far more promising of success.
In all the circumstances it is not only entirely improbable, but the developed facts of the battle make it impossible that “General Lee died believing that he lost Gettysburg at last by Longstreet’s disobedience of orders.” Longstreet disobeyed no orders at Gettysburg, and Lee was well aware of the fact. General Gordon has simply reiterated the claque set up after Lee’s death by his fond admirers to shift the responsibility of defeat from his shoulders upon Longstreet. It was necessary to the success of that folly to make the world believe Lee always quietly held that view, and only imparted it in the strictest confidence to close friends like the ex-army chaplain, Rev. J. William Jones, and the Rev. William N. Pendleton.
The evidence is totally insufficient. Its gauzy character is fully exposed by the Pendleton report. But apocryphal after-war evidence of this kind was the only reliance of the conspirators. It is absolutely certain that there is no evidence of any such belief in any of Lee’s official utterances during the progress of the war, nor a hint of it in his private correspondence then or afterwards, so far as has been produced. The whole superstructure of the contention is based solely on the statements since the war, and since Lee’s death, of two or three obscure individuals. Pendleton’s Lexington yarn is an example. They are easily exploded by the records of the battle; they are corroborated by none. All the battle worthy the name for the Southern cause at Gettysburg on the 2d and 3d was made by Longstreet.
Another evidence of the falsehoods concerning Longstreet’s disobedience and Lee’s alleged belief is found in the relations of the two men. Their personal friendship continued after Gettysburg as it was before. It was of the closest and most cordial description. General Lee always manifested the highest regard for General Longstreet, and continued to manifest undiminished confidence in his military capacity, fighting qualities, and subordination. There is no manifestation of a withdrawal of that confidence after Gettysburg. I here cite a few illustrations of their relations after Gettysburg. Just after his corps was ordered to reinforce Bragg before Chattanooga, Longstreet wrote Lee from Richmond, where he had temporarily stopped on his journey to the new field:
“If I did not think our move a necessary one, my regrets at leaving you would be distressing to me.... Our affections for you are stronger, if it is possible for them to be stronger, than our admiration for you.”
After the battle of Chickamauga Lee wrote to Longstreet:
These letters, printed in the official records, were written less than ninety days after the battle of Gettysburg.
“I want you badly” does not indicate that Longstreet had ever failed General Lee. They are significant words, so soon after the event wherein Longstreet, by mere obstinacy and obduracy, had defeated his chief’s plans, if we may believe Gordon, Pendleton, and Jones. After the forlorn campaign in East Tennessee against overwhelming numbers, when General Longstreet was on his way back to the Army of Northern Virginia with his troops to aid in repelling Grant, Lee’s adjutant-general wrote him as follows at Gordonsville or Orange Court-House:
“Head-quarters Army of Northern Virginia,
“April 26, 1864.
“My dear General,—I have received your note of yesterday and have consulted the General about reviewing your command. He directs me to say that he has written to the President to know if he can visit and review the army this week, and until his reply is received, the General cannot say when he can visit you. He is anxious to see you, and it will give him much pleasure to meet you and your corps once more. He hopes soon to be able to do this, and I will give you due notice when he can come. I really am beside myself, General, with joy of having you back. It is like the reunion of a family.
“Truly and respectfully yours,
“W. H. Taylor, A.A.G.
“To General Longstreet.”
After the war was over and the Southern cause lost, there are warm letters from General Lee, written before Longstreet had accepted appointment at the hands of a Republican President. A few months after the surrender General Lee wrote:
Lexington Va: 19 Jan ’66
My dear Genl
Upon my return from Richmond, where I have been for a week, on business connected with Washington College, I found your letter of the 26th ulto. I regret very much that you never recd my first letter, as you might then perhaps have given me the information I desired, with more ease to yourself, & with more expedition than now. I did not know how to address it, but sent it to a friend in Richmond, who gave it to one of our officers going south, who transferred it to another etc., & after travelling many weary miles, has been recently returned to me. I start it again in pursuit of you, though you did not tell me how to address you. I have almost forgotten what it contained, but I hope it will inform you of my purpose in writing a history of the campaigns in Viga, & of the object that I have in view so that you may give me all the information in your power. I shall be in no hurry in publishing, & will not do so, until I feel satisfied that I have got the true story, as my only object is to disseminate the truth. I am very sorry to hear that your records were destroyed too, but I hope Sorrel & Latrobe will be able to supply you with all you require. I wish to relate the acts of all the corps of the Army of N. Va. wherever they did duty, & do not wish to omit so important a one as yours. I will therefore wait as long as I can.
I shall be very glad to receive anything you may give to Mr Washington McLean, as I know you recommend no one but those who deserve your good opinion.
