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Who2 Biography:

James Longstreet

, Civil War Figure

  • Born: 8 January 1821
  • Birthplace: Edgefield District, South Carolina
  • Died: 2 January 1904
  • Best Known As: The Confederate Civil War general blamed for the Gettysburg loss

James Longstreet was a career soldier who served as a lieutenant general in the Confederate States Army (CSA) during the U.S. Civil War. Longstreet grew up in Georgia and Alabama, graduated from the military academy at West Point (1842) and served the United States with distinction in the war with Mexico (1846-48) under Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott. When the southern states seceded from the United States in 1861, Longstreet resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and signed on with the CSA. By the end of 1862 he was a lieutenant general, in command of the First Corps of Northern Virginia, which was more than half of General Robert E. Lee's army. Longstreet had highs and lows during the war, but he is mostly remembered for his role in the 1863 battle at Gettysburg. In the years after the war, Longstreet was accused of being slow to carry out Lee's orders on 2 July and thus causing the Confederate defeat. Lee died in 1870, having publicly praised Longstreet, who he called "Old War Horse." Nonetheless, Longstreet was disparaged for decades in the South, partly for Gettysburg and partly because he was a "scalawag": after the war he joined the Republican party (Abraham Lincoln's party) and supported U.S. Grant for president in 1868. These days most scholars feel Longstreet was an able commander who was unfairly maligned over Gettysburg. He later served as American minister to Turkey (1880-81) and as a U.S. Marshal (1881-84). His memoir, From Manassas to Appomattox, was published in 1896.

Longstreet was a lousy student at West Point, but he made lots of friends, including Ulysses Grant, who married Longstreet's cousin, Julia Dent... To the men under his command, Longstreet was known as "Old Pete."

 
 
Military History Companion: Lt Gen James Longstreet

Longstreet, Lt Gen James (1821-1904), Confederate corps commander whom Lee called his ‘old war-horse’. He was commissioned from West Point in 1842 into the infantry, and was badly wounded in the Mexican war. He resigned from the US army to become a Confederate brigadier general in 1861, rising rapidly through division and corps command to emerge, after the death of Jackson, as Lee's principal lieutenant. He is the preferred scapegoat of ‘lost cause’ romanticists because he was a reluctant secessionist, because he delayed Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, because he was a friend of Grant and joined the Republican party after the war, and because he criticized Lee in his memoirs.

By contrast with Jackson, he showed little ability in independent command, but he fully shared Stonewall's belief that assaults were only justified when manoeuvres had put the Union army at a disadvantage. Just such opportunities were achieved at second Bull Run and at Chickamauga, and on both occasions Longstreet's corps delivered the decisive attacks. He was no less effective on the defensive, and at Fredericksburg his corps inflicted appalling casualties on Union frontal assaults. Proof that he had not lost Lee's confidence after Gettysburg was shown when he recalled him to duty in 1864 before he had recovered from his severe wounding at the Wilderness. Those who judge that as a South Carolinian he was out of place in an army dominated by Virginians ignore the opinion of Lee and of his own troops, who trusted him implicitly to the end.

— Hugh Bicheno

 

(1821–1904), Civil War general

Born in South Carolina, Longstreet grew up in Gainesville and Augusta, Georgia. Graduating from West Point in 1842, he served in the Mexican War and was a major when, in June 1861, he resigned, offering his services to the Confederacy.

Longstreet was commissioned brigadier general in June 1861, major general in October 1861, and lieutenant general in October 1862. Except for medical leave when wounded in the Wilderness to Petersburg Campaign, he led the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia from its establishment in 1862 to the surrender at Appomattox in 1865. He fought in every major battle in the East except Chancellorsville, and took the First Corps west on detached service to participate in the Confederate victory at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863.

Robert E. Lee selected Longstreet as his second in command, and although authorities differ, it can be agreed that Longstreet, not “Stonewall” Jackson, was Lee's most trusted and perhaps most talented subordinate. Outstanding in combat, Longstreet was an excellent corps‐level commander and one of the most modern soldiers of his day. He helped to popularize the use of extensive field fortifications and foreshadowed later Prussian doctrine by favoring the use of maneuver to compel the enemy to attack at a disadvantage. He argued that Northern civilian morale should be the true target of overall Confederate strategy. Longstreet was immensely popular with his men, who called him “the Old Bulldog.”

