Chapter XXI: Appendix: Longstreet (1)

He lies in state, while by his flag-draped bier
Pass the long ranks of men who wore the gray--
Men who heard shriek of shot and shell unmoved--
Sobbing like children o’er the lifeless clay.
Through the fair South the heroes whom he led
Against the blue lines in the stricken field
Muse on the days ere Appomattox wrenched
The laurel wreath from Dixie’s shattered shield.
The glories of Manassas, Chancellorsville,
And all the triumphs those gray legions gained
Seem gathered in a shadowy host beside
That casket and those colors battle-stained!
While in the frozen North the men who strove
Against his squadrons, bartering blow for blow,
Bow silvered heads, exclaiming lovingly,
“May he rest well! He was a noble foe!”
Genius and courage equally were his--
He fought in cause his heart maintained as right,
And when the sword clanked in the rusted sheath
He murmured not against the losing fight,
But made endeavor, with a loyal soul,
To heal the wounds the years of strife had wrought--
And in the fields of peace more glories won
Than in the battles his gray warriors fought!

--W. A. P., in Chicago Journal.

JAMES LONGSTREET

James Longstreet was born in Edgefield District, South Carolina, January 8, 1821, son of James and Mary Ann (Dent) Longstreet, and a descendant of the Longstreets and Randolphs of New Jersey and the Dents and Marshalls of Maryland and Virginia. Richard Longstreet, progenitor of the name in America, settled in Monmouth County, New Jersey.

James Longstreet, subject of this sketch, removed with his parents to Alabama in 1831, from which State he received his appointment to West Point, and was graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1842. He was promoted in the army as brevet second lieutenant of the Fourth Infantry, July 1, 1842, and served in garrison at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, 1842-44; on frontier duty at Natchitoches, Louisiana, 1844-45; was promoted second lieutenant of the Eighth Infantry, March 4, 1845; was in military occupation of Texas, 1845-46, and served in the war with Mexico, 1846-47. He participated in the battle of Palo Alto; May 8, 1846; the battle of Resaca de la Palma, May 9, 1846; was promoted first lieutenant Eighth Infantry, February 23, 1847, and participated in the siege of Vera Cruz, March 9-29, 1847; the battle of Cerro Gordo, April 17 and 18, 1847; the capture of San Antonio and the battle of Churubusco, August 20, 1847; the battle of Molino del Rey, September 8, 1847; the storming of Chepultepec, September 13, 1847, where he was severely wounded in the assault on the fortified convent. He was brevetted captain, August 20, 1847, “for gallant and meritorious conduct in the battles of Churubusco and Contreras,” and major, September 8, 1847, “for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle of Molino del Rey.” He served as adjutant of the Eighth Infantry, 1847-49; was in garrison at Jefferson Barracks, 1848-49; and served on frontier duty in Texas in 1849. He was chief of Commissariat of the Department of Texas, 1849-51, and served on scouting duty in Texas, Kansas, and New Mexico, 1851-61. He was promoted captain, December 7, 1852, and major of staff and paymaster July 19, 1858. He resigned his commission in 1861 and was appointed brigadier-general in the Confederate States army, and commanded a brigade at Blackburn’s Ford, Virginia, from July 18 to and including July 21, 1861. He was promoted major-general and commanded the rear guard of Joseph E. Johnston’s army during the retreat from Yorktown, Virginia. He commanded the Confederate forces in the field, composed of his own and part of D. H. Hill’s division and Stuart’s cavalry brigade, at the battle of Williamsburg, May 5, 1862; commanded the right wing of Johnston’s army at Seven Pines, May 31 and June 1, 1862; his own and A. P. Hill’s division, in the Seven Days’ Battle before Richmond; and commanded the right wing of Lee’s army of Northern Virginia in the second battle of Bull Run, August 29 and 30, 1862; and in the Maryland campaign, September, 1862; the First Corps (Confederate left) at the battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862. He was on duty south of the James River in April, 1863, and was ordered to rejoin General Lee at Chancellorsville, Virginia, but Lee, without awaiting his return made precipitate battle May 2 to 4, 1863. He commanded the right wing of the Army of Northern Virginia at Gettysburg July 1 to 3, 1863. He served under General Bragg in the Army of the Tennessee, and commanded the left wing of that army, composed of Hindman’s division, Polk’s corps, Buckner’s corps, and two divisions and artillery of Longstreet’s corps, at the battle of Chickamauga, September 19 and 20, 1863. He was sent with part of his corps and Wheeler’s cavalry against Burnside’s army in East Tennessee, in November, with orders to recover possession of that part of the State. He drove Burnside back into his works around Knoxville, and held him there under siege from November 17 to December 4, 1863, when Sherman approached with twenty thousand of Grant’s army, near Chattanooga, for relief of the besieged army. Bragg ordered precipitate attack of the fortifications, but they were too strong to be carried by assault. Just then orders came from President Davis for Longstreet to return to Bragg’s army in distress at Chattanooga. Longstreet held his army in possession of East Tennessee, keeping the Federal forces close about their works, until January, 1864, when he was ordered to withdraw towards General Lee’s army in Virginia, and he participated in the battle of the Wilderness, May 5 and 6, 1864, when he commanded the two divisions of the First Corps forming the right of Lee’s army, and was severely wounded. After convalescing he participated in all the engagements of the Army of Northern Virginia in 1864. He commanded the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia from the date of its organization until surrendered by General Lee at Appomattox Court-House, Virginia, April 9, 1865. He was called the hardest fighter in the Confederate army, and the fairest military critics of the century have estimated his military genius as second to no commander in the Confederate States service.

