Posted on 07/04/2019 7:04:21 AM PDT by Antoninus
One of the advantages of the present media-driven furor to remove or demolish monuments to the Confederacy is that it is forcing numerous Americans, myself included, to dig deep into the history of the Civil War. And what a strange, convoluted period of history it is! The primary sources are plentiful, rich and deep which makes for endlessly fascinating reading. If the aim of the iconoclasts was to push this period of history even further from the national consciousness, or gloss over it with cherry-picked anecdotes allowing for knee-jerk verdicts, they have failed miserably.
For my own part, I have started looking into the lives and characters of the generals of the Confederacy—and a more intriguing group of characters is seldom to be found. Having done some research into the Cherokee Confederate general, Stand Watie, I next moved on to another atypical rebel officer, General James Longstreet. As I was doing so, CNN published an article asking the question: “Where are the monuments to Confederate Gen. James Longstreet?” It's an interesting question. In truth, there are two that I was able to find. One at Gettysburg, and another in Gainesville, Georgia. Given his bio, however, the man deserves more recognition.
Most people’s familiarity with Longstreet stems from his role as Lee’s second-in-command at Gettysburg, and thus his prominent place in popular historical entertainment such as the movie Gettysburg and Michael Shaara’s novel, The Killer Angels upon which the movie was based. Longstreet’s virtues and flaws as a military leader have long been the subject of spirited debate. But his career on the battlefield is not primarily what interests me here. Longstreet’s life after the war is, if possible, even more interesting than his deeds as Lee’s lieutenant.
During Reconstruction, Longstreet became a pariah to his southern compatriots. In the election of 1868, Longstreet endorsed his old friend from West Point, Ulysses S. Grant, and became a Republican. After winning the election, Grant appointed Longstreet to a customs position in New Orleans, and he was subsequently made a general in charge of the Louisiana state militia. As a result, he was ostracized by many in the South, who considered him a scalawag and a collaborator with carpet-bagging Union profiteers.
It was in his role as head of the Louisiana militia that Longstreet participated in an action that caused his name to be blackened even further within former-Confederate circles. Following a contested election in 1874, a Democrat mob known as the White League attempted to remove the Republican administration from New Orleans by force. Descending on the city in numbers greater than 5,000, they were confronted by a smaller number of largely Black police and militia headed by General Longstreet. As the two sides lined up for battle, Longstreet rode out to meet the rioters in an attempt to quell the matter before the sides came to blows. One White League leader later claimed that it was only with the greatest difficulty that he restrained his men from shooting Longstreet dead on the spot. Instead, they pulled him from his horse and took him prisoner. In the resulting fight, known to history as the Battle of Liberty Place, the White League caused Longstreet’s men to retreat, with about 100 dead and injured on both sides.
Federal troops were later called in to suppress the White League, free Longstreet and restore order. But Longstreet’s days as a military officer were now over, and his role in the affair attracted even more vituperation from those still attached to the Lost Cause. This rancor from his countrymen wounded him. In 1877, he had a religious awakening, as recorded in the book, Lee and Longstreet at High Tide (1904), by his wife, Helen Dortch Longstreet:
“General Longstreet was a most devout churchman. In early life he was an Episcopalian, and he regularly attended that church in New Orleans until the political differences developed between himself and his friends. After that he noticed that even his church associates avoided him. They would not sit in the same pew with him. Cut to the quick by such treatment, he began to wonder if there was any church broad enough to withstand the differences caused by political and sectional feeling. He discovered that the Roman Catholic priests extended him the treatment he longed for. He began to attend that church, and has said that its atmosphere from the first appealed to him as the church of the sorrow-laden of earth. He was converted under the ministration of Father Ryan. After accepting the faith of the Catholic Church he followed it with beautiful devotion. He regarded it as the compensation sent him by the Almighty for doing his duty as he saw it. He clung to it as the best consolation there was in life. He went to his duties as devoutly as any priest of the church, and was on his knees night and morning, with the simple, loving faith of a little child.” [Lee and Longstreet at High Tide, page 118]
Longstreet passed away of cancer in 1904 at the age of 82. He was buried in Gainesville, Georgia where the impressive statue shown above may be found today. By the time of his death, any animosity his Confederate comrades had felt for him was gone. Newspaper reports of the funeral service mentioned vast throngs of mourners arriving to pay their last respects. Lavish tributes to Longstreet poured in from all corners of the country. Following the funeral Mass, an oration was given by Bishop Joseph Keily of Savannah, Georgia who had fought under Longstreet during the Civil War. In that eulogy, Bishop Keily gave the man a fitting tribute, saying:
“Having passed the span which Providence ordinarily allots as the term of human life, General James Longstreet has answered the roll-call of the great God. What a brilliant page in history is filled with his grand career….When the Southern States withdrew from the Union by reason of attacks on their reserved rights which were guaranteed by the Constitution, and were forced into the war between the States, James Longstreet offered his services and sword to the cause of self-government. No history of the war may be written which does not bear emblazoned on every page the story of his deeds…“It is my duty as a priest of God to call your attention to the obvious lesson of this occasion—the vanity of mere earthly greatness and the certainty of death and the necessity of preparation for it. James Longstreet was a brave soldier, a gallant gentleman, but better still—a consistent Christian. After the war between the States, he became a member of the Catholic Church, and to his dying day remained faithful to her teaching and loyal to her creed…” [Lee and Longstreet at High Tide, page 219]
This seemed to sum up Longstreet in a nutshell. He was a man disappointed by political creeds offered to ephemeral temporal powers, who found fulfillment in loyalty to an eternal creed professed to an everlasting power.
