So, when it comes to Longstreet's word versus Alexander's word, you seem to need backup for Alexander's word where as you take Longstreet's word without the same proof. So, it comes down to he said/he said. You are splitting some mighty fine hairs. But, that's the fun of the great debates. I'm probably splitting some fine hairs of my own.
This has been one of the best conversations that I have had on Free Republic. We should do it again.
For me, when I think about the Battle of Gettysburg and having been there... I don't come away with Lee versus Longstreet... I come away with such noble heroism that it makes me proud to be an American.
Buford's stand on the first day... Chamberlain's stand on Little Round Top. Those brave soldiers who stepped off from Seminary Ridge... were beaten and wanted to reform to hit them again. Longstreet, thinking that Meade would come after the repulse, practically moved out to meet them alone. What of Hancock? What of Lee meeting his soldiers with the words, "It's all my fault."
With ancestors like these... I wonder how this could this country ever be defeated. Then I see the Kerry/Edwards campaign yard signs popping up like dandelions, I have my doubts.
I don't read Civil War books for the politics. I do read them because I like to read about battles and such... But I read them because I admire the men so. Grant, Lee, Chamberlain, Longstreet... and especially Stonewall Jackson.
I'm writing a what if book. And your taking the time to converse with me just adds to my knowledge. Thank you again.
Re Col. Alexander's words versus Longstreet's, I was simply pointing out that there was enough vagueness in Alexander's account (he doesn't say who told him about the next day's assault, for example) to allow one to credit Longstreet, if one interprets Longstreet's meaning to be, that he didn't get anything in person or in writing until the next morning. And drawing his words in the poorer light, does it reflect all that badly on him, if having received word of Lee's desires, he demanded six extra hours in exchange for the lives of his men?
There may, as I posted before, exist some comment or letter or aide-memoir that I haven't heard about (and I've only scratched the surface, myself -- most of Lee's aides wrote memoirs) that refers to a note (order) sent around to Longstreet that evening, that would put Old Pete on the hook for retrogradation and untimeliness. I'd just like to see it first. But we know what to think of Early.
I've never imagined that I knew enough about the Civil War and its leading personalities to join in the handicapping of its great marshals. I see that you're a Jackson fan. Of course all these generals have something of the prima donna about them, and I noticed that Longstreet took the occasional shot at Jackson, mostly over the Seven Days, but I think also at Second Manassas. So few of them were immune, except for Lee who largely refrained from criticizing commanders, except when it was time to court-martial General LaFayette McLaws.
Lee and Longstreet, I think, missed their proper relationship. Overall, I think Longstreet was an adequate corps commander, and he pretty much proved to people's satisfaction that he had shortcomings in independent command during the Chattanooga campaign. Where I think he could have contributed far more than he was asked to do would have been in Richmond, balancing the needs of the armies against the stinginess of the Confederate commissariat and directing field commanders like Lee and Polk and Kirby Smith in great, oscillating sweeps back and forth, now confronting Rosecrans, now descending on Grant, now rushing back to Virginia to stop Hooker or McClellan, keeping all the Union field armies just enough off balance and sufficiently frustrated and retarded by constant moderate-intensity battles of maneuver that 1863 and 1864 would have come and gone without the great victory that the adversary needed to sell his revolution, finally, to the electorate of the Northern States.
Fewer battles like Gettysburg and Antietam -- big setpiece slugging matches -- and a lot more of the more fluid battles like South Mountain and Monocacy were what the Southern cause needed, until it was time to send the big message to the Northern voters: Let Us Go.
Just as John Bell Hood and Patrick Cleburne were born to be division commanders, and Bragg to be an aide-de-camp in some colonial service, I think Lee and Jackson were great field generals who found their niche, and Longstreet was the great field marshal and army chief of staff who never did.