During Reconstruction, Longstreet settled in New Orleans and joined the Republican Party. He held a variety of political patronage positions until his death in 1904. Viewing him as a traitor to the white South, many former comrades turned against him and attacked his military record. His enemies' lies and fabrications, particularly in relation to the Battle of Gettysburg, where he was unfairly accused of deliberately delaying the attack on the second day, were accepted uncritically by later historians, such as Douglas Southall Freeman, who misrepresented both Longstreet's personality and his record.

[See also Civil War: Military and Diplomatic Course; Confederate Army.]

Bibliography

  • William Garrett Piston, Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History, 1987.
  • Jeffry D. Wert, General James Longstreet: The Confederacy's Most Controversial Soldier, 1993
 
US Military Dictionary: James Longstreet

Longstreet, James (1821-1904) U.S. and Confederate army officer. Born in Edgefield District, South Carolina, Longstreet grew up in Gainesville and Augusta, Georgia. He was graduated from West Point in 1842 and joined the 4th Infantry at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis, Missouri. He served under both Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott during the Mexican War (1846-1848), participating in almost all of the major battles before being seriously wounded at Chapultepec (1847). With the outbreak of the Civil War he resigned his U.S. commission on June 1, 1861, and on June 17, 1861, he was commissioned as a brigadier general in the Confederate Army. He was promoted to major general after the battle of First Bull Run (1861), and commanded a division during operations on the Peninsula and at the battles of Second Bull Run and Antietam in 1862. He was promoted to lieutenant general and given command of the I Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee on October 11, 1862. Longstreet proved to be the best of Lee's corps commanders and participated in all the major battles in the East in 1862-63, except for Chancellorsville. Pickett's famous charge at Gettysburg (1863) was carried out under Longstreet's command. In the fall of 1863, Longstreet led his corps west to participate in the battle of Chickamauga (1863) and operations in eastern Tennessee, but returned to the east for the Battle of the Wilderness (1864) and the subsequent defense of Richmond. He surrendered his corps with Lee at Appomattox in April 1865. After the war, Longstreet ran an insurance agency and was a cotton merchant in New Orleans. He joined the Republican Party and held a number of political offices. He was a Customs official in New Orleans; postmaster of Gainesville, Georgia; U.S. minister to Turkey (1880-81); U.S. marshal for Georgia; and U.S. railroad commissioner (1881-84).

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

 
Biography: James Longstreet

General James Longstreet (1821-1904) fought on the side of the Confederacy in almost every major battle of the U.S. Civil War. In addition to commanding one of the most noted offensives of the war at Chickamauga, he led troops at both First and Second Manassas and Gettysburg and stood beside Confederate general Robert E. Lee to the assignation at Appomattox Courthouse that brought an end to the war in the spring of 1865.

Despite the fact that he was highly respected by Robert E. Lee and one of the most noted commanders of the Confederate Army, General James Longstreet has been the subject of controversy since the U.S. Civil War. A highly respected soldier whose courage and thoughtfulness gained the respect of all under him, Longstreet fought in the Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas), Sharpesburg, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and on the lengthy Wilderness Campaign and commanded the Confederate First Corps from its creation in 1862 to Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse in early April 1865. Although Longstreet's military record shows him to be a soldier as valiant as fellow Confederates Lee and Stonewall Jackson, his later criticism of Lee's maneuvers during the battle of Gettysburg was viewed as traitorous by southerners still loyal to Lee after the war. The blame for the heavy losses suffered at Gettysburg was placed squarely upon Longstreet's shoulders, and he was excluded from Confederate circles - even military reunions - through his death in 1904.

