Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History (Brown Thrasher Books Ser.) by William Garrett Piston

Author:William Garrett Piston [Piston, William Garrett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 2013-05-01T06:00:00+00:00

8. The Anti-Longstreet Faction Emerges

MUCH OF LONGSTREET’S time and energy during the 1870s was devoted to a war of words, a war he lost very badly and which has profoundly affected his place in history. During this decade also, Early, Jones, and Pendleton set Robert E. Lee on the road to sainthood. Lee’s devotees became so fanatical in their endeavors that they have rightly been described as a cult.1 Longstreet was an integral part of this interesting phenomenon, through his role as scapegoat for Gettysburg.

In their efforts to enshrine Lee’s memory, Early and Jones corresponded widely with former Confederates throughout the South, and thanks to their efforts a distinct anti-Longstreet faction emerged. It consisted of Early, Pendleton, Jones, Lee’s nephew Fitzhugh Lee, and Lee’s former staff officers Venable, Taylor, Long, and Marshall. They drew support from such men as Braxton Bragg, William Preston Johnston, C. M. Wilcox, Wade Hampton, and (eventually) Jefferson Davis. Their correspondence reveals an extreme prejudice against Longstreet for political reasons and a determination that the blame for Gettysburg, and thus the loss of the war, should be made to rest on his shoulders alone. They sought to discredit everything Longstreet wrote in defense of his good name as soon as it was published. A knowledge of their actions is necessary, among other reasons, to understand those of Longstreet.

Although they had denied the existence of any orders to attack at sunrise sent by Lee to Longstreet on July 2 at Gettysburg, Lee’s former staff officers were desperately anxious to shift the blame for the Pennsylvania disaster from his shoulders to Longstreet’s. Venable wrote Early in 1872, shortly after Early’s Washington and Lee address. Despite the fact that Lee’s own battle report proved it false, Venable claimed that Lee had expected Longstreet to send Hood’s and McLaws’s divisions forward with Pickett for the attack on July 3.2 He maintained this claim despite massive evidence to the contrary for the rest of his life.

Long wrote to both Pendleton and Early. He now asserted that Lee had expected Longstreet’s July 2 attack to begin earlier than it did and that he had expressed great annoyance when it did not get under way until 4:00 P.M. Marshall combed Lee’s surviving papers for materials to use against Longstreet, reporting apologetically to Early when he could find no evidence that Lee had blamed Longstreet for anything. Taylor, who had been exuberant when Longstreet returned to Virginia from East Tennessee, now became an avid member of the group opposing Longstreet, praising Early for his criticisms of the General. “From the course pursued by Longstreet,” he wrote, “I now feel that he should be handled with ungloved hands.” Venable was likewise encouraging.3

Longstreet had proved to be his own worst enemy, turning Lee’s staff officers against him by the letters and article that he had sent to the press. These men particularly resented the passage which implied that he was the brains behind Lee in McClellan’s defeat. By claiming simply that Longstreet had been fatally late on July 2, without mentioning a specific hour, A.

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