Date: Wed, 20 Jul 1994 06:28:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jamie Adams <jadams%cap.gwu.edu@KSUVM.KSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Longstreet's Countermarch
In _Annals of the War_ (Philadelphia, 1879), General Longstreet makes
the statement that "I did not order General McLaws forward, because,
as the head of the column, he had direct orders from General Lee to
follow the conduct of Colonel Johnston" (p. 423). In context, the
quote refers to the advance and delay on July 2 at Gettysburg.
Colonel Johnston, of the engineer corps, had been ordered by General
Lee to lead and conduct the head of the column.
>From this I would infer that Longstreet (and hence McLaws) did not
have (or think they had) authority to override Colonel Johnston and
that the decision to double back, as opposed to any other route, was
made by the engineer who had supposedly scouted the ground.
This view is supported by E. Porter Alexander in _Fighting for the
Confederacy_ (Chapel Hill, 1989) who says (p. 236 - 237) that he told
the infantry officers of the route that the artillery had taken "but
there was no one with authority to vary the orders they were under &
they momentarily expected the new ones for which they had sent &
which were very explicit when they came after the long, long delay".
Jamie Adams
jadams@cap.gwu.edu