General James Longstreet is by far one of the most controversial figures of the Civil War. Longstreet, known as “Old Pete” to his troops and friends, has been vilified by some southern critics who blame him for the Confederate loss in the Battle of Gettysburg.¹ Was Longstreet to blame for the outcome at Gettysburg? Longstreet’s critics often claim that he is, and to support this position, three main theories have arisen. When one objectively examines the Battle of Gettysburg through the accounts of soldiers who were there, however, it becomes clear that, theories aside, the facts seem to acquit General Longstreet of any wrongdoing. Unfortunately, Civil War historians have provided an insufficient amount of work in defense of James Longstreet and the needless debate over his career rages on. A few authors have engaged this volatile topic, but most have cautiously side-stepped it.² In response, this essay has been written to put poorly supported theories to rest and give Lieutenant-General James Longstreet the recognition he deserves. Before more fully examining the results of the Battle of Gettysburg, however, one must first understand how the Army of Northern Virginia got into such a precarious situation and how General Longstreet came to be saddled with the responsibility for its conclusion.³
The Civil War, which began in April 1861, had been going on for over two years and neither side had anything to show for it. The War Between the States had turned into little more than a bloody stalemate.⁴ Political tensions, however, were on the rise and everyone involved, on both sides knew that something had to happen soon. The South realized that the war would not be won with the devastating frontal assaults that were becoming all too common. Making matters worse was the growing instability of the Southern home front.⁵ Northern blockades were beginning to take their toll as the South came ever closer to social and economic collapse. The Confederate States of America could only bear another two years at most of this war. If the South was to have any hope of independence, the Confederate Army would have to break the stalemate soon.⁶
In this atmosphere of instability and uncertainty for the future, June 1863 was coming to a close in the third summer of the war. In hopes of bringing a quick and decisive end to the war, the Confederate troops had pushed into the heart of the Union and Northern hopes of unity began to waver. The bulk of the Confederate Army, approximately 68,000 men, was advancing North through the middle of Pennsylvania when it made a sudden turn around to head towards Washington D.C. The Army of the Potomac, which was now on the defensive, regrouped to defend its own territory and prevent the Army of Northern Virginia from making a march on the Capital.⁷ June 1863 ended and July began with an army of more than 68,000 soldiers marching towards an army of more than 84,000 soldiers; the Southerners from the North and the Northerners from the South.⁸ Over 152,000 infantry, cavalry and artillery men converged on the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in what would not only prove to be the decisive battle of this horrible war between the states, but one of its bloodiest.⁹
The confederate army came within a few miles of the District of Columbia. The Federal Capital was within a few days march; the South had the opportunity to end the war.¹⁰ The Union’s victory at the Battle of Gettysburg was vital, not because winning it would win the war for the North, but because losing it would most likely mean a Confederate occupation of Washington D.C. If the South could secure Washington, then the recognition of the Confederate States of America was all but ensured.¹¹ As one editorial from the New York Times noted, all the South needed to guarantee their success was “to route [sic] the Army of the Potomac, capture Washington, and hold their army on our soil until they could dictate terms of peace and enforce the recognition of the Southern Confederacy.”¹² Victory in Gettysburg would have delivered all three of these pivotal points. The North, however, prevailed, but the battle was not as much a Northern victory as it was a Southern loss. As Major-General E.M. Law commented, “it was at Gettysburg that the right arm of the South was broken.”¹³
The Confederate Army had many of its best commanding officers present, including the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee and his best general, James Longstreet.¹⁴ While Lee was the commander of the Confederate forces at Gettysburg, Longstreet was the commanding officer on the ground and unfortunately, he has come to hold the ultimate responsibility for the Confederate Army’s defeat not only at there, but subsequently the entire war. As Jeffry Wert states in his biography on Longstreet, “The burden for Gettysburg fell on James Longstreet, for he was the officer in the army, as he noted, arraigned ‘before the world as the person and the only one responsible for the loss of the cause.’”¹⁵
The idea that one corps commander could single-handedly win or lose a war is a bit of an exaggeration, but a battle. . . maybe. Was Longstreet responsible for the Confederate loss at Gettysburg? Many historians feel that he may have been by not being fully committed to Lee’s plan of attack. William Garrett Piston notes that while “Longstreet brought to the contest all the skill and energy which marked his successes on other fields, he had fought the battle of Gettysburg against his better judgment.”¹⁶