He removed to New Orleans and engaged in commerce immediately after the surrender. He was Surveyor of Customs of the Port of New Orleans, 1869; Supervisor of Internal Revenue, 1878; Postmaster at Gainesville, Georgia, 1879, and was appointed by President Hayes United States Minister to Turkey, serving 1880. He was United States Marshal of the Northern District of Georgia, in 1881, and was appointed United States Commissioner of Railroads by President McKinley in October, 1897, serving until the date of his death in 1904.

On the 8th day of March, 1848, at Lynchburg, Virginia, he was married to Marie Louise Garland, daughter of General John Garland, U.S.A., of a noted Virginia family, hero of two wars. Mrs. Longstreet died at Gainesville, Georgia, December 29, 1889.

On the fiftieth anniversary of the battle of Molino del Rey, September 8, 1897, at the Executive Mansion in Atlanta, Georgia, he was married to Helen Dortch, daughter of the late Colonel James S. Dortch, a brilliant Georgia lawyer, of a distinguished North Carolina family.

General Longstreet died at Gainesville, Georgia, January 2, 1904, and was buried at Alta Vista Cemetery, that place, with military honors, January 6.

THE FUNERAL CEREMONIES

(_A. S. Hardy, in the Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia._)

GAINESVILLE, GEORGIA, January 6, 1904.

The funeral of General James Longstreet, which was held at eleven o’clock to-day at the county court-house, was the most impressive ceremonial ever held in Gainesville. Several thousand people gathered in and around the court-house, and when the guards threw open the doors to the public just preceding the service, which occurred in the main court-room instead of in the rotunda as originally intended, there was a great crush, though every endeavor was made to handle the vast throng with every possible ease. Only a few minutes were consumed in filling every available seat, and outside there appeared to be absolutely no diminution in the size of the crowd.

A few moments before twelve o’clock, the active pall-bearers bore the casket up the stairway from the rotunda, where it had lain in state from two o’clock yesterday, and placed it in position just in front of the judge’s rostrum. It was banked in a profusion of exquisite floral offerings, many of which came from out-of-town Confederate camps, other organizations, and from personal friends. Across the head and foot were thrown a Confederate and a United States flag, and standing near was the handsome silk flag of the Candler Horse Guards.

If any should doubt that the people among whom the General lived did not love him and revere his memory, this doubt would have been dispelled to-day if they had seen the demonstration over his casket as the last sad rites were being said. Not a business house in town was open, everything in the city closing tight their doors from the beginning of the funeral until after the body was placed to rest in Alta Vista Cemetery. From every quarter the people came and upon every lip there was praise of the immortal deeds of the great Confederate commander.

As the body was being placed in position, Bishop Keiley, Father Schadewell, of Albany, and Father Gunn, of Sacred Heart Church, Atlanta, emerged from the judge’s private chambers on the left and were escorted to a position in front of the casket. The burial service of the Roman Catholic Church was conducted by the Right Rev. Bishop Keiley, of Savannah; Father Schadewell, of Albany, and Dr. Gunn, of the Sacred Heart Church, of Atlanta. Father Schadewell read the liturgical Latin service, then gave the same in English. Some of the beautiful prayers are given elsewhere.

After reading the service and the blessing of the remains the right reverend bishop, who himself had served as a soldier from 1860 to 1864 in the Confederate army under Longstreet, spoke as follows:

“Had it pleased God that the cause which met defeat at Appomattox eight and thirty years ago had been crowned with that success for which both its justice and the singular devotedness of its defenders had given us right and warrant to hope, a far different scene had been witnessed here to-day. It might have been that Federal as well as State authorities had met to pay a merited tribute to this dead hero, who valiantly sustained on many a bloody field the imperishable principles of the right of self-government.

“Had it pleased God to spare the precious lives of those of his companions in arms who have passed over the river, then we had seen the peerless Lee, the brave Johnston, and the dashing Hampton sharing our grief and mingling their tears with ours over the remains of the soldier whom Lee loved. Is there e’en a suggestion of irreverence in the thought which would people this hall with the dauntless spirits of our dead?

“Having met defeat in an unequal struggle and having loyally accepted the results of that struggle; having devoted our time and scanty means to the upbuilding of our loved land; having been blessed by a merciful God beyond our dreams or deserts, we lay aside our tasks to-day for awhile to recall the glories of our past and to tell of the valor of one who fought and bled for us.

“The foeman need not frown,
They are all powerless now;
We gather here and we lay them down,
And tears and prayers are the only crown
We bring to wreathe each brow.

“Having passed the span which Providence ordinarily allots as the term of human life, General James Longstreet has answered the roll-call of the great God.

“What a brilliant page in history is filled with his grand career. Born more than eighty years ago in the neighboring State of South Carolina, he entered West Point in his seventeenth year and graduated therefrom in his twenty-first. He served with marked distinction in the Mexican War and was more than once complimented for his gallant conduct and merited and received promotion.

