Clifford Dowdey’s “Lee” is epic; I don’t know the pages, but on Audible, it’s close to 30 hours long. In it he can’t hold back his disdain for Longstreet; some of which is petty - and no way can he know what he projects was in Longstreet’s mind at certain points. (which he does anyway). But in 1965 he was piling on close to a 100 yrs of Longstreet blame storming.
The old post-war, anti-Longstreet cabal that wanted to glorify Lee and blame Longstreet for the Gettysburg defeat. Jubal Early was a prime participant in this. A good book was published this year called "Longstreet at Gettysburg" by Cory Pfarr which takes a close look at the charges leveled against Longstreet and refutes them all.
Dowdey’s critique is harsh and unnecessary.
He didn’t ride or march the thousands of miles that the General did. He didn’t have to keep his composure in front of thousands of men as they are cut to pieces by shrapnel and bullets.
Quite frankly his comments come across as your typical Monday morning quarterbacking, no different from a sports analyst who never put on a set of pads.
Some of us who’ve never experienced war possibly think of it as fantasy and that’s why it romanticized a lot by writers and students (yours truly). It’s quite possibly the most horrific experience a human being could ever go through, save for being put in a death camp of some sorts. War & it’s effects messes with the human mind. We humans were never created to have to endure this type of trauma or violence.
Dowdey never went to war from what I’ve read of him (too young for WWI and too old for WWII).
FWIW, I think Longstreet cared a hell of a lot more about his men than did Lee (yes I’ve got my flame suit on for that one). He suffered greatly for carrying out those orders.
What Lee did on July 3rd was nothing short of murder IMO. His attack was as vain as Grant’s attack on Cold Harbor or Burnside’s on Fredericksburg. No strategy whatsoever and completely arrogant to think that only 15,000 men or so could split the Union line.
I have no idea why Lee is literally worshiped in historian circles. His fights in 1862 were grand and I think Chancellorsville was his greatest moment, but after that he was just hanging on hoping for some type of armistice or political solution.