No Patience with Bookish Pursuits

The second surviving son of James and Mary Ann (Dent) Longstreet, James Longstreet was born January 8, 1821, at his paternal grandmother's home in Edgefield District, South Carolina. His family was of Dutch descent - the family name had originally been Langestraet - and his grandfather, William Longstreet, moved the family south from its original home in New Jersey in the 1780s. His father was a farmer, and James Junior was raised on the family's cotton plantation in the northeastern Georgia town of Piedmont. On his mother's side, which hailed from Maryland, Longstreet was related to Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. Dubbed "Pete" by his family, Longstreet spent the first nine years engaged in farm work or outdoor activities with his older siblings William and Anna, as well as the four younger sisters he accumulated between 1822 and 1829. His father owned slaves and through the combined efforts of their toil and the family's work the Longstreet farm was prosperous. Young James's early education was one gained through hard work and time spent out of doors, and Longstreet developed physical strength, independence of mind, and a strong work ethic. While he dreamed of a military career, his parents recognized that entrance into West Point Military Academy would require preliminary academic training. On October 7, 1830, young Longstreet was removed from the rural life he loved and sent to the Augusta, Georgia, home of his uncle, noted attorney Augustus B. Longstreet, where he enrolled at the prestigious Richmond County Academy.

Three years after moving to Augusta, Longstreet suffered a family tragedy when his father died in a local cholera epidemic while on a visit. In June of 1838 seventeen-yearold Longstreet was admitted to West Point Academy in New York, an appointment obtained through the efforts of his uncle, Augustus. While a cadet at West Point, his interests continued to remain athletic rather than intellectual - he later wrote that he "had more interest in the school of the soldier, horsemanship, sword exercise, and the outside game of foot-ball than in the academic courses" - and he consistently ranked in the bottom third of his class. A sociable young man, Longstreet retained the family nickname "Old Pete" among his fellow cadets, and he gained several friends who he would retain throughout his adult life: one of these was a young man named Ulysses S. Grant, who was in the class behind Longstreet. At the time he graduated from West Point as part of the class of 1842, he ranked 54th in a class of 56, 16 of whom would go on to be Civil War generals.

Following graduation, Longstreet was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant with the U.S. Fourth Infantry, then stationed outside of St. Louis, Missouri. While stationed there, he fell in love with Mary Louisa Garland, the daughter of his regiment's commander; the couple honored her parent's request that they wait until Mary was older and were married in Lynchburg, Virginia, on March 8, 1848. Meanwhile, the ambitious Longstreet undertook tours of duty in Louisiana and Florida before traveling to Texas to join General Zachary Taylor's Eighth Infantry. During the border dispute that escalated into the Mexican War in May of 1846, 25-year-old Longstreet fought at the Battle of Cherubusco under General Winfield Scott, and a severe wound to the leg at Chapultepec prevented him from joining the U.S. troops as they marched into Mexico City on September 14, 1847, to end the war. He remained in Mexico at an army hospital until the end of the year, then returned to his regiment.

Gained Experience in Mexican War

Longstreet continued his career in the U.S. Army for over a decade, serving in Texas, Kansas, and New Mexico, and moved up the ranks through a promotion to major in the paymaster's department in July of 1858. Meanwhile, the political climate between the northern states and Longstreet's native south deteriorated, issues of states' rights, slavery, and economics creating a divide that politics could not mend. When Alabama seceded from the Union in January of 1861, Longstreet, like many other officers with ties to the south, felt the pull of his allegiance to his home in Georgia. He resigned his commission in the U.S. Army in May and joined the forces of the Confederacy as a lieutenant colonel. He traveled to the Confederate capitol at Richmond, Virginia, was appointed brigadier-general in June, and was sent to Manassas Junction, Virginia, to head a brigade of Virginia infantry.

The battle at Manassas, which became known as Bull Run, was the first major fight between north and south. Longstreet and his men participated in fighting on the 18th of July and stood as reserve troops during the actual battle at Bull Run, which occurred three days later. Although a Confederate victory, the battle revealed the bloody nature the war would take. During the fall and winter of 1861, while both sides regrouped, Longstreet was promoted to major-general and wintered with his division in Centreville, Virginia. Despite the lull in the war, the winter would hold tragedy for the Longstreets when the younger three of their four children died within a week of one another during an outbreak of scarlet fever. Longstreet, his wife, and their surviving son, 13-year-old Garland, were devastated.

