Longstreet Was Longstreet Made a Scapegoat?

Well, not exactly contemporary, but from someone who was there, involved, and I'd think knew the particulars....McLaws post-war recollections seem to be pretty neutral to both Lee and Longstreet. He certainly didn't claim or even imply that Longstreet's actions were in any way an attempt to undermine Lee's orders, his authority, or his strategy. Maybe its a biased source though; you know I'm a fan of McLaws, Longstreet, Lee and tact, so it makes sense that I'd latch onto McLaws diplomatic and judicious account. :D

For sure :smile:

Actually I have been knee deep in the McLaw's archives at the Wilson Library at UNC, but there was nothing about Pickett's Charge.
(That's what I am questioning, as far as primary contemporary non-biased confederate sources go. There are some reliable sources for the first 2 days.)

He was not there. Day 2 was a different story and a lot of what he had to do was because Hood was hurt very early into that battle.
 
E. Porter Alexander, likely the Confederate Army’s most insightful writer after the war, explained in a private letter, "It is true that he obeyed reluctantly at Gettysburg, on the 2nd & on the 3rd, but it must be admitted that his judgment in both matters was sound & he owed it to Lee to be reluctant, for failure was inevitable do it soon, or do it late, either day."

General Longstreet did obey. He was also correct in his judgment. E. Porter Alexander, an eye witness to Pickett's Charge said, "the Union position could never have been successfully assaulted."

And finally, when asked if Longstreet's performance at Gettysburg caused the defeat, General Lee, with firmness and fire, replied: "It is unjust. Longstreet did his duty. Our failure is to be charged to me. My shoulders are broad and can bear it." General Lee, a man beloved by all the Longstreet detractors and the folks who still are searching for a scapegoat, actually said “Longstreet did his duty” at Gettysburg.


Source: Southern Historical Society Papers. Vol. XXXVIII. Richmond, Va., January-December. 1910. Unwritten History Of The Gettysburg Campaign.
 
Actually I have been knee deep in the McLaw's archives at the Wilson Library at UNC, but there was nothing about Pickett's Charge...He was not there.
In 1878, McLaws prepared a paper in which he addressed some of these issues. McLaws claims that he, with Wofford, witnessed the latter part of Pickett's charge, the repulse, and aftermath. He describes being ordered to retire his line back to the Peach Orchard following Pickett's repulse.

He also does a good job of explaining (in simple terms even I can understand :unsure:) why it could not possibly have been intended for either of Longstreet's other divisions (McLaws' or Hood's) to have abandoned their position, holding the reinforced Federal left, to join Pickett's charge. To do that, he says, would have resulted in an even worse disaster than that which occurred....ie. the Federal left would have come around behind them and enveloped that entire end of the Confederate line. Lights out. (Well he didn't exactly say "lights out," but you know what I mean. :D)

McLaws lays blame on no one - well he does lament the lack of reconnaissance on Day 2 and says that, by the time the assault occurred, the situation had changed. The information provided by "Major Johnson" (Capt. Johnston,) conducted in the morning, was no longer accurate. McLaws calls it false information, and then corrects himself to call it "wrong information." But he doesn't even "blame" that situation on Johnston, Longstreet, or Lee. "All this resulted from deficient organization of our staff corps, not from anybody's fault, but from the force of circumstances." In summary, I maintain that Lafayette McLaws provides one of the most tactful, unbiased Confederate eye-witness accounts available. But again, being a fan of tact and McLaws, you can see why I am partial to it.
 
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It is an odd take about Longstreet views after Gettysburg... Longstreet's regrets opening his mouth and why?

I think he regretted opening his mouth for a lot of reasons, but most likely because it led idiots, "to put false orders in the mouth" of his "great captain," General Lee. At least that what it says on page 174.

I would like to read the entire essay, "The Mistakes of Gettysburg." Does anyone have a link to it? The link I found is down and I don't own a copy of The Annals of the Civil War.
 
In 1878, McLaws prepared a paper in which he addressed some of these issues. McLaws claims that he, with Wofford, witnessed the latter part of Pickett's charge, the repulse, and aftermath. He describes being ordered to retire his line back to the Peach Orchard following Pickett's repulse.

He also does a good job of explaining (in simple terms even I can understand :unsure:) why it could not possibly have been intended for either of Longstreet's other divisions (McLaws' or Hood's) to have abandoned their position, holding the reinforced Federal left, to join Pickett's charge. To do that, he says, would have resulted in an even worse disaster than that which occurred....ie. the Federal left would have come around behind them and enveloped that entire end of the Confederate line. Lights out. (Well he didn't exactly say "lights out," but you know what I mean. :D)

McLaws lays blame on no one - well he does lament the lack of reconnaissance on Day 2 and says that, by the time the assault occurred, the situation had changed. The information provided by "Major Johnson" (Capt. Johnston,) conducted in the morning, was no longer accurate. McLaws calls it false information, and then corrects himself to call it "wrong information." But he doesn't even "blame" that situation on Johnston, Longstreet, or Lee. "All this resulted from deficient organization of our staff corps, not from anybody's fault, but from the force of circumstances." In summary, I maintain that Lafayette McLaws provides one of the most tactful, unbiased Confederate eye-witness accounts available. But again, being a fan of tact and McLaws, you can see why I am partial to it.
I’ll have to say Mclaws was a better man than his boss Longstreet.
 