I am delighted to hear that your arm is still improving & hope it will soon be restored. You are however becoming so accomplished with your left hand, as not to need it. You must remember me very kindly to Mrs. Longstreet & all your children. I have not had an opportunity yet to return the compliment she paid me. I had while in Richmond a great many inquiries after you, & learned that you intended commencing business in New Orleans. If you become as good a merchant as you were a soldier I shall be content. No one will then excel you, & no one can wish you more success & more happiness than I. My interest & affection for you will never cease, & my prayers are always offered for your prosperity—
I am most truly yours
R E Lee
“If you become as good a merchant as you were a soldier I shall be content. No one will then excel you, and no one can wish you more success and more happiness than I. My interest and affection for you will never cease, and my prayers are always offered for your prosperity.” Strange words from the commander to the subordinate whose disobedience at Gettysburg, according to Rev. Dr. Pendleton and others, led the way to Appomattox.
While General Longstreet held General Lee to be a great strategist, he thought him to be less able as an offensive battle tactician. Those views are shared by many other military officers, who have of late given free expression to them. The Gettysburg controversies, followed by such criticisms, led to the belief that Longstreet was the open enemy of Lee’s fame, and lost no opportunity to maliciously decry his military ability. But this is a mistake. General Longstreet’s intimate friends know that he has always born for General Lee the most profound love and respect, both as a man and as a commander. His views of Lee’s military capacity are discriminating and just, and they are probably correct. Longstreet saw things military with a practical eye. A fine professional soldier himself, who had taken hard knocks on many great fields, he clearly discerned General Lee’s incomparable attributes as a commander, and was never loath to praise them. He also knew Lee’s weaknesses, and has sometimes spoken of them, but never in malice or contemptuously. Those who read his utterances in that sense are very narrow indeed. He has never, like the mass of Southerners, looked upon Lee as infallible, yet in one particular Longstreet has held him to be one of the very greatest of commanders.
As an example of General Longstreet’s estimate of Lee’s professional place in history, one of his interviews when on a visit to the Antietam battle-field, published a few years ago, is quoted: “General Lee, as a rule, did not underestimate his opponents or the fighting qualities of the Federal troops. But after Chancellorsville he came to have unlimited confidence in his own army, and undoubtedly exaggerated its capacity to overcome obstacles, to march, to fight, to bear up under deprivations and exhaustion. It was a dangerous confidence. I think every officer who served under him will unhesitatingly agree with me on this point.”
In answer to a question as to which he regarded as Lee’s best battle: “Well, perhaps the second battle of Manassas was, all things considered, the best tactical battle General Lee ever fought. The grand strategy of the campaign was also fine, and seems to have completely deceived General Pope. Indeed, Pope failed to comprehend Lee’s purpose from start to finish. Pope was outgeneralled and outclassed by Lee, and through improper dispositions his fine army was out-fought. Still, it will not do to underrate Pope; he was an enterprising soldier and a fighter.”
General Longstreet, in the interview at Antietam, summed up Lee’s characteristics as a commander in the following succinct manner: “General Lee was a large-minded man, of great and profound learning in the science of war. In all strategical movements he handled a great army with comprehensive ability and signal success. His campaigns against McClellan and Pope fully illustrate his capacity. On the defensive General Lee was absolutely perfect. Reconciled to the single purpose of defence, he was invincible. But of the art of war, more particularly that of giving offensive battle, I do not think General Lee was a master. In science and military learning he was greatly the superior of General Grant, or any other commander on either side. But in the art of war I have no doubt that Grant and several other officers were his equals. In the field his characteristic fault was headlong combativeness. His impatience to strike, once in the presence of the enemy, whatever the disparity of forces or relative conditions, I consider the one weakness of General Lee’s military character. This trait of aggressiveness led him to take too many chances—into dangerous situations. At Gettysburg, all the vast interests at stake and the improbability of success would not deter him. In the immediate presence of the enemy General Lee’s mind, at all other times calm and clear, became excited. The same may be said of most other highly educated, theoretical soldiers. General Lee had the absolute confidence of his own troops, and the most unquestioning support of his subordinates. He was wholesomely feared by the Federal rank and file, who undoubtedly considered him the easy superior of their own generals. These were tremendous advantages.”
It is very difficult to detect malice or hatred in these calm and dispassionate conclusions.
It is most probable that General Longstreet would have never written or uttered one word concerning Gettysburg had it not been for the attempt of wordy soldiers to specifically fix upon him the whole burden of that battle, their rashness carrying them so far as to lead them to put false orders in the mouth of the great captain, and charge Longstreet with having broken them. To disprove these untrue assertions, and to give the world the truth concerning the battle, then became what General Longstreet considered an imperative duty. He has always regretted deeply that this discussion was not opened before the death of General Lee. If the charges so vehemently urged had been preferred or even suggested in Lee’s lifetime, Longstreet does not believe they would have needed any reply from him. General Lee would have answered them himself and set history right.
But after all, Longstreet does not fear the verdict of history on Gettysburg. He holds that time sets all things right. Error lives but a day—truth is eternal.
CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL LONGSTREET’S AMERICANISM
“The strongest laws are those established by the sword. The ideas that divided political parties before the war—upon the rights of the States—were thoroughly discussed by our wisest statesmen, and eventually appealed to the arbitrament of the sword. The decision was in favor of the North, so that her construction becomes the law, and should be so accepted.”—General Longstreet in “From Manassas to Appomattox.”