“When the Southern States withdrew from the Union by reason of attacks on their reserved rights which were guaranteed by the Constitution, and were forced into the war between the States, James Longstreet offered his services and sword to the cause of self-government. No history of the war may be written which does not bear emblazoned on every page the story of his deeds. Why need I recount them here? Assuredly no one will question the gross impropriety of discussing incidents of the career of Longstreet during the war which have been the subject of criticism by some.

“We who knew him forty-odd years ago; we who shared his convictions and in humble ways bore a part in the good cause; we know what a tower of strength Longstreet was to the noblest knight who has graced tented field since the peerless Bayard passed from earth,--Robert E. Lee; we feel and know to-day that neither boundless praise nor fullest words of gratitude can exaggerate the worth of James Longstreet or pay him what we owe.

“By what I deem is a peculiarly fortunate coincidence, we are committing his remains to the tomb on a day when the Catholic Church commemorates the manifestation of our Saviour to the Gentiles in the persons of the wise men, who, led by a star, came from their distant homes to Bethlehem. The Bible tells us that they found the Child and Mary, His Mother. God has sent stars which have been beacon-lights on our pathway through the world, though in their gleaming we have foolishly failed at times to see the guiding hand of a merciful Providence. Joy and sorrow, sickness, and even death have been stars which should have led us nearer and nearer to God.

“It is my duty as a priest of God to call your attention to the obvious lesson of this occasion,--the vanity of mere earthly greatness and the certainty of death and the necessity of preparation for it. James Longstreet was a brave soldier, a gallant gentleman, but better still--a consistent Christian. After the war between the States he became a member of the Catholic Church, and to his dying day remained faithful to her teaching and loyal to her creed.

“Deep down in the heart and breast of every man when touched by the correcting hand of God there is a longing for some means of communicating with loved ones who have been taken from us by death. Oh that we might reach them or tell them of our love or do something for them!

“In that familiar profession of faith, which comes down to us even from the days of the immediate followers of the Master, there is a clause which brings comfort to the afflicted heart of the sorrowing and answers the longings of the grief-stricken. It is that solemn profession of our belief in the communion of saints.

“To the Catholic heart it tells of a golden chain of intercession longer than the ladder of the patriarch and reaching from the cold dead clods of earth even to the great throne of God; a golden chain which links and binds together the children of God here and above; a brilliant and mystic tie which binds and unites the blessed ones who now see God in heaven to us who yet labor and wait in this vale of tears. It tells us of their interest in our salvation and their prayers in our behalf. But it brings yet more solace and comfort to aching hearts when it soothes the grief of those who are in doubt as to the dead who have had their garments soiled with the warfare of this world and have left it not prepared to meet that God before whom scarce the angels are pure; for it tells, too, that even we may aid by our prayers those who are yet in the communion of saints.

“The last words of Mother Church have been said for James Longstreet. Softly and tenderly they fall on every Christian ear, for the children of the Church they have a deeper meaning.

“May his soul rest in peace. Amen.”

This concluded the funeral services and the body was borne from the court-house to the hearse by the active pall-bearers. The procession then formed in the following order: Queen City Band, Candler Horse Guards, and Governor’s Horse Guards, honorary escort; hearse with pall-bearers, family and relatives, Confederate Veterans, Daughters of the Confederacy, mayor and council and county officers, Brenau College, Children of the Confederacy, citizens and public generally. The procession moved up North Bradford Street to Spring Street, out Spring Street to Grove, down Grove to West Broad, thence Broad to Alta Vista Cemetery.

Father Schadewell accompanied the remains to the cemetery, where a short service was held, the crowd baring their heads when the following prayer was read:

“Almighty and most merciful Father, who knowest the weakness of our nature, bow down thine ear in pity unto Thy servants upon whom Thou hast laid the heavy burden of sorrow. Take away out of their hearts the spirit of rebellion and teach them to see Thy good and gracious purpose working in all the trials which Thou dost send upon them. Grant that they may not languish in fruitless and unavailing grief, nor sorrow as those who have no hope, but meekly look up to Thee, the God of all consolation, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

“Grant, O Lord, that whilst we lament the departure of our brother, Thy servant, out of the life, we may bear in mind that we are most certainly to follow him. Give us grace to make ready for that last hour by a devout and holy life and protect us against a sudden and unprovided death. Teach us how to watch and pray that when the summons comes we may go forth to meet the bridegroom and enter with him into life everlasting, through Christ our Lord. Amen. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.”

A volley was then fired over the grave of the dead leader by the Candler Horse Guards and a detachment from the Governor’s Horse Guards, under command of Colonel A. J. West, and Captain W. N. Pillow, taps were sounded, and the grave closed over one of the greatest warriors the world has ever known.

* * * * *

(From the Atlanta, Georgia, Constitution.)

(By Alan Rogers.)

Pathetic Scenes Marked the Interment of Lee’s “Old War-Horse.”

With muffled drums and the flag that was furled
With the cause that was lost, when the last smoke curled
From the last old gun, at the last brave stand--
His soul marched on with the old command;
And the step was slow, as they bore away,
To await the eternal muster day,
Their old-time comrade, lost awhile,
But loved long since for the brave old smile
That cleared the way when he only knew
His ways were Gray and their ways were Blue;
And if for a time, he walked alone,
He’s all right now, for “Longstreet’s home:”
Back to his old command he’s gone,
With Lee and Jackson looking on,
And cheering him back to the ranks again
With the Blue and the Gray all melted in.

GAINESVILLE, GEORGIA, January 6, 1904.