There is little doubt that Longstreet and Lee differed on how to best engage the Union troops. In fact, many historians contend that Longstreet’s plans “could well have held better chances of success than Lee’s proposed invasion.”¹⁷ Whatever the outcome may have been, however, it could not have been any worse than the situation the South found itself in. The Confederate troops were outnumbered by the Union Army, which had 10,000 to 20,000 more soldiers at Gettysburg. Making matters harder for the South was the issue of ground. Once fighting had broken out in Gettysburg on the first day, the North fell back and took a defensive position along the ridge line that surrounded the town. To break the Union line, the Confederate forces would have to charge up steep, rocky terrain and a strongly defended bulwark of enemy soldiers. Added to the physical disadvantage, the South was poorly equipped and terribly outnumbered. It is true that the Confederate Army had faced similar challenges before and prevailed, but never before had the disadvantages been quite this bad.¹⁸
Lee had confidence in his men, in fact he could be faulted for being too confident.¹⁹ General Lee was prepared to fight the Union forces immediately, regardless of the Southern disadvantage in terrain, resources and numbers.²⁰ Longstreet, on the other hand, felt that it would be best to retreat South, towards Washington, and find more suitable conditions to withstand an attack from the Union troops.²¹ Gettysburg gave the Army of the Potomac too many advantages. As a result, General Longstreet recommended “that the entire army be marched to the right to some point south of Gettysburg?Frederick or Union Mills being likely localities?where it might threaten to cut between Meade and Washington.”²² Longstreet wanted to fight on terrain of his choosing while Lee wanted to seize the opportunity at hand.
The controversy, however, does not so much surround what would have happened if Lee had listened to Longstreet, but whether or not Longstreet was truly behind Lee’s plan once the decision was made. As Thomas Connelly and Barbara Bellows point out, “Gettysburg has always remained . . . that ‘Everlasting If,’ which still kindles a lingering passion” in the Southern mind.²³ Of the thousands of questions that swirl around the memory of Gettysburg, however, one seems to arise more than others. Did the Confederate Army lose the Battle of Gettysburg simply because it was outmatched and the North had the high ground, or as many Southern historians have come to assert, was Lieutenant-General James Longstreet responsible for Dixie’s defeat?
The Confederate Army lost the Battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. The Union Army did not in fact win the battle until the end of the third day, July 3, but after the end of day two, the Confederate forces had little hope of a victory. As many have pointed out, “July 2, not 3, 1863 was the pivotal day of Gettysburg.²⁴ There were many heroic events on day three, none however, were more heroic than the charge of Major-General George Pickett and his division.²⁵ No act of heroism, however, could reverse the tide that had been set in motion by the events of July 2, 1863, for it was on the second day of battle that Longstreet’s service comes in to question.
It was on the second day that Longstreet’s corps failed to take Cemetery Ridge and consequently failed to secure a southern victory. Longstreet’s loss at Cemetery Ridge is the linchpin in the argument against him, but the reasons for that loss are varied. Whether he lost the battle because of despondence, ineptitude, defiance, or some other reason has never been adequately explored. Although most historical authors refuse to engage the question of fault, there are a few works that advocate one theory or another. A resolution, however, has not yet been reached simply because no author has critically weighed the conflicting theories to find an empirical truth.
Longstreet openly opposed the attack, in his “report of the battle, Longstreet boldly wrote, ‘The order for this attack, which I could not favor under better auspices, would have been revoked had I felt that I had the privilege.’”²⁶ The ensuing theory put forth by Robert Krick was that Longstreet allowed his opposition of Lee’s plan to interfere, intentionally or not, with his performance and leadership. Krick points out that Longstreet was “a confirmed sulker”²⁷ and often became despondent when things did not go his way. Krick and others feel it is possible that this petulance that Longstreet often displayed may have inadvertently allowed his frustration to become manifest in the command of his troops. Krick goes on to claim that Longstreet was notoriously slow in mustering his troops.²⁸ He then proposes that on July 2, his slowness was combined with his opposition to Lee’s plan, “Troops with that marching tendency were particularly vulnerable to the sort of sulky delaying action that Longstreet employed on July 2.”²⁹
Krick’s criticisms of Longstreet, however, are completely unwarranted. Not only did General Longstreet carry out General Lee’s orders, but he dispatched his subordinates as expeditiously as possible. As one of Longstreet’s Brigadier-Generals noted, “At 3 o’clock on the morning the 2d, under orders from General Longstreet, I moved as rapidly as possible toward Gettysburg, and arrived there shortly before noon, having marched the intervening distance of twenty-four miles in that time.”³⁰ While Longstreet may have disagreed with Lee and disliked his orders, most Civil War historians feel that it would have been unlike him to fight with anything but his usual demeanor. Admittedly, Longstreet was “bitterly opposed to the plan of his chief. But orders were orders, and so he made the necessary preparations for the great attack.³¹ Law goes on to claim that not only did Longstreet follow Lee’s orders, but that it was the very nature of Lee’s orders that lost the battle for the Confederates, “The whole matter then resolves itself into this: General Lee failed at Gettysburg on the 2d and 3d of July because he made his attack precisely where his enemy wanted him to make it and was most fully prepared to receive it.”³²