It seems advisable here to introduce General Longstreet’s personal version of the animus of the after-the-war criticism of his operations on the field of Gettysburg, taken from his war history, “From Manassas to Appomattox:”
“As the whole animus of the latter-day adverse criticisms upon, and uncritical assertions in regard to, the commander of the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia had its origin in this matter of politics, a brief review of the circumstances is in order.
“As will be readily recalled by my older readers (while for the younger it is a matter of history), President Johnson, after the war, adopted a reconstruction policy of his own, and some of the States were reorganized under it with Democratic governors and legislatures, and all would have followed. But Congress, being largely Republican, was not satisfied, and enacted that the States could not be accepted unless they provided in their new constitutions for negro suffrage. In case they would not, the State governments should be removed and the States placed in the hands of general officers of the army as military governors, who should see that the States were reorganized and restored to the Union under the laws.
“Under the severe ordeal one of the city papers of New Orleans called upon the generals of Confederate service to advise the people of the course that they should pursue,—naming the officers. I thought it better policy to hold the States, as they were organized, under the President’s policy, shape their constitutions as directed by Congress, and have the States not yet reorganized follow the same course. My letter upon the subject was as follows:
“‘New Orleans, La., June 3, 1867.
“‘J. M. G. Parker, Esq.:
“‘Dear Sir,—Your esteemed favor of the 15th ultimo was duly received.
“‘I was much pleased to have the opportunity to hear Senator Wilson, and was agreeably surprised to meet such fairness and frankness from a politician whom I had been taught to believe harsh in his feelings towards the people of the South.
“‘I have considered your suggestion to wisely unite in efforts to restore Louisiana to her former position in the Union, “through the party now in power.” My letter of the 6th of April, to which you refer, clearly indicates a desire for practical reconstruction and reconciliation. There is only one route left open, which practical men cannot fail to see.
“‘The serious difficulty arises from want of that wisdom so important for the great work in hand. Still, I will be happy to work in any harness that promises relief to our discomfited people and harmony to the nation, whether bearing the mantle of Mr. Davis or Mr. Sumner.
“‘It is fair to assume that the strongest laws are those established by the sword. The ideas that divided political parties before the war—upon the rights of the States—were thoroughly discussed by our wisest statesmen, and eventually appealed to the arbitrament of the sword. The decision was in favor of the North, so that her construction becomes the law, and should be so accepted.
“‘The military bill and amendments are the only peace-offerings they have for us, and should be accepted as the starting-point for future issues.
“‘Like others of the South not previously connected with politics, I naturally acquiesced in the ways of Democracy, but, so far as I can judge, there is nothing tangible in them, beyond the issues that were put to test in the war and there lost. As there is nothing left to take hold of except prejudice, which cannot be worked for good for any one, it seems proper and right that we should seek some standing which may encourage hope for the future.
“‘If I appreciate the issues of Democracy at this moment, they are the enfranchisement of the negro and the rights of Congress in the premises, but the acts have been passed, are parts of the laws of the land, and no power but Congress can remove them.
“‘Besides, if we now accept the doctrine that the States only can legislate on suffrage, we will fix the negro vote upon us, for he is now a suffragan, and his vote, with the vote that will go with him, will hold to his rights, while, by recognizing the acts of Congress, we may, after a fair trial, if negro suffrage proves a mistake, appeal and have Congress correct the error. It will accord better with wise policy to insist that the negro shall vote in the Northern as well as the Southern States.
“‘If every one will meet the crisis with proper appreciation of our condition and obligations, the sun will rise to-morrow on a happy people. Our fields will again begin to yield their increase, our railways and water will teem with abundant commerce, our towns and cities will resound with the tumult of trade, and we will be reinvigorated by the blessings of Almighty God.
“‘Very respectfully yours,
“‘James Longstreet.’
“I might have added that not less forceful than the grounds I gave were the obligations under which we were placed by the terms of our paroles,—‘To respect the laws of Congress,’—but the letter was enough.
“The afternoon of the day upon which my letter was published the paper that had called for advice published a column of editorial calling me traitor! deserter of my friends! and accusing me of joining the enemy! but did not publish a line of the letter upon which it based the charges! Other papers of the Democracy took up the garbled representation of this journal and spread it broadcast, not even giving the letter upon which they based their evil attacks upon me.
“Up to that time the First Corps, in all of its parts, in all of its history, was above reproach. I was in successful business in New Orleans as cotton factor, with a salary from an insurance company of five thousand dollars per year.
“The day after the announcement old comrades passed me on the streets without speaking. Business began to grow dull. General Hood (the only one of my old comrades who occasionally visited me) thought that he could save the insurance business, and in a few weeks I found myself at leisure.
“Two years after that period, on March 4, 1869, General Grant was inaugurated President of the United States, and in the bigness of his generous heart called me to Washington. Before I found opportunity to see him he sent my name to the Senate for confirmation as surveyor of customs at New Orleans. I was duly confirmed, and held the office until 1873, when I resigned. Since that time I have lived in New Orleans, Louisiana, and in Gainesville, Georgia, surrounded by a few of my old friends, and in occasional appreciative touch with others, South and North.”
