Longstreet Longstreet Quote

[cash]

I came across this one last night, and the quotation is a new one for me:

"Eight years after the publication of Davis's memoir, white southerners founded the United Confederate Veterans (UCV). Appearing at a time when some districts continued to send black congressmen to Washington, the organization served to rally whites of all classes behind a sanitized view of the antebellum era and a critical appraisal of postwar reforms. Affiliated groups, such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), joined the UCV in hosting 'Confederate celebrations' and raising money for statuary. In 1892, the UCV created a committee designed to promote the 'proper' history of the era; the committee also compiled lists of recommended and condemned histories of the war. The UDC pored over textbooks and primers that 'slandered' the South by suggesting that Confederates had fought to preserve slavery, an effort that earned the scorn of General James Longstreet, who resided in Georgia until his death in 1904. 'Why not talk about witchcraft if slavery was not the cause of the war,' he marveled. 'I never heard of any other cause of the quarrel than slavery.' Longstreet's honesty made him unpopular among UCV leaders, who refused to invite him to veterans' reunions. (He sometimes went anyway, to the cheers of his men.)"

Douglas R. Egerton, The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era, pp. 326-327

 

[DRW]

I came across this one last night, and the quotation is a new one for me:

"Eight years after the publication of Davis's memoir, white southerners founded the United Confederate Veterans (UCV). Appearing at a time when some districts continued to send black congressmen to Washington, the organization served to rally whites of all classes behind a sanitized view of the antebellum era and a critical appraisal of postwar reforms. Affiliated groups, such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), joined the UCV in hosting 'Confederate celebrations' and raising money for statuary. In 1892, the UCV created a committee designed to promote the 'proper' history of the era; the committee also compiled lists of recommended and condemned histories of the war. The UDC pored over textbooks and primers that 'slandered' the South by suggesting that Confederates had fought to preserve slavery, an effort that earned the scorn of General James Longstreet, who resided in Georgia until his death in 1904. 'Why not talk about witchcraft if slavery was not the cause of the war,' he marveled. 'I never heard of any other cause of the quarrel than slavery.' Longstreet's honesty made him unpopular among UCV leaders, who refused to invite him to veterans' reunions. (He sometimes went anyway, to the cheers of his men.)"

Douglas R. Egerton, The Wars of Reconstruction: The Brief, Violent History of America's Most Progressive Era, pp. 326-327

I gave up on Egerton and returned it to the library after about 100 pages (found this book a big disappointment after the wonderful "Year of Meteors"). How does he source the JL quote and UDC disapproval?

 

[DR_Hanna]

Longstreet got a raw deal from his Southern partners in crime. Time has vindicated him. I am reading his memoir, "From Manassas to Appomattox" - it is a Gutenberg book.

 

[cash]

I gave up on Egerton and returned it to the library after 100 pages (found this book a big disappointment after the wonderful "Year of Meteors"). How does he source the JL quote and UDC disapproval?

The footnote encompasses a number of sources for claims, so I'll have to track dowm each one:

Gaines M. Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865-1913, 116-17
Thomas J. Brown, "Civil War Remembrance as Reconstruction," in Brown, ed., Reconstructions, 212-13
Stephen Budiansky, The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox, 269-70
Barbara Gannon, The Won Cause: Black and White Comradeship in the Grand Army of the Republic, 148
Janette Thomas Greenwood, First Fruits of Freedom: The Migration of Former Slaves and Their Search for Equality in Worcester, Massachusetts, 1862-1900, 146

Obviously he didn't use a primary source.

I found the book slow going at first as well, but it got better later on.

 

[1stMN]

Longstreet got a raw deal from his Southern partners in crime. Time has vindicated him. I am reading his memoir, "From Manassas to Appomattox" - it is a Gutenberg book.

I've enjoyed that read as well. Longstreet is one of my all time favorite commanders.

 

[jgoodguy]

Mosby said much the same.

 

[cash]

Stephen Budiansky, The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox pages 269-270 attributes the quote to John Mosby:

"If even the preservation of the Union was obscured in this haze of romance and armchair generaling then all the more was the colored man. The United Daughters of the Confederacy launched a campaign to ensure that the 'slander' that the South had fought for slavery was expunged from schoolbooks, and orators at Confederate reunions hotly denounced such an infamous imputation. John Mosby, the partisan rebel cavalryman who had hanged Yankee soldiers from trees and terrorized the enemy's rear, wrote an old comrade that he was fed up with such 'oratorical nonsense.' He confessed, 'I don't go to reunions because I can't stand the speaking.' Mosby like Longstreet was one of those freaks of nature, a Southerner who thought it was the role of the defeated to accept defeat and move on; He supported Grant for president and became a diplomat in the American foreign service, and scarcely ever set foot in his native Virginia again. 'Why not talk about witchcraft if slavery was not the cause of the war,' he wrote his old friend. 'I always understood that we went to war on the thing we quarreled with the North about. I never heard of any other cause of the quarrel than slavery.' "

 

[cash]

Looks to me like Egerton botched the quote. He attributed it to Longstreet when his source attributed it to Mosby.

 

[cash]

In a letter to Sam Chapman dated February 15, 1910, Mosby wrote, "As I have often said I don't go to Reunions because I can't stand the Speaking: E.g. Bob Lee's speech at Roanoke about slavery - why not talk about witchcraft, if, as he said, Slavery was not the cause of the war."

http://www.gilderlehrman.org/collections/264620c9-b590-4438-8bbb-389110771269

In a letter to Dr. Aristides Monteiro dated June 9, 1894, Mosby wrote, "I notice that Case[?] says the charge that the South went to war for slavery is 'a slanderous accusation.' I always understood that we went to War on account of the thing we quarreled with the North about. I never heard of any other cause of quarrel than slavery."

http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/media_player?mets_filename=evm00003514mets.xml

Looks like Budiansky conflated the two letters and Egerton accepted that while misattributing the words to Longstreet.

 

[cash]

Budiansky cites David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, pages 297-299.

Blight conflates the letters. He at least cites primary sources. His citation is:

Mosby to Dr. A. Monteiro, June 9, 1894, Mosby to Judge Rueben Page, June 11, 1902, Mosby to (illegible), June 22, 1894

 

[DRW]

Budiansky cites David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, pages 297-299.

Blight conflates the letters. He at least cites primary sources. His citation is:

Mosby to Dr. A. Monteiro, June 9, 1894, Mosby to Judge Rueben Page, June 11, 1902, Mosby to (illegible), June 22, 1894

Thanks for all that. I read Piston's "Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant" recently and that memorable quote didn't look familiar. This kind of research and expertise is what I enjoy most about CWT.