Slowly the bells of Gainesville toll a requiem, the last taps have sounded only to be lost again across the winter-browned fields of Georgia, but the reveille of awakening still rings out clear and true that to-day old comrades in arms, citizens, soldiers, admirers, friends, women of the South, children of a rising generation, Georgia, and all Dixieland may know that Lieutenant-General James Longstreet, the “war-horse” of the Confederacy, has at last again joined his old command.

And the thousands who marched to the little cemetery just as the sun started on its sleeping journey in the west did not come to say a last good-by; with uncovered heads they simply said good-night.

In the court-house which but a few months ago was a converted hospital for the care of those maimed by a terrible cyclone, the body of General Longstreet rests beneath the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy and the Stars and Stripes of the Union. Old soldiers passed in a never-ending procession with uncovered heads for one last look upon the face of their commander. Look if you will behind that curtain of mist before the eyes of that wearer of a gray uniform and you will see quite another picture. It is that of his beloved “Old Pete,” as he was known by his own command, hurrying on to the support of General Jackson at Manassas. Or his indomitable courage on the retreat from Gettysburg “leading on and on as strong in the adversity of defeat as in the success that follows victory.” Or perhaps hurrying towards the front at the Wilderness, the intrepid leader so far in the van that he was wounded by his own men. Or at the last succumbing at Appomattox to the inevitable and with Lee reaping the reward of honor that belonged to a surrender that cost more bravery than all of the battles of that blood-drained period of history.

The sentinels that guard the bier are withdrawn. The body is carried by loving hands to the court-room above. Here in the presence of his nearest relatives and friends that taxed not alone the capacity of the building, but overflowed into an acre of mourning humanity outside.

Here in the closely crowded hall of justice converted into a sanctuary by lighted candles and the priestly robes of the officiating clergy, the services were held. There was no music save the stifled sob of brave men whose hearts were awakened to the sacred ties of old-time memories in a way beyond their control. Bishop Keiley, himself an old soldier of General Longstreet, and Rev. Fathers Gunn, of Atlanta, and Schadewell, of Albany, officiated. After the reading of the prayers of the impressive service of the Roman Catholic Church, Bishop Keiley in a beautiful eulogy revered again the memory of his old friend and commander. His address appears in another column, but the choking of his voice, the closed eyes shutting back the tears that would come,--these things are lost in the reproduction of printer’s ink and can only remain in the memories of those who were so privileged as to be present.

The picture was most inspiring. Look, if you will, at the one-time forest of battle-flags, hewn down and water-logged in the blood of many victories to a tiny grove of priceless ribbons that rise and fall with the wavering strength of the old soldiers who carry them. And in this same sweetly sad procession march with faltering steps the men who wore the gray and the sturdy step of those who, now belonging to a rising generation, wear the blue of the reunited union.

But perhaps even more inspiring than the uniforms of gray were the women of the South, Daughters of the Revolution, school-girls, Daughters of the Confederacy, many of them wives or widows of old comrades--the bravest army of home-defenders, valor-inspiring soldiers that ever dared not only to die but to let die all that was highest and dearest in one common cause. Impressive is the marching of men. But the marching of women--it is different, wonderfully, beautifully different.

What was said may soon be forgotten, but what was seen by those who gathered at the grave will live forever in the memory of all those who saw. Above the opening of the last resting-place of General Longstreet the two flags he loved so well were again crossed and stacked for the bivouac that knows no waking. Just as the near relatives and dearest friends were gathered about the grave, there stepped up an old veteran and delivered the Stars and Bars as the last, loving message from General Jenkins, of North Carolina. With this old flag and the Stars and Stripes, the General was buried.

Then, just as the body was about to be lowered, another figure bent with the ravages of time and trembling with the emotion that bespeaks a tender heart and brave courage made his way to the circle about the grave. His interruption of the services was beautiful beyond all hope of describing.

“I want,” he said, and he hesitated not as one who has forgotten some carefully prepared speech, but rather as one whose heart was getting the better of his attempt at expression, “I want to bury this jacket, my old gray jacket, with my General. I’ve got my papers, too, my enlistment papers. They’re all here, and they’re all clean. I wasn’t an officer, but I belonged to Longstreet’s command, and I’d rather be a private in the old corps than, than---- Well, I’ve served my time, and the General, he’s served his time, too. And I reckon I won’t need my uniform and papers again. But I’d like to leave them with him for always. They were enlisted under his command, and as I don’t ever want to be mustered out again, I’d just like to leave them with him always, if you don’t mind.”

And as no one minded unless it was in the most beautiful way possible, the faded gray jacket and the enlistment papers were lowered with the crossed flags of two republics and many floral offerings as a last loving tribute to General Longstreet, who, with the final sounding of taps, again passed for ever and ever to his waiting commander and his old command.

TRIBUTES FROM THE PRESS

(_Washington, D. C., Post._)

“His are as noble ashes as rest beneath the sod of any land.”

We think it safe to say that there is something in the suggestion that these late attacks on General Longstreet’s action at the battle of Gettysburg have for their inspiration a political bitterness of more than thirty years’ standing. Certainly, it is true that up to the close of the Civil War, and, indeed, for several years afterwards, no one ever heard a question raised as to his military ability. On the contrary, it was everywhere conceded, especially by his immediate comrades and associates, that he stood almost at the top of the list of Confederate warriors, not only in the matter of professional equipment, but in that of personal integrity and character. With the exception of Robert E. Lee, Longstreet was regarded as the very prince of the fighters, strategists, and great commanders of that heroic episode. If any one had hinted, even as late as 1869, that there was the smallest flaw in his fame, either as a soldier or a gentleman, the author of the intimation would have had enough quarrels on his hands to last him to his dying day.