CHAPTER IX
FINALE
Mr. Valiant summoned. His will. His last words.
Then, said he, “I am going to my Father’s.... My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it.” ... And as he went down deeper, he said, “Grave, where is thy victory?”
So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.—Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress.”
The personal letters and official reports of Robert E. Lee, reproduced in this work, clearly established that from Gettysburg to Appomattox Longstreet continued to be Lee’s most trusted Lieutenant; their mutual affection and admiration had no diminution.
The official reports of Lee and Pendleton herein given make it clear as noonday that Longstreet disobeyed no orders of his chief at Gettysburg, and was at no time “slow” or “obstructive” on that great field.
The man who, under the weight of official evidence massed in this little story, can still raise his voice to assert that “Longstreet was slow and balky” at Gettysburg, takes direct issue with the official reports of Robert E. Lee and the Rev. Mr. Pendleton, and his becomes a quarrel with the war records.
Longstreet had unhesitatingly thrown up his commission in the old army and joined the Southern cause at the very outset. He was a chief participant in the first and last great scenes of the drama in Virginia. He had copiously shed his blood for the South. The sum of General Longstreet’s offending was,—
1. When the war was over he placed himself on the high plane of American citizenship, where all patriots now stand. He accepted office at the hands of a Republican President (pardonable offence in this good day); these were crimes which the temper of the South could not condone some forty years ago.
2. He had protested against wrecking the Confederate cause on the rocks of Cemetery Hill. In sheer self-defence he was compelled to recapitulate in plainest terms General Lee’s tactical mistakes and their fatal consequences. To many that was a crime never to be forgiven. Yet at the time and on the spot General Lee was morally brave enough to place the blame where it belonged,—on his own shoulders. Lee never sought a scape-goat for the mistakes of Gettysburg.
This is the story, short enough for the busy; clear and straight enough for the young. It is the story of sentiment as well as reverence and admiration, growing up from childhood, of him who led the forlorn hope at Gettysburg.
But behind the sentiment is the unassailable truth. It is undeniably the story of the records, of the events exactly as they occurred. It is fully corroborated by all the probabilities; in no part disputed by one. It is the story told by General Longstreet himself, and nobody familiar with his open character and candid manner of discussing its various phases can doubt for one instant that he tells the details of Gettysburg exactly as they occurred, in so far as his personal part was concerned.
Of him I would say, as his sun slants towards the west and the evening hours draw near, that his unmatched courage to meet the enemies of the peace time outshines the valor of the fields whereon his blood was shed so copiously in the cause of his country. I would tell him that his detractors are not the South; they are not the Democratic party; they represent nobody and nothing but the blindness of passion that desires not light. I would tell him that the great, loyal South loves him to-day as in the old days when he sacrificed on her altars a career in the army of the nation; when the thunder of his guns was heard around the world and the earth shook beneath the tread of his soldiers.
And as he journeys down to the Valley of Silence, the true sentiment of the generous South that he loves so well is voiced by Hon. John Temple Graves, in the Atlanta, Georgia, News:
“As there walks ‘thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore of that vast ocean he must sail so soon,’ one of the last of the great figures that moved colossal upon the tragic stage of the Civil War,—Longstreet, the grim and tenacious, the bulldog of war whose grip never relaxed, whose guns never ceased to thunder,—as the eye grows dim that blazed like lightning over so many stormy fields, let the noble woman who bears his name read to her heroic soldier the message that the South of the present, the not ignoble offspring of the past, compasses the couch of Longstreet with love, and covers his fading years with unfading admiration and unforgetting tenderness.”
Washington, D. C., December, 1903.
LONGSTREET THE MAN
HIS BOYHOOD DAYS
The original plan of this little work was to publish only the short story of Gettysburg which was written while General Longstreet lived. My friends have insisted that the generous public, although it has received the prospectus of the work with such warm appreciation, will be disappointed if I discuss only the one event of his most eventful life. And so have been added the paper on the Mexican War and chapters on his famous campaigns of the Civil War.
They have insisted further that I must speak of Longstreet the man. I have replied that I could not. My heart is sore. I cannot forget that he poured out his heroic blood in defence of the Southern people, and when there was not a flag left for him to fight for many of them turned against him and persecuted him with a bitterness that saddened his last years. They undertook to rob him of the glories of his many peerless campaigns; to convict him of treason to his cause on the field of battle. And when he lay dead, forty years after his world-famous victories, perhaps from an opening of the old wound received at the Wilderness, a Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy of the State beneath whose sod rests his valiant dust, refused to send flowers to his grave, because, they said, he disobeyed orders at Gettysburg. And a Southern Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans refused, for the same alleged reason, to send a message of sympathy to his family. If I should now undertake to write about him I might speak of such things as these with bitterness; and I must not so speak, because I am a Southern woman, and the Southern people—my people—must forever be to me as they were to him, “dear as the ruddy drops about his heart.”