After Longstreet returned to his command at Centreville, the Confederate Army was ordered to stop a move by Union troops toward Richmond. He showed himself to be a competent leader at skirmishes at Yorkton and Williamsburg in early May of 1862. At the Battle of Seven Pines, on May 31, Longstreet led the Confederate attack, a move that proved costly when he confused his orders. Fortunately, he learned from this mistake, and when General Robert E. Lee was appointed commander of the Army of Northern Virginia by Confederate president Jefferson Davis, Longstreet quickly proved his competency to the new commander, willing Lee's confidence during the Seven Days' Battles near Richmond in late June. In mid-August of 1862 Lee reengaged Union forces at the battle of Second Manassas. A Union victory under Major-General John Pope seemed foregone when, on August 29, Longstreet and his men arrived to support Lee's battered troops and sent five divisions in to storm a two-mile-long section of the Union flank. One of the bloodiest battles of the war, Second Manassas resulted in 25,000 casualties and proved a victory for the south.

Became Lee's "Old Warhorse"

At Sharpesburg, Maryland, on September 15, 1862, Longstreet watched, with General Lee and 18,000 Confederate troops, as 95,000 Union soldiers under General George B. McClellan marched before them. The following morning the armies engaged at the battle of Antietam; that afternoon Lee's valiant effort to make a northern push into Maryland cost him one fourth of his army. As the tide of battle turned against the Confederate ranks, Longstreet boosted moral among the scattered troops by ordering his personal staff to begin rapid fire of unused cannon into the Union line. This move inflicted casualties upon Federal troops sufficient to stop their advance. The Battle of Antietam, which casualties totaled 10,318 Confederate and 12,401 Union, was considered a technical victory for the South due to its battle against superior odds, but the course of the war was radically altered in its aftermath. On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. From this point on the war no longer turned on issues of states' rights or economics; it became a war against the enslavement of African Americans and as such, the north claimed the moral high ground.

His performance at Antietam earned Longstreet the epithet "old warhorse" from General Lee, who promoted him to lieutenant-general on October 11, 1862, and gave him command of the First Corps of Virginia. Another officer equally rewarded was Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, who became leader of the Second Corps. Relied upon by Lee due to his methodical nature and thoroughness, Longstreet remained a trusted advisor and Lee followed his counsel in many battles. A believer in tactical defense, Longstreet saw greater chance of victory in preserving the lives of his men and resisting the temptation to make heroic assaults on the enemy. Rather, he counseled Lee that a series of counterstrikes against Union offensives were the best chance of winning the war.

Turning back to the south, Lee marched his troops toward Virginia, pursued by General Ambrose Burnside, who had succeeded McClellan. Three months and 75 miles into this withdrawal, on December 13, the two armies collided in the small Virginia town of Fredericksburg. Lee, with Longstreet at his left flank and Jackson at his right, led 75,000 men against Burnside's 120,000. As wave upon wave of Union troops were ordered by General George Sumner to advance upon his 40,000 troops positioned on the high ground to the west of town, Longstreet recalled that the men downed by his firepower were like "the steady dripping of rain from the eaves of a house." Despite the tragic death of Jackson - shot accidentally by one of his own men during the night of May 2 - Fredericksburg was a Confederate victory, Union losses numbering 12,600 compared to Lee's 5,300. Most of the Confederate casualties were "missing" men who abandoned their post in order to return to their families for Christmas.

The Tide Turned at Gettysburg

A Confederate victory at Chancellorsville in May o 1863 continued to build the south's confidence in their new general. Determined to give a show of Confederate strength, Lee marched north with Generals Longstreet, Richard S. Ewell, and A. P. Hill, and 70,000 troops. Lee's aim was to invade southern Pennsylvania, attack Philadelphia, and force Union General Ulysses S. Grant to defend the District of Columbia. Under Lee were Generals Longstreet, Richard S. Ewell, and A. P. Hill. On July 1, 1863, Hill's advance corps were spotted by a Union picket as they marched toward the small rural town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. With little intelligence as to the size or location of the opposing army, both Union troops under General George Meade and Lee's Confederates were in the process of resupplying and reorganizing their forces in anticipation of a major conflict. The clash of advance troops that occurred at Gettysburg ignited this conflict and brought about the longest three days of the war.