Along in the later sixties, however, Longstreet was a resident of New Orleans. He had engaged in business there, having as his partner Colonel Owen, another Southern soldier of high standing and distinguished service. The shadow of reconstruction was then brooding over the South, and thoughtful men, who had accepted the result of the war in loyal faith, consulted together as to the best means of averting its evils, which were at that time sufficiently defined. Finally, in 1870 or 1871, the so-called “Unification Movement” was launched. At its head were numbers of the most prominent and influential men in Louisiana, and conspicuous among them was Beauregard. The project was discussed by the newspapers and generally approved in the more substantial and responsible circles. At last a meeting was called for the purpose of bringing together the best representatives of both races and arranging, if possible, a course of action which would make for peace and order and avert the turmoil that afterwards succeeded to the irruption of the carpet-baggers and the consequent _régime_ of chaos. Before the appointed day, however, Longstreet’s coadjutors experienced a change of heart. They abandoned the experiment which they themselves had devised, and Longstreet was left almost without countenance or sympathy. With characteristic determination, he adhered to the policy his judgment and conscience had originally approved. Of course, it came to nothing, and he, stung by what he regarded as the desertion of the others, and still more deeply hurt by criticisms showered on him, often from the ranks of his quondam associates, went on as he had begun. Then began the breach which in time widened to animosity, ostracism, and lifelong alienation. He may have been mistaken. At least he was courageous and consistent. But we feel sure it cannot be successfully denied that doubts as to his military genius were cradled in that unhappy episode.

We have no idea of participating in any controversy over the details of Gettysburg. That may be left to the survivors who were in a position to form intelligent opinions. For our part, we think of Longstreet now as all of his compatriots thought of him up to 1870--that he was one of the finest figures on the stage of the Civil War; a spectacle of perfect gallantry; an example of warlike force and splendor. We do not believe he ever received an order from Lee which he did not execute with instant energy. We do not believe he failed in anything, either there or elsewhere, that became a valorous and brilliant soldier. He is dead now, and cannot answer his accusers, but nearly forty years have elapsed since he sheathed his stainless sword in 1865, and, in our calm, dispassionate opinion, his are as noble ashes as rest beneath the sod of any land.

* * * * *

(_Jacksonville, Florida, Times-Union._)

“Peace and honor to his storm-driven soul.”

Now that James Longstreet is no more, the South should forgive the estrangement that followed long years of service. Perhaps he was wiser than we--perhaps to-day we are not very far from the position he took a generation ago. Perhaps his greatness as a soldier was largely due to the same qualities which set his people in opposition to him in civil life--he had utter confidence in his own judgment, and he went straight for what he thought was right regardless of all prudential considerations.

We have accepted the result of the war in good faith--let us accept all that goes with it in our hearts and minds. Others advised while Longstreet acted--once we hated him because he headed our foes to make us keep order; were the riots against which Longstreet stood in New Orleans to be repeated in Atlanta, we know Gordon or Wheeler would head the regulars to restore peace and order if their counsels were disregarded. The time makes a difference to the sufferers--but not to the historian through whose glasses we can now afford to look. Longstreet is dead--weave violets and amaranth in his wreath of laurel--peace and honor to his storm-driven soul.

* * * * *

(_Shelby, North Carolina, Aurora._)

“Hero of two wars punished for his politics in days of peace.”

A camp of United Confederate Veterans at Wilmington, at a regular meeting, declined to send resolutions of condolence and sympathy to the family of General Longstreet on his death.

And yet General Longstreet was a

Hero of two wars.

He was the “War-Horse of the Confederacy.”

He was in the thickest of the fight from Manassas to Appomattox.

He was familiarly known throughout the army as “Old Pete,” and was considered the hardest fighter in the Confederate service.

He had the unbounded confidence of his troops, and “the whole army became imbued with new vigor in the presence of the foe when it became known down the line that ‘Old Pete’ was up.”

Why, then, did not the Wilmington camp pass those resolutions?

Because General Longstreet was a Republican. For this reason he was

Hated,

Abused,

Slandered.

He was charged with disobeying General Lee’s most vital orders at Gettysburg, causing the loss of the battle and the ultimate destruction of the Confederacy.

* * * * *

(_Biblical, North Carolina, Record._)

“So long as Lee lived no one attacked Longstreet’s military
honor.”

General Longstreet was a great general. He was an able strategist, a hard fighter, and a faithful soldier. So long as Lee lived no one charged Longstreet with failure to make the fanciful sunrise attack on the second day at Gettysburg. But when Lee had died, this calumny was started, and it was used in hounding him to the day of his death--on that day certain misguided Daughters of the Confederacy refusing to send flowers for his bier. Longstreet was the victim of a foul persecution by a partisan press--the like of which we see nowadays at ever-increasing intervals. They did not approve his ideas, and they ruined him. He advised the South to accept the results of the war; his business was taken from him, his friends were estranged, and his life was made a burden.