I must not write about him until I can write bravely, sweetly, cheerfully, and in this hour it is, perhaps, more than my human nature can do. And I cannot take the public into my confidence about the man I loved. The subject is too sacred. But my friends demand at least one page on the man as I knew him, that the South at last—the dear South that I love with all my heart—may know him and love him as I did.
And so I undertake to string together disjointedly a few incidents of a life that was lived upon high levels, brave and blameless, and that the days give back to me a glorified memory, coupled with a great thankfulness that I had a small part in it.
From my childhood he had been the fine embodiment of my ideals of chivalry and courage. The sorrows of his later years aroused all the tender pity of my heart. His wounds and sufferings enveloped him with poetic interest. He was fighting the battles of my country before I was born. The blood of my ancestors had dyed the brilliant fields whereon he led. He was ever the hero of my young dreams; and throughout a long and checkered career always to me a figure of matchless splendor and gallantry.
His life was set to serious work. His father died before he was old enough to understand the meaning of a father’s care. He had but little schooling before he went to West Point as cadet of the Military Academy. From West Point he went into service in the Mexican War, and was in every battle, save one, of the war that gave to us an empire in wealth and territory; winning promotions for gallantry on the field. After the Mexican War he saw long service on the Western frontier. He entered the Civil War of 1861–65, and the greatest Confederate victories of that greatest war of civilized times are inscribed upon his battle-flags. The glories of Manassas, Williamsburg, Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, the East Tennessee campaigns, the Wilderness, the campaigns about Richmond, and the last desperate struggles on the way to Appomattox, gather about his name.
After the Civil War came the most trying period of his life,—the dark days of reconstruction, the fierce dissensions between the sections, and between those holding different views in the same section, the hot feeling and prejudices of the time, the struggle to repair the ruined fortunes of war. When he was finally gathered to his fathers, at the ripe old age of eighty-three, he was still in harness, holding the position under the government of United States Commissioner of Railroads.
This busy, exciting, and strenuous life was calculated to develop in him the qualities of the soldier, the man of affairs, the blood and iron of nature rather than her gentler qualities. Nevertheless, his heart was as tender as a woman’s, the sentiment and romance of his being never ceased to be exerted, and he exhibited to the last a tenderness of feeling and thoughtfulness regarding others which were in singular and beautiful contrast to the main currents of his life. This, I think, will appear without any special effort to show it as this sketch goes on.
General Longstreet was born in Edgefield District, South Carolina, January 8, 1821. His early years were spent in the country. His father was a planter. Natural to him was all the vigor and fire of that heroic section, and still there was in him a coolness, conservatism, and iron will tempered by justice and fair judgment embracing the best of his Dutch ancestry. His ancestors on this side of the water were chiefly the Dents, Marshalls, and Randolphs, of Virginia. On the maternal side, his grandfather, Marshall Dent, traced his line back to the Conqueror. His mother was Mary Ann Dent, of the family that furnished the lady who became famous as the wife of the soldier-President, Grant. His father was James Longstreet. His grandfather on his father’s side was William Longstreet.
It is interesting here to note that this William Longstreet was the inventor of the steamboat. He discovered the principle in a series of experiments about the kitchen and the mills, and after much care and trouble he was able to apply the principle. He made a rather pudgy steamboat, rigged it up with all necessary equipment, and successfully ran it for some miles up and down the Savannah River. He did not have the means to develop it to such extent as to demonstrate to the world its possibilities. Fully appreciating the importance of the invention, he appealed to Governor Telfair, the then governor of Georgia, for aid. Very naturally, the aid was refused him, for that was a day of scepticism regarding new-fangled things. He was made sport of by the people around, and called “Billy Boy,” the dreamer, and made the subject of doggerel poetry. As an authentic part of the story, I give here the letter which he wrote to Governor Telfair, which is still preserved in the State archives of Georgia:
“Augusta, Georgia, September 26, 1790.
“Sir,—I make no doubt but you have often heard of my steamboat, and as often heard it laughed at, but in this I have only shared the fate of other projectors, for it has uniformly been the custom of every country to ridicule the greatest inventions until they had proved their utility. In not reducing my scheme to active use it has been unfortunate for me, I confess, and perhaps the people in general; but, until very lately, I did not think that artists or material could be had in the place sufficient. However, necessity, that grand mother of invention, has furnished me with an idea of perfecting my plan almost entirely of wooden material, and by such workmen as may be had here; and, from a thorough confidence of its success, I have presumed to ask your assistance and patronage. Should it succeed agreeably to my expectations, I hope I shall discover that sense of duty which such favors always merit; and should it not succeed, your reward must lay with other unlucky adventures.
“For me to mention all of the advantages arising from such a machine would be tedious, and, indeed, quite unnecessary. Therefore I have taken the liberty to state, in this plain and humble manner, my wish and opinion, which I hope you will excuse, and I shall remain, either with or without your approbation,
“Your Excellency’s most obedient and humble servant,
“Wm. Longstreet.
“Governor Telfair.”