Another critique of Longstreet’s leadership, which is usually articulated much more discreetly, is that Longstreet simply did not have the innate ability required to lead an entire corps. This theory was primarily formed from his academic record at the United States Military Academy at West Point. At West Point, “Longstreet ranked in the bottom third of his class in every subject during the four years.”³³ It comes as no surprise then, that critics are reluctant to place any blame on General Lee, not only because of their respective military records, but also because of the sharp differences in performance at West Point. Regardless of academics, Longstreet and Lee followed the code of West Point quite differently, as can be seen in each cadet’s demerit record. At West Point, the cadets were regulated by a system of demerits, and “If a cadet earned more than two-hundred demerits in a year, he faced expulsion from the academy. The system was so encompassing that only one cadet had passed through the four years at West Point without a demerit?Robert E. Lee of Virginia, class of 1829.”³⁴ Longstreet was quite different:
He committed nearly all the common sins of West Point cadets?visiting after taps, absences from roll calls, dirty room, long hair, making a disturbance during study hours, and disobeying orders. He compiled only 58 demerits during his first two years, but as a second classman, he accumulated 164 demerits, ranking 211th in conduct in a corps of 219 cadets. He improved his behavior during his final year, earning only 102 demerits. Longstreet was neither a model student nor a gentleman.³⁵
In comparing these two soldiers, it is very easy to see why Longstreet is often accused of being a substandard officer; he was certainly a substandard cadet.
Once again, however, Longstreet’s critics are unfair. Although Longstreet often came in to conflict with authority, his record on the battlefield was impeccable and his ability to lead men made many see him as “a tower of strength in defense of the South.”³⁶ As one of his aides once wrote, “Genl. Longstreet is one of the kindest, best hearted men I ever knew. Those not well acquainted with him think him short and crabbed and he does appear so except in three places: 1st, when in the presence of ladies, 2nd, at the table, and 3rd, on the field of battle.”³⁷ Longstreet was an indispensable leader of the Army of Northern Virginia and of the Southern cause, consistently tenacious and always exhibiting leadership.³⁸ Longstreet’s ability was not in the classroom, but in the camaraderie and accountability of being a soldier.³⁹ Longstreet was known for his consistent and unbiased performance, his supposed broodiness never entered the battlefield, “If Jackson was the army’s hammer, Longstreet was its anvil.”⁴⁰
The last major theory which ascribes blame to Longstreet for Gettysburg is that of the “Sunrise Attack Order.”⁴¹ The theory behind the “Sunrise Attack Order” is that General Longstreet’s attack on the afternoon of July 2, 1863 was several hours late, that allegedly General Lee had ordered the attack to come at sunrise. Among Southerners, this theory, although largely unsubstantiated, seems to be the most widely held reasoning for the South’s loss at Gettysburg.⁴² Much of the basis for the theory of the “Sunrise Attack Order” is supplied by Lieutenant General Jubal Early, the theory’s main advocate. Early claims that he specifically remembers Lee ordering Longstreet to attack Cemetery Ridge at dawn on the morning of July 2.⁴³
There are so many inconsistencies in Early’s theory, however, that its validity becomes doubtful at best. The first question that arises in response to General Early’s claim is in the delinquency of its arrival:
At the time of his Washington and Lee address in 1872, Early did not directly charge Longstreet with any wanton dereliction. At first he only insinuated. Speaking of the conference Lee held on the afternoon of July 1, 1863, with Ewell, Early, and Rodes, Early said Lee left them ‘for the purpose of ordering up Longstreet’s corps in time to begin the attack at dawn the next morning.’ Then he said Longstreet was not in readiness to make the attack until 4 o’clock in the afternoon of the next day.’ He declared that ‘had the attack been made at daylight, as contemplated, it must have resulted in a brilliant victory.’⁴⁴
Because Early’s theory only first arose almost ten years after the Battle of Gettysburg and because Early seems to be one of the few who recalls this order, the whole accusation seems very suspicious. In fact, it seems that Early may have been using Longstreet only as a scapegoat. By attacking Longstreet, Early may have felt he was vindicating Lee and other “true” champions of the Southern cause.⁴⁵ But even Lee himself never blamed Longstreet. Lee “had failed, and more than 20,000 Southerners lay scattered about the Pennsylvania countryside as testimony to the high stakes of war. To his troops Lee announced, ‘It is all my fault.’”⁴⁶
It is here that all blame on General Longstreet must be put to rest. Although is seems clear that, as Robert Krick points out, an occasional “sulker,” it is equally clear that Longstreet would never allow pride nor tactical preference to come before duty.⁴⁷ Furthermore, while Longstreet was not a great student, it seems indisputable that he was a great leader. At every campaign where he was called upon by Lee, General Longstreet gave his all.⁴⁸ Finally, while General Jubal Early claims that Longstreet failed to comply with an order to attack at dawn on the morning of July 2, 1863, no one else seems to be able to confirm this challenge.⁴⁹ He was a glorious and reliable soldier to the United States of America, to the Confederate States of America, and during reconstruction he attempted to serve both. If anything, Longstreet’s fall from grace in the hearts and minds of his fellow Southerners may have been a result of his attempts at reunification after the war and had nothing to do with his military performance.⁵⁰ Whatever choices he made following the war, for better or for worse, they were after the war and should never overshadow the glory and loyalty with which Longstreet fought for the Confederacy and for his commander, General Robert E. Lee.
 