On July 1, the first day of battle, the Confederate army claimed victory, as Union casualties outnumbered Confederate, and Lee was left with 35,000 men compared to Meade's 25,000. The second day of battle opened with an attack by Lee on the union right flank, a decision Longstreet strongly argued against in favor of taking a defensive position on Seminary Ridge and repulsing Meade's advance. Longstreet believed that an offensive posture should only be adopted when an attack was planned in advance, and victory was probable. Both Longstreet, who opposed the Union's southern flank, and Ewell, equally uncomfortable with Lee's plan and directed by Lee to oppose the Union north, stalled their attacks until the afternoon. According to his chief of staff, Longstreet neglected to send scouts out to study the ground of the proposed battle - a move a prudent general would undertake - and this negligence on his part was later used as evidence of his contravention of Lee's orders. During the hours Longstreet postponed his attack, Union General Daniel Sickle made the probably misguided decision to move his troops from the high ground at Little Round Top and cross the orchard below. At 4:00 in the afternoon, Longstreet ordered his First Corps northeast from Warfield Ridge, attacking Sickle's men in the Peach Orchard in an effort to occupy the strategic advantage at Little Round Top. The battle raged for three hours, Sickle's troops strengthened by reserves led by General Gouverneur K. Warren. At the close of July 2, Longstreet's effort had failed and Union troops retained control of Little Round Top.

That evening Longstreet met with Lee, Ewell, and Hill. In the belief that the Union army was weakened, Lee was determined to stage a frontal assault, and he ordered Longstreet to command this action. In vain, the "old warhorse" attempted to convince Lee that the Union forces were far from vanquished; as he later wrote, "when the [second day's] battle was over, General Lee pronounced it a success … but we had accomplished little toward victorious results." Longstreet also realized - as did others - that Lee's proposed attack - across an open field surrounded by Union troops occupying the high ground - spelled disaster. Longstreet proved to be correct. The following morning Meade, anticipating Lee's attack, reinforced his center, and after an unsuccessful seven-hour effort by Ewell to gain the high ground at Culp's Hill, the Confederates pulled back. Two hours later, at 1:00 in the afternoon, after once again failing to dissuade Lee, Longstreet supervised a 140-cannon bombardment of the Union left flank. This barrage was answered by 110 Union guns, making it the largest artillery battle in U.S. history. After an hour Meade ordered a cease fire, leading Lee to believe the Union batteries had been demolished. When the smoke cleared at three in the afternoon, Lee ordered Longstreet to advance on the Union center, an order Longstreet transferred to his friend, Major General George E. Pickett. Horrified, Longstreet and Pickett watched as a line of well-shielded Union forces armed with highly accurate rifled muskets fired on their 13,000 Confederate troops marching in formation toward Cemetery Ridge. Over 6,500 of Longstreet's men marched to their death, fell wounded on the field of battle, or were captured.

After the Turning Point of the War

A devastating defeat for the Confederacy, the Battle of Gettysburg cost the south 3,903 dead, 18,735 wounded, and 5,425 missing; the Union army suffered 3,155 dead, 14,529 wounded, and 5,365 missing. These casualties forced the south into a defensive war and energized the Union into beginning its push south into northwest Georgia. Longstreet and the First Corps were sent by rail to the aid of General Braxton Bragg, who with his ill-kempt force had been holding defensive positions near Lafayette, Georgia, since late December 1862. Union forces collided with Bragg at Chickamauga Creek on Saturday, September 19, 1863, and fought on for hours in confusion. By Sunday morning, when Longstreet and his 12,000 men arrived, he was given an additional 11,000 troops and ordered into the fray. Cognizant of his men's fatigue following their all-night march, Longstreet postponed his assault until 11:00, then ordered five divisions to attack the Union front line. His attack severely weakened the Union array and forced the opposing troops into a large-scale retreat toward Chattanooga. Longstreet's decision to delay his attack resulted in one of the strongest offensive battles of the war; he continued on the offensive for the duration of the Chickamauga conflict, halting the Union advance southward and contributing to what became a costly victory for the South.