Some time afterwards Robert Fulton took up and developed the idea. At first he, too, was laughed at and discredited fully as much as was William Longstreet; but he finally succeeded in enlisting the patronage of Gouverneur Morris, a rich New Yorker, and the success of the steamboat, with all its tremendous meaning to civilization, was the result.
His father having died when he was but twelve years old, General Longstreet’s mother moved shortly afterwards to Augusta, Georgia, where she resided a few years, after which she moved to Alabama. The education of young Longstreet was then intrusted to his uncle, Judge A. B. Longstreet, for many years president of Emory College, at Oxford, Georgia, and one of the most illustrious presidents of that famous old college. Judge Longstreet was noted as lawyer, judge, educator, and writer. He is a very poorly read Georgian, a rather poorly read Southerner, who has not enjoyed and talked to his friends about that book of wonderful naturalness, humor, and human philosophy, “Georgia Scenes.” The author of this book was Judge A. B. Longstreet. In later years its authorship has been often erroneously credited to General Longstreet.
Entirely immersed in his college duties, Judge Longstreet had but little time to give to his youthful nephew. Of those early days, it is only known that the boy was not much of a student; that the massive old oaks of Oxford appealed to him more than the school-room; that fishing in the streams around and chasing rabbits over the fields formed his dearest enjoyment. In his habits and feeling he was then and always near to nature. The flash of the lightning in mid-heaven interested him more than the Voltaic sparks of the lecture-room. He was mischievous, full of fun and frolic, but beneath all that he was almost from babyhood planning for a larger career in the outside world and longing to be a soldier and fight his country’s battles. The books that he loved most told of Alexander and Cæsar, of Napoleon and his marshals, of George Washington and the Revolution. He wanted to do things, not to study about them.
He received his West Point appointment through a relative in Alabama, who was a member of Congress. The appointment came naturally from Alabama, because his mother was living there. He went to West Point at the age of sixteen. This was one of the proudest days of his life; it was the beginning of the fulfilment of his dreams; he had not an idea that any human agency could turn him from the soldier course in which he was directed, or could delay him for an instant. And yet, while he was in New York City arranging for the change from the cars to the Hudson River boat, he was approached by two little boys of guileless appearance, who told him that their father had recently died away down in South Carolina, that they had no money, that their mother had no money, that they just must get to their dead father, and wouldn’t he help them out. With a tenderness of heart characteristic of him then and always, he was about to open to them his purse and take the chances of never reaching West Point, when a policeman who had observed the performance approached and prevented the innocent embryo soldier from being fleeced by the youthful bunco steerers of the city.
Arriving at West Point, he proudly went to the hotel to register and take a room, and was much chagrined upon being told by the proprietor that they didn’t “take in kids.” He was directed to the cadets’ quarters, and his first humiliation there was the further discovery that instead of being waited on as a dignified soldier should be by half a dozen servants, he had to keep his own room, make his own bed, black his own boots.
His thoughts of war had been associated with fierce fighting, the killing of many enemies, the capturing of many prisoners. His preconceived idea of a prisoner was gained while a small boy in Alabama. He had heard that a prisoner was down at the station, and ran there full of expectancy to see what a “prisoner” was like. He discovered a big buck negro, black as midnight, large as two ordinary men, with countenance ferocious. His first West Point assignment which gave promise of the heroic was to guard a “prisoner.” He was given a gun for the purpose. The figure of the Alabama darky came to his mind, and he wondered if the gun were big enough to kill him in case that should be necessary. Examining it, he discovered, alas! that it was not even loaded. Sent to guard a terrible prisoner with an unloaded gun! When he got to the place of service he was relieved, surprised, and equally disgusted by the discovery that the prisoner was a fellow-student who had broken the rules—a poor little weakly, cadaverous fellow, whom he could pick up and throw into the Hudson without half trying.
As a West Point cadet, so far as the drilling, the field practice, the athletics, all the out-door work was concerned, he sustained himself well. He was very large, very strong, well proportioned. He had dark-brown hair, blue eyes, features that might have served for a Grecian model. He was six feet two inches tall, of soldierly bearing, and was voted the handsomest cadet at West Point. As a student of books, however, he was not a success. They seemed to contain so much that did not properly belong to the life of a soldier that he could not become interested enough in them to learn them. In his third year he failed in mechanics, and did not “rise” until given a second trial. In scholarship, he always ranked much closer to the foot than to the head of his class. He was just a little better student than his friend, U. S. Grant, which was poor praise, indeed. But their after careers told a different story.
LIFE-LONG FRIENDSHIP OF GRANT AND LONGSTREET
I may be pardoned for digressing here to speak of the strong school-boy friendship which began at West Point between Grant and Longstreet and lasted throughout their lives. Grant was of the class after Longstreet, but somehow their silent serious natures were in spontaneous accord, and they became fast friends from their first meeting. That one was from the West and one from the South made no difference, just as later it made no difference in their feeling of personal affection that one led the army of the Union and the other the army of the Confederacy.
