James Longstreet

claude5382@aol.com
Fri, 1 Apr 1994 01:19:16 ECT

> I am presently doing a paper on General Longstreet, and I am
> getting conflicting reports on whether he is well liked in history. I
> know he has taken much heat for his actions at Gettysburg especially. I
> am just curious to hear somemore opinions on whether he deserves a lot
> of it. I personally think he has gotten a bad rap. The Civil War seems
> to be filled with much blame to go around. Longstreet was one of the
> few Confederate Generals that tried to stick to the South's strategy of
> a defensive war. Longstreet disagreed with much of Lee's strategies,
> but that does not make him a bad general. I am in the south so many
> opinions are still biased to the Confederacy.

> I'd like to hear some other opinions
> Clay from Tenn.

Clay;

I've just finished Jeffry Wert's biography of Longstreet that makes an
excellent case that Longstreet was the best corps commander that Lee had.
Wert's treatment is very balanced in that it does not try to hide his
problems, such as his being instrumental in the near mutiny against Bragg in
Tennessee. He had problems later as an independent commander as illustrated
by his aborted attack on Fort Sanders in November 1863. Wert contends that
Longstreet's bad press resulted from two primary areas: the deification of
Lee that took place after his death and Longstreet's autobiography -- "From
Manassas to Appomattox." It was very self-serving and played a little loose
with the truth according to Wert. I ordered it about a month ago but it
hasn't arrived yet. I'm very anxious to read it for myself.
It is hard to deny that Longstreet's view of the tactics needed at Gettysburg
would have changed the outcome of the battle; and who knows, maybe------

Claude