By way of a postscript, I will mention the two extraordinary women in General Longstreet’s life. His first wife, Maria Louisa Garland Longstreet, passed away in 1890 after 40 years of marriage and 10 children. Surprisingly, he married again in 1897 at the age of 76 to Helen Dortch Longstreet. It was Helen who recorded many anecdotes about the general in the abovementioned book, Lee and Longstreet at High Tide. Interestingly, Helen lived to be nearly 100 years old, surviving until 1962 – a full century after her husband’s famous exploits during the Civil War.
These are truly amazing people worthy of remembrance.
I consider the reasons why the Southern states left to be irrelevant. The Declaration of Independence establishes the principle that states may leave for any reason that seems acceptable to them. One does not have to justify the reasons why one wishes to exercise a fundamental right.
The only issue of significance is why the North invaded them, and it was clearly not for the purpose of destroying slavery.
That would in fact have been very illegal according to constitutional law of that time. The US constitution protected slavery in Article IV, section 2.
That's just the propaganda we've heard all our lives. You can't claim the war was fought over something the Northern states tried to give the Southern states on a silver platter.
The Corwin amendment proves conclusively that slavery was not the bone of contention between the two sides. It passed both houses of Congress, and at a time when the Southern states had already seceded, so it was passed by the Northern state majority in Congress. Additionally, 3 or 4 Northern states ratified this amendment.
So the Northern states are gifting them slavery on a silver platter, and you are now trying to tell me this is why they launched an invasion into the South?
Bullsh*t. It's just propaganda.
Without any supply ships. Only warships were being used. This makes it not a supply mission, but instead a belligerent task force intent upon firing at the Confederates.
The fact that he was related to Grant's wife might have had something to do with that.
Doesnt matter. Lincoln had relatives in the confederate government.
Jacksons sister would have noting to do with him after.
Thomas’s family disowned him.
Another fact is that the southerners considered Longstreet as a traitor after the war and during reconstruction.
“For crying out loud, the war ended 154 freakin’ years ago. Your side lost. Get over it.“
Aha. Now I get it!
You think it’s over!
Let’s say it was complicated.
I’m assuming you’re like me, and interested in the humanitarian and ethical dimensions of that war.
We have gone over the war in the east many times and agree that it was fought on fairly chivalrous terms, though we disagree about the cause over which it was fought. At least in the first few years it was two fairly evenly matched and mutually respectful armies.
There was another war, the one in the west, and it was entirely different.
Google up ‘Thomas Ewing, General Orders # 10 and #11’ and a man named ‘Jack Hinson’ for another perspective.
Yeah, it is. Except in your mind.
Longstreet wasn’t enthusiastic about Gettysburg. The position of the two armies was the opposite of Fredericksburg, where Longstreet’s division chewed Burnside’s army to pieces as they charged uphill in waves; the Gallant Pelham peppering them from the flank.
On the Second Day Longstreet delayed a very long time in getting his troops in position to attack- troops which included my ancestor and your wife’s as well- but once they jumped off they destroyed Sickles’ Union III Corps and had a chance of turning the Union left flank.
“Without any supply ships. Only warships were being used.”
