While most probably held Longstreet in "high esteem," they didn't necessarily think he was always right. Not all of them, anyway.
So much has been written about these two great heroes and the campaign in Pennsylvania that I am constrained to have a word, and I write from the standpoint of an humble private who wore the gray and carried a rifle.....And while I would not cast any reflections on the characters of Generals Lee and Longstreet as officers or patriots, I do think that the friends of both should be willing in all cases, when the evidence preponderates, to acknowledge each other's mistakes and assume or shoulder their responsibilities or shortcomings. I was in Longstreet's corps - was proud of him and revere his memory even today, and fought under him in all his great battles, some of which were the bloodiest and ghastliest that the world has ever witnessed. Followed him in all his campaigns in Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. And while his career as a separate commander was not so brilliant and fruitful of results, yet as Lee's right arm, as a corps commander, he was not excelled on either side. .....
Longstreet's friends who attempt to vindicate him do not analyze the movements of the troops on the second day at Gettysburg, but confine their defense mainly to the third day's fighting, criticizing Lee for his assault against the advice and counsel of Longstreet, ignoring the palpable fact that if Lee's orders had been faithfully carried out on the second day there would likely have been no necessity for any fighting on the third day. .....Longstreet was ordered to advance and attack early in the morning, at sunrise, on the second day. Could he have done so? We verily believe he could. McLaws' division lay encamped only four miles from the battlefield of the first day. Some other divisions about the same distance...
McLaws' division could have gone into position that night....and even when the march commenced that morning it was an awful slow one. Well do we remember how long we were halted time and again in some of those long, hot lanes through the plantations, how we had ample time to gather from the cherry trees....fences could have been let down and the short distance could have been made through the fields and woods in a very short space of time. One standing upon the towers now built upon the battlefield thinks he can almost see where Longstreet lay encamped that night and the winding highway leading therefrom to the battlefield. ....The route was not very circuitous, and if the movement had been made at the proper time (before sunrise) there would have been no necessity for it.
From the Atlanta newspaper Sunny South, Mar. 26, 1898, page 10.