In the days following Chickamauga, Longstreet urged General Bragg to pursue the withdrawing Union force and destroy it, but Bragg resisted, thereby losing the south's momentum. Longstreet was so angered that he formally requested President Davis to order Bragg's dismissal, noting: "I am convinced that nothing but the hand of God can help as long as we have our present commander." His efforts proved unsuccessful, and Bragg remained in command. While the Union Army remained entrenched in Chattanooga, Bragg and his generals surrounded the city and awaited the north's surrender. Camped on Lookout Mountain, Longstreet and his men waylaid all shipments of food and supplies into Chattanooga except a meager flow from the north. The arrival of Generals Grant, George Sherman, and Joseph Hooker in late October would spark the battle at nearby Brown's Ferry that broke the Confederate blockade of the starving Union forces in Chattanooga. However, Longstreet would not be there to participate; before the battle at Brown's Ferry he was ordered to Knoxville to engage in an unsuccessful effort to seize that city from Union General Ambrose Burnside. On the 25th of September the Confederate forces at Chickamauga fell to Union advances. Union General George Sherman now began his move south, creating the path of devastation through Atlanta into Savannah that became known as "Sherman's march to the Sea." A Union victory appeared imminent.

Longstreet and his men wintered in eastern Tennessee and joined Lee in Virginia in late April of 1864. In May of 1864 Longstreet helped Lee repulse efforts by Grant to breech the Confederate lines near Chancellorsville, part of a prolonged battle that became known as the Wilderness Campaign. Wounded by a bullet that passed through his throat and into his shoulder, Longstreet was forced to leave his post until October. Meanwhile, stalemates at battles at North Harbor and Cold Harbor continued to draw on Confederate strength. When Longstreet rejoined his command, Lee was defending the Confederate capitol of Richmond against Grant at nearby Petersburg; the battle deteriorated into trench warfare after Union troops finally breached Richmond's fortifications on April 3, 1865. The Army of the Confederacy was now in retreat. On Sunday, April 9, 1865, Longstreet accompanied a tired and beaten Robert E. Lee to Appomattox, West Virginia. There, in the town's small courthouse, the war between the states was brought to a close, the cost the death of over 620,000 Americans.

Became Scapegoat for Lee's Defenders

After the war, Longstreet planned to move his family to Texas, where he had served prior to the Civil War, but ultimately moved to New Orleans where he worked in insurance and became a cotton factor. Grant's election to the presidency in 1869 provided him with a new opportunity: the position of surveyor of customs in New Orleans, Louisiana, for a salary of $6,000 per year. Longstreet accepted and joined the Republican Party of longtime friend Grant, his loyalty to the administration eventually earning him federal appointments as postmaster of Gainesville, minister to Turkey, U.S. marshal, and U.S. commissioner of railroads. He and his wife made their home in Gainesville, where they remained until Mary Longstreet died in December 1889, at the age of sixty-two.

Although the war was over, the battle lines between the republican north and the south were still very much in evidence, and Longstreet's party affiliation - and his surprising conversion to Roman Catholicism - branded him a traitor in the Protestant south. Although continuing to retain Lee's friendship until the general's death in 1870, many southerners - even those who had once hailed him as a military hero - now cast dispersions on his military record and blamed him for the disaster at Gettysburg. In defense of his criticism of Lee's tactical offensive at the Battle of Gettysburg, which Longstreet maintained resulted in the death of thousands of Confederate troops during Pickett's Charge, the former general published From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War in America in 1896. His position was further defended by his second wife, Helen Dorch Longstreet, who married him on September 8, 1897, when she was thirty-four. Helen continued to defend her husband even after his death from pneumonia on January 2, 1904, publishing Lee and Longstreet at High Tide: Gettysburg in the Light of the Official Record. Through the twentieth century a battle of the books raged as supporters of Robert E. Lee attempted to rest the blame for Gettysburg squarely on the shoulders of Longstreet, and revisionist historians attempted to reevaluate Lee's record as a general after his aura as the leader of the "Lost Cause" began to fade.

Books

Conrad, Bryan, James Longstreet: Lee's War Horse, University of North Carolina Press, 1986.

Dinard, R. L, and Albert A. Nofi, editors, Longstreet: The Man, the Soldier, the Controversy, Da Capo Press, 1998.

Longstreet, James, From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War in America, edited by Jeffry D. Wert, Da Capo Press, 1992.

Piston, William Garrett, Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, University of Georgia Press, 1990.