B.S. Steamer Baltic was a civilian cargo ship, she crewed by civilian mariners under the command a civilian master. She was chartered by the U.S. Government for the mission. She was not armed with naval ordnance. She carried 6 months worth of provisions for the fort. She also carried two companies of the 2nd U.S. Artillery, plus ammunition and infantry weapons. Along with Baltic were 3 civilian chartered steam tugs, also unarmed with naval ordnance. None of these would be considered “War ships” by any government in the world at the time. Only you seem to think that they were “War Ships”.
The plain fact of the matter is that the South did not launch a violent war of secession. The South wanted nothing other than to be left alone. It was Lincoln who insisted on war. And no, the South's economy was not "based on" slave labor. I never said Southerners were an "exclusive light of wisdom" or anything like that. You just made that up out of whole cloth.
Absolutely! Secession and the War were about the same thing most wars are about - money. Had all the slaves been emancipated and been share croppers at the time as they were after the war, the Southern states still would have wanted low tariffs. They still would have objected to the federal government lavishing far more of the federal budget on the Northern states for infrastructure and corporate subsidies. They still would have objected to paying the lion's share of the revenues raised by the federal government. The Northern states still would not have wanted their cash cow and their captive market to leave.
“The US constitution protected slavery in Article IV, section 2.”
Would disagree. The only requirement in this article is that runaway slaves be returned to their owners.
The Government cannot interfere with slavery where the institution is legal. The authority to do so is not listed as one of the enumerated powers granted the Congress or the President. In the absence of the legal authority to regulate slavery, the X Amendment to the Constitution applies.
This is substantially the findings by the Supreme Court in Scott v. Sanford.
Since it is a state issue. It was perfectly legal for New York or New Hampshire to outlaw the ownership of slaves by their citizens within the states jurisdiction. They are required to comply with the article you cite. As of 1860 19 states had made slavery illegal in their states.
Slavery was not “Protected” in the Constitution. It was recognized as existing. If slavery was “protected” then there would have been no “free states”
Although Gettysburg was considered the high water mark of that war, it was actually Vicksburg that broke the back of the Confederacy.
What people cant fathom was what happened after Gettysburg. The weather saved Lee and his army.
Lee made another one of his usual strategic mistakes by entering the area. Lee, a great tactician, couldnt fathom stretching that war out which would have brought a win for the confederacy. Yet he failed in his tactical imagination in that battle. Everyone can blame this one or that one for that failure, yet it was on Lee solely.
Then comes Grant. Constant pressure. Constant movements. And Lee trying to sidestep Grants movements until...checkmate. Grant NEVER worried about Lee as much as he did about Joe Johnston. He feared the man. Johnston fought a battle of movements and Grant worried that if Johnston got complete command that Joe would fight a war of constant movements, that the north growing ever weary, would sue for terms.
Lee said after that war that he had searched the history of the worlds great military leaders and found none the equal of US Grant.
Grant said that thanks to the military brilliance of Jefferson Davis, the north won that terrible war.
Let’s say it was complicated.
I’m assuming you’re like me, and interested in the humanitarian and ethical dimensions of that war.
We have gone over the war in the east many times and agree that it was fought on fairly chivalrous terms, though we disagree about the cause over which it was fought. At least in the first few years it was two fairly evenly matched and mutually respectful armies.
There was another war, the one in the west, and it was entirely different.
Google up ‘Thomas Ewing, General Orders # 10 and #11’ and a man named ‘Jack Hinson’ for another perspective.
“Yeah, it is. Except in your mind.”
Or anyone else’s sufficient to consider:
-that it pisses you off to see all your people derided as nazis
-or the monuments testifying to the morality and courage of our hero’s torn down
-and this while the monuments to racist war criminals remain
By the way, I think your chronology is a little off; it doesn’t include the years of martial law and disenfranchisement immediately following, or the “reconstruction”, the continuation of the tariffs, the Great Depression, and eugenics. In fact, you could argue that the popular contempt for males generally derives from the mythology of Northern hegemony that proclaims Lincoln a saint and ignores the issue of confiscation of what had previously been sanctioned as property.
You want to forget it? How about this; we’ll bury Jeff Davis when you bury Lincoln. Deal?
I have read quite a bit about the Marble Man myth making, the Longstreet excuse and the conflicts in general. Longstreet, IMHO, was made a scape goat by Jubal Early and others that were the failures at Gettysburg.
He was one of the best Generals of the Confederacy.
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