UNIV STY

LEE AND LONGSTREET

AT HIGH TIDE

CHAPTER I

THE STORY OF GETTYSBURG

Back of the day that opened so auspiciously for the Confederate cause at the first Manassas, and of the four years that followed, lies Longstreet's record of a quarter of a century in the Union army, completing one of the most lustrous pages in the world's war history. That page cannot be dimmed or darkened; it rests secure in its own white splendor, above the touch of detractors.

THE detractors of General Longstreet's military integrity assert that, being opposed to fighting an offensive battle at Gettysburg, he was "balky and stubborn" in executing Lee's orders; that he disobeyed the commanding general's orders to attack at sunrise on the morning of July 2; that, again ordered to attack with half the army on the morning of July 3, his culpably slow attack with only Pickett's division, supported by some of Hill's troops, caused the fatal Confederate defeat in that encounter.

General Gordon has seen fit, in a recent publication, to revive this cruel aspersion.

When General Longstreet surrendered his sword at Appomattox his war record was made up. It stands unassailable-needing no defenders. Back of the day

that opened so auspiciously for the Confederate cause at the first Manassas, and of the four years that followed, lies the record of a quarter of a century in the Union army.

In those times General Longstreet, at Cerro Gordo, Molino del Rey, and Chapultepec, was aiding to win the great empire of the West; in subsequent hard Indian campaigns lighting the fagots of a splendid western civilization, adding new glory to American arms and, in the struggles of a nation that fell, a new star of the first magnitude to the galaxy of American valor, completing one of the most lustrous pages in the world's war history. That page cannot be dimmed or darkened; it rests secure in its own white splendor, above the touch of detractors.

General Longstreet has of late years deemed it unnecessary to make defence of his military integrity, save such as may be found in his memoirs, "Manassas to Appomattox," published nearly ten years since. He has held that his deeds stand on the impartial pages of the nation's records-their own defender.

The cold historian of our Civil War of a hundred years hence will not go for truth to the picturesque reminiscences of General John B. Gordon, nor to the pyrotechnics of General Fitzhugh Lee, nor yet to the somewhat hysterical ravings of Rev. Mr. Pendleton and scores of other modern essayists who have sought to fix the failure of Gettysburg upon General Longstreet. The coming chronicler will cast aside the rubbish of passion and hate that followed the war, and have recourse to the nation's official war records, and in the cool, calm lights of the letters and reports of the participants, written at the time, will place the blunder of Gettysburg where it belongs. Longstreet's fame has nothing to fear in that hour.

But for the benefit of the present-of the young, the

busy, who have neither time nor inclination to study the records, and for that sentiment that is increasingly shaped by the public press,-for these and other reasons it appears fitting that in this hour historical truth should have a spokesman on the Gettysburg contentions. In the absence of one more able to speak, this little story of the truth is written. The writer belongs to a generation that has come up since the gloom of Appomattox closed the drama of the great "Lost Cause" of American history-a generation that seeks the truth, unwarped and undistorted by passion, and can face the truth.

In the prosecution of my researches for the origin of the extraordinary calumnies aimed at General Longstreet's honor as a soldier, two most significant facts have continually pressed upon my attention.

First, not one word appears to have been published openly accusing him of disobedience at Gettysburg until the man who could forever have silenced all criticism was in his grave-until the knightly soul of Robert Edward Lee had passed into eternity.

Second, General Longstreet's operations on the field of Gettysburg were above the suspicion of reproach until he came under the political ban in the South, for meeting in the proper spirit, as he saw it, the requirements of good citizenship in the observance of his Appomattox parole, and, after the removal of his political disabilities, for having accepted office at the hands of a Republican President who happened to be his old West Point comrade,—Grant.

Then the storm broke. He was heralded as traitor, deserter of his people, deserter of Democracy, etc. In the fury of this onslaught originated the cruel slander that he had disobeyed Lee's most vital orders, causing the loss of the Gettysburg battle and the ultimate fall of the Confederate cause. Most singularly, this strange