Let's keep the Dem's on the run!
Click the Pic!
Let's keep the Dem's on the run!
Click the Pic!
Where has this newspaper been for 100 years? The Confeds have always tried to blame Longstreet for Lee's moronic frontal assault at Gettysburg, then tried to pin the rest of the Confederates' failures on him. Sorry.
Lee lost more men, percentage, than ANY Union commander he faced, except at Fredericksburg, where some argue that Lee really wasn't in command. Hardly a sterling record, and one that doesn't come close to matching Sherman's.
Whoever made up the Confederate plan at Gettysburg - or, should I say, lack of a plan - was not brilliant, and I leave it at that.
As for where the war was won, well, it was won at sea, and you can take that to bank.
Longstreet's one of my favorite Southern commanders. He was a brilliant tactician. If Lee had listened to him, at Gettysburg, they may have won.
I don't rate Gettysburg as significant a battle as others do (except for what it did for northern morale), but Longstreet was certainly in the right.
I think it's pathetic what the "Cult of Lee" has done to his reputation over the years.
I agree with the second part of the author's statement, but find the first laughable. Before I had studied history in depth on my own, I too had fallen victim to the Longstreet martyr myth. The battle reports of his own field commanders after Gettysburg expose the "excuses" and "reasons" in his memoirs for what they are - selfserving lies. He was brilliant at Chickamauga, and I have long stated that he deserved a statue at that location. I have also long stated that he should have been shot following Gettysburg for his repeated and willfull disobedience of Lee's instructions in regards to the timing and purpose of attacks. A good example is the attack on roundtop. It is often repeated by victims of pro-Longstreet revisionism how Hood wanted to reposition so he could mount a flank attack instead of a frontal assault, but that Longstreet said Lee insisted they attack "as planned". What they don't realise is that if Longstreet had not delayed the attack for over five hours, Hood would have been mounting a flank attack, which is exactly what Lee had planned and ordered in the first place. During those many many hours of delay the union extended their flank and Longstreet did NOT report this fact back to Lee. What Hood wanted to do is what Lee had planned all along, and what would have happened if Longstreet had not needlessly delayed and delayed. Longstreet, of course, never saw fit to mention this fact after the battle. Another good example of the Longstreet myth is "his plan" at Gettysburg. According to the union commanders' reports and letters, what they expected Lee to try and do is exactly what Longstreet's bemoaned plan was. It's EXACTLY what they were most prepared to defend against if it were attempted. Another little tidbit that Longstreet fans and "historians" forget to mention.