Longstreet General James Longstreet

I think Longstreet's behavior at Gettysburg was lacking (for a general who I usually consider the best corps commander in the Confederacy, July 2 and early July 3 is "This is what we'd expect from Hill and Ewell"), but I think his record in general exceeds Stonewall's - at least as a corps commander, as opposed to independent command.

Given what Lee and the other two corps commanders didn't do on July 2, to fault Longstreet as if he cost Lee anything is grossly unfair, however.
 
No disrespect to Mr. Wert's scholarship, But I am not sure that I would quote him on Longstreet.

Wert has an excellent biography of Longstreet, but you wouldn't know it by the selective quotation carefully cherry picked out of context in an attempt to deceive people. I agree with him about July 2, though that's not the reason why the confederates lost the battle, which is what some might want you to believe.
 
Wert has an excellent biography of Longstreet, but you wouldn't know it by the selective quotation carefully cherry picked out of context in an attempt to deceive people. I agree with him about July 2, though that's not the reason why the confederates lost the battle, which is what some might want you to believe.
I have read Wert's book, Cash, and I really can't agree that it was excellent. I found it very hard to read and Wert never seemed be able to make up his own mind about what his opinion was about Longstreet. While I don't contest his scholarship, which was admirable, I was disappointed with his writing. Just my opinion.
 
I have read Wert's book, Cash, and I really can't agree that it was excellent. I found it very hard to read and Wert never seemed be able to make up his own mind about what his opinion was about Longstreet. While I don't contest his scholarship, which was admirable, I was disappointed with his writing. Just my opinion.

I think you had that impression because he criticized Longstreet where he felt criticism was deserved and praised him when praise was deserved. He never says Longstreet was good or bad, but he portrayed a complex soldier.
 
I have read Wert's book, Cash, and I really can't agree that it was excellent. I found it very hard to read and Wert never seemed be able to make up his own mind about what his opinion was about Longstreet. While I don't contest his scholarship, which was admirable, I was disappointed with his writing. Just my opinion.


Wert's book is more a study book but also has excellent footnotes. But your opinion is appreciated.
 
Certainly didn't help him win any popularity contests but I don't think that was the biggest reason. Mosby was another very famous ex confederate who was a republican.

As was William Mahone, but neither Mosby nor Mahone led a radical Republican militia against his own people during Reconstruction.
 
Happy belated Birthday General Longstreet. The bad rap you get from southerners now and is and was mostly and highly undeserved and very very sour grapes.
Untrue and misleading, JB. My views are taken from those that wrote the history and I don't appreciate the glossing over as so many do. But your opinion is noted.
 
Maybe Longstreet garners more dislike than others because he played the political game and could be fairly conniving (ie. trying to manoeuvre himself into command of the Army of Tennessee).
 
Maybe Longstreet garners more dislike than others because he played the political game and could be fairly conniving (ie. trying to manoeuvre himself into command of the Army of Tennessee).
Nailed it! That is part of it. His arguments with Lee were mostly my thoughts about him bordering on insubordination.
 
As Lee put it after Gettysburg, "It's all my fault." By the second day Longstreet seems to have known that the battle they were engaged in was in the wrong place in an attempt to achieve the wrong goal, and let Lee know it. That his army did not get into the assigned position until very late in the day was more of a constant condition of all Civil War battles. How many generals on either side had this charge levied against them at one time or another, including Lee? But in the aftermath of the war, Longstreet had the gall to resume public life as an American citizen. With fellow former Confederates, like Early casting about for reasons their ignoble cause was lost, Longstreet's less than wholehearted support of Lee's battle plan for the 2nd day at Gettysburg, and his desire to participate in the recovery of the nation's greatest political disaster, enabled them to portray him as the Confederacy's Benedict Arnold.
 
I think you had that impression because he criticized Longstreet where he felt criticism was deserved and praised him when praise was deserved. He never says Longstreet was good or bad, but he portrayed a complex soldier.
I agree with your statement in part and if I wanted to know what Longstreet was doing at a particular battle or in a particular year, then he is a great source. If I wanted an analysis of Longstreet as a general, I wouldn't pick Wert because I found that that was exactly what he did. It wasn't so much criticism and praise as condemnation and acclaim; this BAD - this was WONDERFUL. I found it grating and often confusing. The complexity and humanity of Longstreet as a person was lost. Again, just my opinion.
 
I'm not convinced that Longstreet deserves to be the one solely villified for what happened on July 2nd or that he purposely acted in a slow manner with his attack because Lee refused to allow him to 'end around' the east of Little Round Top. The necessity for the countermarch that Longstreet had to assume in launching the attack could have been prevented by Porter Alexander by his guiding the attack force over the route he had already taken to move his artillery so the confederate troop movements were not seen by the Federal signal station on LRT, but Alexander muffed that. After the countermarch Longstreet then found that Sickles advancement nullified the previously-made attack plans and he informed Lee, who should have then, in return, altered the plan for attack because the situation had changed. Lee's confidence that his army could do anything to carry the day even after the change in the Federal position possibly clouded his judgement-maybe he should have given more weight to Longstreet's advice that the attack sweep to the east of the Round Tops and roll up the Federal left (if that could have happened). All in all, I think it was a calamity of errors by several officers including Lee that led to history being made the way it was.
 
Back
Top