Lee And Longstreet At Gettysburg

This is the first book-length, critical analysis of Lieutenant General James Longstreet's actions at the Battle of Gettysburg. The author argues that Longstreet's record has been discredited unfairly, beginning with character assassination by his contemporaries after the war and, persistently, by historians in the decades since. By closely studying the three-day battle, and conducting an incisive historiographical inquiry into Longstreet's treatment by scholars, this book presents an alternative view of Longstreet as an effective military leader, and refutes over a century of negative evaluations of his performance.

General Robert E. Lee, in the early years of the war was unmatched as a tactician, and after his victories in 1862 and early 1863, he seemed unbeatable. The First Corps of his army was commanded by the competent James Longstreet, affectionately called "my old warhorse" by General Lee. Realizing the evolving nature of combat, Longstreet veered away from the Napoleonic style of offensive warfare and preferred tactical defense. At the Battle of Gettysburg, however, Longstreet was forced to attack the lines of Union Army on July 2nd and 3rd. Despite his competence in command, the attacks failed and the battle was lost. After the war, a group of former Confederate generals referred to as the "Lost Cause" movement villainized Longstreet for his support of Reconstruction and criticized his leadership during the war. In "Lee and Longstreet at High Tide," Helen Dortch Longstreet, the General?s second wife, attempts to clear her husband?s name and tell his side of the events at Gettysburg. A unique and entertaining read, this historical work provides valuable insight into the life and mind of one of the Confederacy?s greatest generals.

Published in 1904 and written by the second wife of Confederate General James Longstreet, this is the history of the battle of Gettysburg.

Lee and Longstreet at High Tide Gettysburg in the Light of the Official Records This edition features • illustrations • a linked Table of Contents and Footnotes CONTENTS LEE AND LONGSTREET AT HIGH TIDE Introduction CHAPTER I The Story of Gettysburg CHAPTER II Lee changes Plan of Campaign CHAPTER III Pickett’s Charge CHAPTER IV Gordon’s “Established Facts” and Pendleton’s Fulminations CHAPTER V Longstreet’s Version of the Operations of July 2 CHAPTER VI Pendleton’s Report CHAPTER VII Pendleton’s Unreliable Memory CHAPTER VIII General Longstreet’s Americanism CHAPTER IX Finale LONGSTREET THE MAN His Boyhood Days Life-long Friendship of Grant and Longstreet His First Romance Heroic Citizen of the Reconstruction Period The Christian Patriot loved the South to the Last Worshipped by the Soldiers of the Confederacy His Country Home in Picturesque North Georgia LONGSTREET ON THE FIELDS OF MEXICO CHAPTER I The Winning of our Western Empire CHAPTER II Peculiarities of Scott and Taylor CHAPTER III Unpretentious Lieutenant Grant CHAPTER IV Pleasant Incidents of Camp Life at Corpus Christi CHAPTER V Into the Interior of Mexico CHAPTER VI From Contreras to Chapultepec CHAPTER VII Longstreet’s Honeymoon GREAT BATTLES BEFORE AND AFTER GETTYSBURG The First Manassas Williamsburg Frayser’s Farm March against Pope and the Second Manassas The Invasion of Maryland and the Battle of Antietam Fredericksburg Chickamauga In East Tennessee The Wilderness The Curtain Falls at Appomattox APPENDIX Longstreet James Longstreet The Funeral Ceremonies Tributes from the Press Resolutions by Camps and Chapters Letter of President Roosevelt Personal Letters Letter of Archbishop Ireland Letter of General Frederick D. Grant Tribute From the Grand Army of the Republic

In the South, one can find any number of bronze monuments to the Confederacy featuring heroic images of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, J. E. B. Stuart, and many lesser commanders. But while the tarnish on such statues has done nothing to color the reputation of those great leaders, there remains one Confederate commander whose tarnished image has nothing to do with bronze monuments. Nowhere in the South does a memorial stand to Lee's intimate friend and second-in-command James Longstreet. In Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, William Garrett Piston examines the life of James Longstreet and explains how a man so revered during the course of the war could fall from grace so swiftly and completely. Unlike other generals in gray whose deeds are familiar to southerners and northerners alike, Longstreet has the image not of a hero but of an incompetent who lost the Battle of Gettysburg and, by extension, the war itself. Piston's reappraisal of the general's military record establishes Longstreet as an energetic corps commander with an unsurpassed ability to direct troops in combat, as a trustworthy subordinate willing to place the war effort above personal ambition. He made mistakes, but Piston shows that he did not commit the grave errors at Gettysburg and elsewhere of which he was so often accused after the war. In discussing Longstreet's postwar fate, Piston analyzes the literature and public events of the time to show how the southern people, in reaction to defeat, evolved an image of themselves which bore little resemblance to reality. As a product of the Georgia backwoods, Longstreet failed to meet the popular cavalier image embodied by Lee, Stuart, and other Confederate heroes. When he joined the Republican party during Reconstruction, Longstreet forfeited his wartime reputation and quickly became a convenient target for those anxious to explain how a "superior people" could have lost the war. His new role as the villain of the Lost Cause was solidified by his own postwar writings. Embittered by years of social ostracism resulting from his Republican affiliation, resentful of the orchestrated deification of Lee and Stonewall Jackson, Longstreet exaggerated his own accomplishments and displayed a vanity that further alienated an already offended southern populace. Beneath the layers of invective and vilification remains a general whose military record has been badly maligned. Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant explains how this reputation developed—how James Longstreet became, in the years after Appomattox, the scapegoat for the South's defeat, a Judas for the new religion of the Lost Cause.

Revisionist study of Gen. Robert E. Lee's true tactical plan for Gettysburg: his intention, throughout the battle, to converge his forces upon and to seize Cemetery Hill on the Union center. The author centers his study around a set of commonly held beliefs, among them a mistaken interpretation of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's goals for the battle.