Here is another odd look that basically shows Longstreet is pulling all your tails about fighting a defensive fight... The story is known. The first Longstreet tries to backstab Lee in Richmond even after days of talks with Lee... He is rebuffed than joins Lee in his invasion of PA...

Snippet...

The next day, a Sunday (the same day that Jackson would succumb to his wounds), the two generals began a series of private conferences that continued for four days. Together, they fashioned a plan that would carry the Confederate army northward in a second invasion of Union territory.

Longstreet was 42 years old at the time, the senior subordinate officer in the army. Since Lee had assumed command of the Confederacy’s major force on June 1, 1862, Longstreet had emerged as Lee’s finest lieutenant. In the aftermath of the Seven Days’ campaign outside Richmond, Lee had privately described Longstreet as ‘the staff in my right hand,’ and on the bloody field at Sharpsburg, Md. (Antietam), Lee called him ‘my old war-horse.’ Promotion to senior rank, above Jackson, followed for Longstreet, and he and Lee developed a relationship Longstreet described as ‘affectionate, confidential, and even tender, from first to last.’ Now, with Jackson gone, Lee needed Longstreet’s counsel more than ever.

At their initial meeting in early May, in all likelihood, Longstreet proposed a plan he had broached to Secretary of War James Seddon in Richmond a few days earlier. As Longstreet saw it, the Confederates needed to concentrate troops in Tennessee for an offensive thrust into Kentucky that would relieve the threat posed by Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Longstreet’s best friend in the antebellum U.S. Army, against Vicksburg, Miss. If the Southerners advanced into the Blue Grass State, the administration in Washington would pressure Grant to detach troops to the endangered region. Longstreet argued that two divisions from Lee’s army should be sent to Tennessee.

‘I laid it before him [Lee],’ Longstreet wrote later, ‘with the freedom justified by our close personal and official relations.’ But Lee objected to the plan, as he had during the previous weeks in Richmond. Lee wanted to exploit the initiative earned at Chancellorsville with a strategic offensive across the Potomac River. Lee argued that such a move would disrupt Federal operations for the summer, garner needed supplies, and temporarily relieve Virginia of the war’s burden. Longstreet agreed to Lee’s operation, and on the 14th, the commanding general journeyed to the capital to persuade President Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Cabinet.

Snippet...

In time, during the postwar Gettysburg controversy, Longstreet presented versions of these meetings in published writing. He asserted that he had opposed the offensive movement but accepted it once Lee assented to fight a defensive battle when the two armies collided. ‘All that I could ask was that the policy of the campaign should be one of defensive tactics,’ Longstreet stated in his memoirs, ‘that we would work so as to force the enemy to attack us, in such a good position as we might find in his own country, so well adapted to that purpose — which might assure us of a grand triumph.’

Before his death in 1870, Lee denied that he had acquiesced to the idea of a defensive battle, terming the assertion ‘absurd’. Although Lee never promised Longstreet to fight only such an engagement, it was understood within the army by certain officers, besides Longstreet, that the Confederates would maneuver to force their opponent to attack them unless circumstances compelled otherwise. Lee even stated in his campaign report that ‘it had not been intended to fight a general battle at such a distance from our base, unless attacked by the enemy.’ Longstreet also presented additional insight into what he termed ‘the ruling idea of the campaign’ in an 1873 private letter to his former division commander, Lafayette McLaws. Longstreet wrote the letter before the controversy about his role in the battle had been reported in the press. He informed McLaws that he and Lee had talked ‘almost every day from the 10th of May 63 until the Battle.’ The two men discussed previous Confederate victories and ‘concluded even victories such as these were consuming us, and would eventually destroy us.’

Lee and Longstreet concurred on what ‘the ruling idea of the campaign’ must be. In Longstreet’s words: ‘Under no circumstances were we to give battle, but exhaust our skill in trying to force the enemy to do so in a position of our own choosing. The 1st Corps to receive the attack and fight the battle. The other corps to then fall upon and try to destroy the Union Army of the Potomac.’

Note:

In this second snippet, Everyone forgets Lee refuted Longstreet's bizarre fight defensive battle idea but the first truth comes out in the last paragraph Lee broke the golden rule of the campaign. It may explain Longstreet's bad behavior during the battle... The second truth was they(Lee/Longstreet) knew they(NoNV) were getting weaker with each engagement and victory, It was a matter of time before the end was coming... The last truth was they(Lee/Longstreet) were looking for one final battle to win the war... The truth of the campaign...

All explains Longstreet's behavior... He had a plan with Lee and Lee just tossed it aside... He knew Lee would not have tossed a plan he made with Jackson so easily...


Link: https://www.historynet.com/americas...nd-james-longstreet-at-odds-at-gettysburg.htm
 
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