 

Bibliography
 
 
 
 
 
 

¹ Longstreet’s fellow cadets took to calling him “Old Pete” at West Point, his family had nicknamed him “Peter” or “Pete” although that was not his name. Jeffry D. Wert, General James Longstreet: The Confederacy’s Most Controversial Soldier?A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), p. 22 & 31

² Some of the authors who comment on whether or not Longstreet was responsible for Gettysburg (and the war) include Barbara L. Bellows, Thomas L. Connelly, Gary W. Gallagher, Robert K. Krick, William Garrett Piston, Glenn Tucker, Jeffry D. Wert as well as a few of his contemporaries: Major-General Jubal A. Early, Major-General E. M. Law(who was a Brigadier-General at Gettysburg), Major-General Lafayette McLaws and Brigadier-General William N. Pendleton.

³ The Army of Northern Virginia was comprised of the First, Second and Third Army Corps of the Confederate Army. It was primarily responsible for the main front which ran along the northern border of Virginia. It was commanded by General Robert E. Lee who was also commander of the entire Confederate Army. US War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1889), Series I, Volume XXVII, Part II - Reports, p. 291-292. The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. “Northern Virginia, Army of.”

⁴ The conflict between the northern states of the Union and the southern states attempting to secede, or the Civil War, is often referred to in the south as the War Between the States.

⁵ Colonel R. Ernest Dupuy & Colonel Trevor N. Dupuy, The Compact History of the Civil War (New York: Warner Books, 1993), p. 221-222

⁶ Dupuy & Dupuy, The Compact History of the Civil War; p. 221-222

⁷ The Army of the Potomac, comprised of the First, Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Eleventh and Twelfth Army Corps of the Union Army, was responsible for the section of the front that ran alongside the Potomac River. General George Meade is in command of the Army of the Potomac and, at the time of Gettysburg, of the whole Union Army. US War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1889), Series I, Volume XXVII, Part I - Reports, p. 151. The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th ed., s.v. “Potomac, Army of the.”

⁸ The estimated size of the Union Army (84,158 infantry, cavalry and artillery) was taken from US War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume XXVII, Part I - Reports, p. 151. The estimated size of the Army of Northern Virginia (68,352 infantry, cavalry and artillery) was taken from Walter H. Taylor, Four Years with General Lee (New York: Bonanza Books, 1962), p. 110-111. Unfortunately, however, there are no records of the size of the Army of Northern Virginia from June 1, 1863 until July 20, 1863. Consequently, it must be assumed that the Army of Northern Virginia was approximately the same size as it had been on May 31, 1863, just before the Pennsylvania Campaign began. It is very important to note, however, that these numbers are not concrete as militia and volunteers were called up as both armies required them. These militia and volunteers were accounted for in the general registry of individual corps. I suspect that they were not. Additionally, only infantry, cavalry and artillery were counted, these numbers do not reflect the number of men who were adjutants, engineers, guards, orderlies, or signal corpsmen. Descriptions of the approach of the two armies were derived from the account of James Longstreet, Lieutenant-General, C.S.A., “Lee’s Invasion of Pennsylvania,” Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Volume 3 (New York: The Century Company, 1888), p. 250

⁹ The casualties (dead wounded and missing) of Union and Confederate soldiers combined exceeded 40,000 men. US War Department, The War of the Rebellion, Series I, Volume XXVII, Part I - Reports, p. 193; Walter H. Taylor, Four Years with General Lee , p. 112