After their graduation at West Point they were both stationed at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis. The Dent family lived near by; Longstreet was a cousin. And he was particularly fond of his cousin Julia Dent! He took his friend Grant out to see her, and the result of the introduction was their marriage five years later. There was such a contrast between her tall cousin James and her short admirer, Ulysses, that her friends often joked her about “the little lieutenant with the big epaulettes.”
Grant and Longstreet went through the Mexican War together, and their boyhood friendship was indissolubly cemented by the associations of camp life on the Mexican border. Longstreet went in as a lieutenant and came out as a major. General Worth apologized, giving Longstreet’s youth as an excuse for not recommending him for higher promotion. Promotions in the army in those days were not so rapid as at the present time.
The first meeting of Grant and Longstreet during the Civil War was not a personal meeting; it was when they were leading opposing forces at the battle of the Wilderness. It is known to all students of our Civil War history that the Confederate forces led by Longstreet were getting all the better of it at the Wilderness and that the Union forces under Grant were being driven back, when Longstreet was shot down and carried from the field. He was leading his men, after his custom,—he never followed, never told them to go, but always bade them come. He was at this crucial point at the battle of the Wilderness far in advance of his men—so far in advance that they mistook him for the enemy and fired upon him. Shot through the shoulder and the throat, wounded nigh unto death, he was taken from the field. With this calamity discovered, the Confederates held up in their swift advance. The impression rapidly spread that Longstreet was killed. The surgeons and attendants who were bearing him to the rear called out to the soldiers and asked that the cry be sent down the lines: “Longstreet is not killed, he is only wounded.” The men who had seen him fall cried out, “They are fooling us; he is dead.” General Longstreet has said that he heard both cries; he knew he was not dead, but did not know how soon he might be; he had just strength enough left to lift his hat. For this purpose he exerted that strength, and waved his hat to his men that they might see that he still lived. But the genius of the battle of the Wilderness borne to the rear, even the ever dauntless Confederates could not follow up the advantage they had won.
The next meeting of these two personal friends and opposing generals was at Appomattox. In the beginning of that momentous conference General Lee called General Longstreet to him and asked him, in case honorable terms of surrender should not be offered, and in the ensuing developments it should be necessary for the Confederates to fight their way out, if he would stand by him. Longstreet replied that he would fight and die fighting.
General Longstreet often spoke of the details of the capitulation at Appomattox. He said that when he went into the conference-room, in the McLean residence, as one of the Confederate Commissioners, he was compelled to pass through the room occupied by General Grant as his head-quarters. He felt curious to know how General Grant would receive him. He had loved Grant as one of his closest boyhood friends, but times were much changed. Grant was victor, he was vanquished. He was therefore prepared to observe the rigid demeanor of those between whom ceremony only forces recognition. But immediately he entered the room Grant rose, approached him with a greater show of demonstration than ever in the olden days, and slapped him on the shoulder, exclaiming, “Well, Old Pete, can’t we get back to the good old days by playing a game of brag?” At West Point the nickname among the boys for General Longstreet was “Old Pete.” No one ever knew why, any more than they know why this or that college president is designated Peleg or Squeers.
It has often been related by General Longstreet and by others that General Lee went into the Appomattox conference dressed in full uniform, and making withal the best appearance that this most noble soldier in his dire defeat could make. General Grant, on the contrary, had not dressed up for the occasion. He wore his old fighting uniform, mud bespattered, evidencing no acquaintance even with a dusting-brush. The important part of that meeting, the splendid bearing of the conquered Confederates, the modest demeanor of the Union victors, and, above all, the noble generosity of Grant in refusing to accept the sword of Lee and in giving the fairest terms possible under the existing conditions,—these are known to all who have read United States history. When General Lee rode back to his head-quarters from this fateful conference, his half-starved, ragged, worn-out, worshipful followers saluted him from both sides of the road. Overcome with emotion, he dared not look directly into their faces. He held his hat in his hand and fixed his eyes straight between his horse’s ears. The parting at Appomattox between Lee and his officers was most kindly, affectionate, and touching in every instance. But when General Longstreet approached, General Lee threw his arms about him, and, locked in each other’s embrace, the two wept with a bitterness of regret that ordinary mortals can never understand.
Soon after the war General Longstreet visited Washington and was invited to be the guest of a Union officer. He protested against accepting the invitation, saying that it was too soon after the fighting. But the insistence was so cordial as to leave no excuse for refusal. Once under an officer’s roof, it became his pleasant duty to pay his respects to the commanding general, who was, of course, General Grant. Grant received him with all his old-time cordiality, and invited him to take supper at his house that evening, saying quickly, as enforcement of the invitation, that his wife would be anxious to see him. The evening was pleasantly spent, and upon taking his leave, General Grant walked to the gate with General Longstreet, where he said, “Now that it is all over, would you not like to have pardon?” General Longstreet replied, with a touch of Southern fire, that he was unaware of having done anything in need of pardon. General Grant replied that he had perhaps used the wrong word, as he was more of a soldier than a linguist; that he meant to ask if General Longstreet would like to have amnesty. General Longstreet answered that he was back in the Union, meant to live in the Union, was ready at that moment to fight for the Union, and would be happy if his old friend could place him in the way of restored citizenship. General Grant requested him to come again to his office the following morning, and said that in the mean time he would see the President and Secretary of War in General Longstreet’s behalf. In the morning he gave General Longstreet a letter to President Johnson full of warm interest and broad-mindedness characteristic of Grant, which is here reproduced:
“Head-quarters Armies of the United States,
Washington, D. C., November 7, 1865.