His magnificent services deserved better reward. But history will give him his place; intolerance even now is departing; and as for Longstreet himself, he stands to-night before the Judge of all the world.

* * * * *

(_St. Louis Globe-Democrat._)

“Republicanism does not necessarily involve treason to the South.”

One aspect of General Longstreet’s career from Appomattox till his death the other day brings out a very unlovely attribute which was obtrusive in the South during these years. That was the ostracism to which he was subject because he joined the Republican party and accepted two or three offices from Republican Presidents. This antagonism towards him by a large portion of the old Confederate element gradually diminished as a new generation in the South appeared on the scene. Some of the feeling, however, remained to the close of his days, and evinced itself in the obituaries of many of the Southern papers.

A few facts are sufficient to expose the absurdity of this Southern antagonism to Confederates who cast their fortunes with the Republicans after the Confederacy fell--this feeling that an adherent of the lost cause must cling everlastingly to the Democratic party through evil and good reports under the penalty of eternal proscription. In the score of years from Longstreet’s graduation from West Point to his resignation, shortly after Sumter’s fall, he was in the army, and a participant in the wars in Mexico and along the frontier in which the army was engaged. The probability is that until after Appomattox he never cast a ballot in his life. Moreover, at the time of his graduation, many of the South’s most prominent statesmen--Tyler, Brownlow, Toombs, Legare, Bell, Clayton, Upshur, Henry T. Wise, Botts, Alexander H. Stephens, and others--were Whigs. The Whig, Zachary Taylor, of Louisiana, carried more Southern States than did his Democratic antagonist, Cass.

What warrant had the South for proscribing Longstreet, because he, a soldier who never had any politics in the old days, joined the Republican party just as soon as he became a civilian and got a chance to exercise his privileges as a citizen? Mosby, Mahone, and many other ex-Confederates who had been civilians before the war, and who, presumably, had taken some part in politics, also joined the Republican party, though they did not do this quite so promptly as did Longstreet. When Foote, of Mississippi, and Orr, of South Carolina, both of whom had been prominent in Democratic politics before the war, the latter of whom had been Speaker of the House in part of Buchanan’s days in the Presidency, and both of whom had been in the Confederate service, became Republicans soon after the Confederacy collapsed, their neighbors ought to have grasped the fact that there must have been something in this party which appealed to intelligent public-spirited men of all localities, and that membership in it by a South Carolinian, a Georgian, or a Louisianian did not necessarily and inevitably involve treason either to the South’s interests or to its traditions. Mixed in with the many shining virtues of the people below Mason and Dixon’s line, there was, as shown in their attitude for many years towards Longstreet, one very unattractive trait.

* * * * *

(_Vicksburg, Mississippi, Herald._)

“There was no more magnificent display of heroism during the
entire war than at Gettysburg.”

As truly as Warwick was the last of the barons of the feudal era, was Longstreet the last of the great Confederate commanders. He rose to prominence in the early engagements of the war--his was a household name as one of the chief hopes of the cause, when those of all the remaining survivors of like rank were colonels and brigadiers. At the first Manassas, Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Seven Days’ fight, the second Manassas, Sharpsburg, and Fredericksburg he was the chief subordinate figure except where he divided the honors with Stonewall Jackson. And after the death of that very Napoleon of war, until the _ultimo suspiro_ at Appomattox, Longstreet was Lee’s right hand; or, as our great commander fondly called him, “my old war-horse.” How highly he was held at head-quarters and the war department was shown in his being made the senior lieutenant-general, even over Jackson, after the 1862 test by fire.

At Gettysburg Longstreet was in charge of the fighting line, of placing the divisions in action, on the second and third days of that Titanic struggle. Whatever may be said of the result,--of the errors which misinformation and sycophancy have attempted to make him the scapegoat of,--there was no more magnificent display of heroism during the entire war.

It has not been the Southern fashion of late years to praise, or even practise justice towards, Longstreet. But now that the stout warrior is dead and gone to eternal judgment, all should speak of his virtues, his glorious deeds of arms, without thought or reference to that sad error of judgment that, no smaller in its intent and inception than “a man’s hand,” grew to a dark cloud between Longstreet and his people. This will be appreciated by survivors of the old First Corps, no good soldier of which has ever failed to repeat with pride, “I followed Longstreet.” As one of that band the editor of the _Herald_ has always left criticism of our old chief’s politics to others. If ever the inclination came to us, there rose up two pictures of the past that forbade,--the heroic and inspiring figure of Longstreet as he rode up to Colonel Humphreys of the Twenty-first Mississippi, towards the close of that grand “centre rush” of Barksdale’s brigade that swept Sickles and his Third Corps off of the “Peach-Orchard Hill,” at Gettysburg, to tell him that Barksdale was killed and to take command of the brigade; and Longstreet as he was borne from the front at the Wilderness, all faint and bloody from what seemed a death wound.

Longstreet is now no more. But there is a thrill in the name that carries his surviving followers backward forty years--recalling the roar of cannon, the charging column, the “rebel” yell, the groans of wounded and dying comrades. For,

“There where Death’s brief pang was quickest,
And the battle’s wreck lay thickest--
There be sure was Longstreet charging,
There he ne’er shall charge again.”

* * * * *

(_Bainbridge, Georgia, Searchlight._)

“Robbed of the laurels won in peerless campaigns.”