¹⁰ US War Department, The War of the Rebellion; Series I, Volume XXVII, Part II - Reports, p. 711

¹¹ Dupuy & Dupuy, The Compact History of the Civil War, p. 223

¹² The New York Times, 6 July 1863, p.4

¹³ E. M. Law, Major-General, C. S. A., “The Struggle for Round Top,” Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Volume 3 (New York: The Century Company, 1888), p. 319

¹⁴ John Keegan and Andrew Wheatcroft, Who’s Who in Military History: From 1453 to the present day (New York: William Morrow & Co. Inc., 1976), p. 191

¹⁵ Jeffry D. Wert, General James Longstreet: The Confederacy’s Most Controversial Soldier?A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), p.14

¹⁶ William Garrett Piston, Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant, James Longstreet and His place in Southern History (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1987), p.61

¹⁷ Dupuy & Dupuy, The Compact History of the Civil War, p. 223

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 208-220. With the brilliant victory at Chancellorsville (where the Confederates, badly in need of supplies, had been outnumbered 60,000 to 134,000) less than two months prior, Lee may have been hoping to create a similar victory.

¹⁹ Ibid., p. 248

²⁰ James Longstreet, Lieutenant-General, C.S.A., “Lee’s Invasion of Pennsylvania,” Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Volume 3, p. 247

²¹ Glenn Tucker, Lee and Longstreet at Gettysburg (Indianapolis, IN: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1968), p.50-51

²² Ibid., p.50

²³ Thomas L. Connelly and Barbara L. Bellows, God and General Longstreet (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1982), p.30-31. According to Connelly and Bellows, this statement was made by Bernard DeVoto, editor of the Saturday Review of Literature.

²⁴ Jeffry D. Wert, General James Longstreet, p. 279

²⁵ Pickett’s Charge of almost 5000 men has been praised by soldiers and historians alike for its heroism, but all agree that it could not have prevented the Southern loss which had been ensured at the close of July 2, 1863. Accounts and interpretation of Pickett’s Charge were assembled from J. B. Smith, “The Charge of Pickett, Pettigrew, and Trimble,” Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Volume 3 (New York: The Century Company, 1888), p.354; William Garrett Piston, Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 59-61; Edwin B. Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968), p. 493-534

²⁶ William Garrett Piston, Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant, p.60

²⁷ Robert K. Krick, “‘If Longstreet . . . Says So, It Is Most Likely Not True:’ James Longstreet and the Second Day at Gettysburg,” in The Second Day at Gettysburg ed. Gary W. Gallagher (Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 1993), p.58

²⁸ Ibid., p. 73

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ E. M. Law, Major-General, C. S. A., “The Struggle for Round Top,” Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Volume 3, p. 319

³¹ Dupuy & Dupuy, The Compact History of the Civil War, p. 243

³² Ibid., p. 322

³³ Jeffry D. Wert, General James Longstreet, p.30

³⁴ Jeffry D. Wert, General James Longstreet, p. 28

³⁵ Ibid., p. 31

³⁶ William Garrett Piston, Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 1

³⁷ Jeffry D. Wert, General James Longstreet, p. 84

³⁸ Ibid., p. 200; Connelly and Bellows, God and General Longstreet, p. 36-37

³⁹ One of his first exhibitions of bravery was in the old Union army where he “won title of major at battle of Molino del Rey, Sept. 8, 1847.” Who Was Who in American History?The Military (Chicago, IL: Marquis Who’s Who, Inc., 1975), s.v. “Longstreet, James.” His steady rise in the ranks of both the old Union and the Confederate armies also attest to his reliability; Jeffry D. Wert, General James Longstreet, p. 35, 49, 90, 205.

⁴⁰ Jeffry D. Wert, General James Longstreet, p. 206

⁴¹ Glenn Tucker, Lee and Longstreet at Gettysburg, p. 1-35; William Garrett Piston, Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 104-128

⁴² William Garrett Piston, Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 111

⁴³ Ibid., p. 11-12

⁴⁴ Glenn Tucker, Lee and Longstreet at Gettysburg, p. 11-12

⁴⁵ William Garrett Piston, Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 119

⁴⁶ Ibid., p. 61

⁴⁷ Robert K. Krick, “‘If Longstreet . . . Says So, It Is Most Likely Not True:’ James Longstreet and the Second Day at Gettysburg,” p.58

⁴⁸ Douglas Southall Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants, Volume 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1942), p. 45, 169, 189, 589

⁴⁹ Glenn Tucker, Lee and Longstreet at Gettysburg, p. 1-49; William Garrett Piston, Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant, p. 104-128

⁵⁰ William Garrett Piston, Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant, 118-120