“His Excellency, A. Johnson,
“President:
“Knowing that General Longstreet, late of the army which was in rebellion against the authority of the United States, is in the city, and presuming that he intends asking executive clemency before leaving, I beg to say a word in his favor.
“General Longstreet comes under the third, fifth, and eighth exceptions made in your proclamation of the 29th of May, 1865. I believe I can safely say that there is nowhere among the exceptions a more honorable class of men than those embraced in the fifth and eighth of these, nor a class that will more faithfully observe any obligation which they may impose upon themselves. General Longstreet, in my opinion, stands high among this class. I have known him well for more than twenty-six years, first as cadet at West Point and afterwards as an officer of the army. For five years from my graduation we served together, a portion of the time in the same regiment. I speak of him, therefore, from actual personal acquaintance.
“In the late rebellion, I think, not one single charge was ever brought against General Longstreet for persecution of prisoners of war or of persons for their political opinions. If such charges were ever made, I never heard them. I have no hesitation, therefore, in recommending General Longstreet to your Excellency for pardon. I will further state that my opinion of him is such that I shall feel it as a personal favor to myself if this pardon is granted.
“Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
“U. S. Grant,
“Lieutenant-General.”
Armed with this letter, General Longstreet sought President Johnson. In the interview that followed the presentation of the letter the President was nervous, ill at ease, and somewhat resentful. He would not decide to grant the request, and he would not positively refuse. Finally, he asked General Longstreet to call again the following morning. At this next meeting he was still non-committal, and at length closed the interview by saying, “There are three men this Union will never forgive. They have given it too much trouble. They are Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and James Longstreet.” General Longstreet said, “Those who are forgiven much, love much, Mr. President.” Johnson answered, “You have high authority for that statement, General, but you cannot have amnesty.” It was shortly afterwards granted by act of Congress, General Longstreet’s name being added to a list of prominent Confederate officers by the especial request of Grant.
These incidents in the associations of Grant and Longstreet come in naturally in a paper of this kind. I always think of them together,—as chums at West Point; as comrades in the West and on the fields of Mexico; as opposing forces in the mightiest war the world has witnessed; and after that war was ended, as good friends again in the stronger nation.
President Johnson, who had started out with the plan of being generous to the South, and for some unknown reason departed from that policy, conceived the idea of having arrested and thrown into prison and tried for treason a number of the high officers of the Confederacy. He called for a Cabinet meeting to get an endorsement of this plan, and sent for General Grant to attend the meeting. He forcibly presented his reasons for the procedure, and asked for the opinions of those present. After much discussion there was general acquiescence by the Cabinet. “The silent man of destiny” was the last member of the conference to open his lips. He said, “I will resign my commission in the army before I will, as commanding general, sign a warrant for the arrest of any of these Confederate officers as long as they observe the honorable terms of surrender made to me.”
It would be easy to write a book about a statement like that, but the book when written would not be as good as the unadorned statement.
The illustrious Union general’s noble generosity to the conquered South is an old tale. But it is so beautiful that it bears repetition, and I love to repeat it. I have digressed from the main line of this paper to pay to General Longstreet’s boyhood friend the modest tribute of my admiration. From early childhood I reverenced Grant. I always regarded him as the greatest man, the greatest general, the greatest hero on the Union side. I have now a life-size steel-engraving of him that I secured when a girl. This was long before I knew much of that side of his life which has since most appealed to me. My admiration of him has been in every way strengthened by the stories General Longstreet told me of him, particularly the stories showing his generosity to his foes and his many private and official kindnesses to the widows and orphans of Confederate officers and privates. Of these stories I give one typical of many: When Grant was President, a widow of a Confederate officer applied for a post-office in a small Southern town. Hearing nothing of her application, she came to Washington to press it. She was unable to move the authorities at the Post-Office Department, and was about to go home in despair, when a friend suggested that it might be worth while for her to see the President. With much effort she summoned courage and appeared at the White House. The President received her in a most friendly manner, and after hearing her story took her application and wrote a brief but strong endorsement on the back of it. She hurried in triumph to the Post-Office Department. The official to whom she presented the application frowned and pondered over it for some time, and then wrote under the President’s endorsement: “This being a fourth-class office, the President does not have the appointing power.” The application was handed back to her, and she went away in deep distress, and was again preparing to return home, when another friend told her by all means to take the paper back to the President so that he might see how his endorsement had been received. She did so. The President wrote under the last endorsement: “While the President does not have the appointing power in this office, he has the appointment of the Postmaster-General,” and, summoning his secretary, directed him to accompany the lady to the Department and in person deliver her application to the Postmaster-General. It is needless to add that she received the commission before leaving the office.