The death of General Longstreet at his Gainesville home the other day removes one of the few grand actors of the war drama of the sixties. He was known as the “old war-horse of the Confederacy,” and perhaps in point of military ability he ranked next to the great Lee himself. His soldiers had the most remarkable confidence in him, and he it was who could inspire them to deeds of valor unparalleled. At times since there have been those who have attempted to cast aspersions on his illustrious name, saying that he disobeyed Lee’s orders at Gettysburg. A timely article has just been published, and curiously in the same paper that conveyed the sad intelligence of his death, from the pen of Mrs. Longstreet, presumably composed with the aid of the General in his last feeble days, that answers completely and satisfactorily all charges of stubbornness or disobedience at that famous battle. It is a pity that so great a soldier and military genius should not have been allowed to have worn the laurels of so many peerless campaigns undisturbed and without envy. Now that he is dead his memory should be enshrined in the hearts of a grateful people for whose cause he did battle, and the remembrance of his illustrious deeds should be handed down to future generations as those of the knights of the round table.

* * * * *

(_Thompson, Georgia, Progress._)

“Would have been court-martialed for disobeying orders at
Gettysburg.”

It is passing strange that any one should make such a charge against General Longstreet, in view of the fact that General Lee never made any such charge; and any sane man knows that he would have made the charge had it been true, and no doubt General Longstreet would have been court-martialed for such an offence, especially as it is charged that this probably lost the battle to the Confederates.

General Longstreet was one of the greatest and bravest of the Confederate generals, and no man should endeavor to dim the lustre of his brilliant military record or cast reflections upon his good name as a citizen or doubt his loyalty to the South. No hero that wore the gray deserves more honor and thanks than this gallant Southern hero, who, like Lee, Jackson, Johnston, and a long list of other loyal Southern sons resigned a position of prominence in the army of the United States and cast his fortunes with his Southern brethren in defense of Southern rights, homes, and firesides, and many of whom died for Southern honor. Sleep on, noble and illustrious soldier and patriot! Thy good name and record as a soldier is safe from the attacks of politicians, rivals, and so-called Daughters of the Confederacy of Savannah!

* * * * *

(_Houston, Texas, Chronicle._)

“He was superior to human vanity or ambition.”

It should not be forgotten that when the war began General Longstreet, like General Lee and many others of the South’s illustrious leaders, was an officer in the army of the United States. Had he adhered to the Union, high command awaited him; the siren voice of ambition whispered to him of a splendid future of fame and honor and rich reward, while he knew more doubtful was the issue if he heeded the call of duty and offered his sword to the South. Yet he did not hesitate. To his mother’s cry he responded like the faithful son and hero that he was, and proved superior to human vanity or ambition.

This being true, it is but fair to presume that whatever step he took afterwards was inspired by the high sense of duty, and that he took it only after having taken counsel with his conscience and with due regard for the requirements of patriotism and honor.

In every position in civil life, many and responsible as they were, he bore himself with ability, dignity, efficiency, and with stainless honor; there was never a spot upon his official record, but the civilian, as was the soldier, was without reproach.

If any man or woman doubts or calls in question the record of James Longstreet as a soldier, let him or her ask the veteran Southern soldier who followed him (and there are a number in Houston) what they think of him, and with one voice they will say, “He was Lee’s ‘war-horse.’ When we heard Longstreet was in the lead or in command, or was coming, we knew that victory would follow the fighting; we trusted him; Lee trusted him; the army trusted him.”

“Where beyond these voices there is peace,” the old hero is at rest. Little it recks whether men praise or blame him now--“The peace of God which passeth all understanding” is upon him, and history will write him down as he was, a brave, able, faithful soldier, who so loved his native land as to pour out his heroic blood in its defence. Than this he asks no higher praise.

* * * * *

(_Atlanta, Georgia, Constitution._)

“Truth will take hold upon the pen of history.”

A great soldier, in the ripeness of years and yet enduring to the latest breath the pangs of the wounds of four decades ago, has fallen upon earth’s final sleep.

In the brave days of his earlier soldiership, and then in the strenuous years of one of the world’s most tragic wars, wherein his genius lifted him to the next highest rank of generalship, General James Longstreet was a conspicuous figure and always a force to be reckoned with. The finest and justest military critics of America and Europe have pronounced him a commander in whom were combined those abilities of initiative, strategy, and persistent daring that make the historic general of any age or people.

While to others who were concerned in the great campaigns and battles of which he was a distinguished factor there may have appeared in his acts some incidents for criticism, yet to his immediate officers and men he was ever the ideal soldier and the peerless commander. But in the presence of his shrouded frame, in the revived memories of his loyalty and his heroism, and in the knowledge that the seeming errors of men in pivotal crises are often the misunderstood interferences of the Supreme Ruler, judgments cease and reverence, gratitude, and honor form the threnody at the tomb.

The war record of General Longstreet will always remain a theme of laudation by the sons of Southerners. For the reward of it thousands refused to sanction the rebukes his subsequent career sometimes engendered among his compatriots. Who that witnessed it can forget the embrace given Longstreet by ex-President Davis here in Atlanta and the tremendous ovation that greeted the old hero in his veteran gray uniform as he joined in the gala-day made in honor of his disfranchised chief?

General Longstreet’s taking of office under President Grant has been always a misunderstood transaction. It was not a surrender of his Southern sentiments or an act of disloyalty to the Southern people. At the time when General Grant, feeling the impulses of former comradeship, tendered an office and its emoluments to General Longstreet, whose fortunes were in sore straits, the old soldier refused to consider acceptance of the offer until urged to it by his later fellow-soldiers in New Orleans, including Generals Hood, Beauregard, Harry Hayes, Ogden, and even Jefferson Davis himself. He accepted it in the belief that it was his duty to take any occasion for public service that otherwise would be held in the hands of alien carpet-baggers and haters of the Southern people. But the occasion was too soon--the passions of the people yet too inflamed. Without full knowledge of the inwardness of his conduct the people whom he loved heaped upon him a penetrating scorn and livid coals of indignation. He was too brave to complain; too considerate to expose his advisers, and his heroism was never more chivalrous than the long patience with which until now he has endured the misjudgments of his Southern fellow-men.

But these things are naught now to the flown spirit. Hereafter truth will take hold upon the pen of history and rewrite much that has been miswritten of this great son of the South. His stainless integrity, his devotion to the cause of his militant people, his incomparable bravery in battle, his superb generalship on campaign, and his later chivalry in the calm conduct of his citizenship and public service remain as wholesome memories of a world-acclaimed Southern hero.

* * * * *

(_St. Paul, Minnesota, Pioneer Press._)

“Ostracised by men who did no fighting.”

The pestiferous pertinacity with which certain women of the South seize every opportunity to fan the embers of a dying sectional animosity, and to blazon their adherence to the principles of the “Lost Cause,” is again illustrated in the refusal of the Savannah Daughters of the Confederacy to send a wreath to be laid on General Longstreet’s grave. Next to Robert E. Lee, Longstreet had the reputation of being the ablest of the officers who fought on the Southern side in the Great Rebellion. But at the close of the war, satisfied that the Lost Cause was lost forever, and that it was useless to attempt to keep alive a spirit of revenge,--heart-won, too, by the splendid generosity of Grant in his dealings with the defeated army of Lee,--he “accepted the situation;” accepted, too, from the Republican soldier-president the office of surveyor of the port of New Orleans, and addressed all his powers to the work of healing the wounds of war and of reuniting the sections. For this he was ostracised by the ultra element of Southern irreconcilables--an element made up principally of women and of men who did no fighting, and which nurses its bitterness with the unsatisfied spirit of the child who, not having finished his cry yesterday, inquires to-day, “What was I crying about?” in order that he may indulge in the luxury of tears once more. The men who fought under and with Longstreet honor his later loyalty to the Union as much as they do his steadfast courage and ability under the “Stars and Bars” in the bloody sixties. The women who refuse his bier a tribute dishonor only themselves.

* * * * *

(_Atlanta, Georgia, Journal._)

“One of the most gallant spirits of the century.”

With the death of General James Longstreet, who was the first ranking general of the Confederate army, passes one of the most gallant spirits of the nineteenth century.

Of all the men who fought with conspicuous valor and prowess for the Confederate cause, there was none who possessed more leonine courage or inspired in his men a greater degree of enthusiastic affection than this chieftain whom Lee dubbed with the title of “My Old War-Horse” on the battle-field. That remark of Lee’s was like the touch of an accolade upon his shoulders, and no subsequent misunderstandings or criticisms have ever been able to rob him of the place among the chivalrous souls of the South to which he was elevated by their irreproachable King Arthur, General Lee.

And, in view of the fact that the most choice and master military spirits of his age esteemed him to possess tactical ability and military judgment equal in degree to his undisputed qualities of persistent bravery, such criticisms as there were are scarcely worthy of mention and demand no refutation now in any backward glance at his brilliant career. The South can point to his record with pride, as his military associates have ever pointed to the man himself with a quick and affectionate appreciation. No note of apology should mingle with the praise and grief of those who look to-day with tear-blurred eyes upon the soldier’s bier.

And the memory of his actions on the boisterous stage of battle and of the single-hearted, loyal _rôle_ he played through all the shifting scenes of that greatest war-drama of the century should in itself constitute a rebuke to those who have sought to rebuke him for certain generally misunderstood actions in his subsequent career. He became an office-holder under General Grant, a very, very human thing to do. It was a very, very natural thing that General Grant, who had married the cousin of the “Old War-Horse,” and who was, besides, actuated by the spirit of a remembered, youthful comradeship, should give his friend, comrade, and relative an office when Longstreet was walking along thorny financial paths. And his acceptance, urged as he was to accept by his Confederate comrades, was, under the circumstances, very human and very natural. He made a good public servant--where could Grant have found a better in those reconstruction days, which were not noted for the excellence of their public servants? Where could Longstreet have better served his own people than by taking an office which might otherwise have been given to men who were still so inflamed by partisan prejudice as to hate those people? His motives were of the highest in this acceptance, and his attitude of silently bearing the remarks of those who criticised him under a misapprehension stamps his moral courage with the golden seal of a serene nobility.

He was misjudged, but he happily lived to see most of those who misjudged him silenced by an exposition of facts which he was too proud to set forth himself.

The debtor years have rendered back to him the refined coin of a fixed fame for his life labor. He is dead, and his place--a high one in the world’s history--is enduring.

* * * * *

(_Newport, Virginia, News._)

“The bravest of the brave.”

The Savannah Daughters of the Confederacy, whose custom it is to send a laurel wreath for the tomb of deceased Confederates, refused to send one upon the death of General Longstreet a few days ago.