Wert, Jeffry D., General James Longstreet: The Confederacy's Most Controversial Soldier, Fireside Books, 1994.

Periodicals

American History, March 1998, p. 16.

 

(born , Jan. 8, 1821, Edgefield District, S.C., U.S. — died Jan. 2, 1904, Gainesville, Ga.) U.S. army officer. He graduated from West Point but resigned from the U.S. Army when South Carolina seceded. Appointed brigadier general in the Confederate army, he fought in the battles of Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg. He was second in command to Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg, where his delay in attacking contributed to the Confederate defeat. He later directed the Confederate attack at Chickamauga. He was badly wounded in the Battle of the Wilderness but later resumed his command. He surrendered with Lee at Appomattox Court House. He later served as U.S. minister to Turkey (1880 – 81) and commissioner of Pacific railways (1898 – 1904).

For more information on James Longstreet, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Longstreet, James,
1821–1904, Confederate general in the American Civil War, b. Edgefield District, S.C. He graduated (1842) from West Point and served in the Mexican War, reaching the rank of major. At the outbreak of the Civil War he resigned from the U.S. army and became a Confederate brigadier general. He took part in the first battle of Bull Run and in the Peninsular campaign. His creditable performance at the second battle of Bull Run (1862), at Antietam, and at the battle of Fredericksburg led to his promotion (Oct., 1862) to lieutenant general. In 1862–63 he held a semi-independent command S of the James River, returning too late to aid General Lee at Chancellorsville. He commanded the right wing at Gettysburg (1863), where his delay in taking the offensive is generally said to have cost Lee the battle (see Gettysburg campaign). He fought at Chickamauga in the Chattanooga campaign and unsuccessfully besieged Knoxville (1863). Returning to Virginia in 1864, he distinguished himself in the Wilderness campaign, where he was wounded. Longstreet participated in the last defense of Richmond, surrendering with Lee at Appomattox. After the war he settled in New Orleans, became a Republican, and held a number of federal posts. He criticized Lee's conduct at Gettysburg harshly and was long unpopular in the South. As a general, he is considered to have been a poor independent commander and strategist but an excellent combat officer. His opinions on the war are expressed in his From Manassas to Appomattox (1896, repr. 1960).

Bibliography

See G. Tucker, Lee and Longstreet at Gettysburg (1968); W. G. Piston, Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History (1987).

 
Wikipedia: James Longstreet
James Longstreet
January 8, 1821January 2 1904 (aged 82)
James_Longstreet.jpg
James Longstreet
Nickname Old Pete
Place of birth Edgefield District, South Carolina
Place of death Gainesville, Georgia
Allegiance United States of America
Confederate States of America
Years of service 1842 - 1861 (USA), 1861 - 1865 (CSA)
Rank Lieutenant General
Commands First Corps, Army of Northern Virginia
Battles/wars Mexican-American War
American Civil War
Other work Surveyor of Customs in New Orleans, U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, U.S. Commissioner of Railroads, U.S. Marshall for N. Ga

James Longstreet (January 8, 1821January 2, 1904) was one of the foremost Confederate generals of the American Civil War, the principal subordinate to General Robert E. Lee, who called him his "Old War Horse." He served under Lee as a corps commander for many of the famous battles fought by the Army of Northern Virginia in the Eastern Theater, but also with Gen. Braxton Bragg in the Army of Tennessee in the Western Theater. Biographer and historian Jeffry D. Wert wrote that "Longstreet ... was the finest corps commander in the Army of Northern Virginia; in fact, he was arguably the best corps commander in the conflict on either side."[1]

Longstreet's talents as a general made significant contributions to the Confederate victories at Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, and Chickamauga, in both offensive and defensive roles. He also performed strongly during the Seven Days Battles, the Battle of Antietam, and until he was seriously wounded, at the Battle of the Wilderness. His performance in semiautonomous command at Knoxville, Tennessee, resulted in an embarrassing Confederate defeat. His most controversial service was at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he disagreed with General Lee on the tactics to be employed, and reluctantly supervised the disastrous infantry assault known as Pickett's Charge.

He enjoyed a successful post-war career working for the U.S. Government as a diplomat, civil servant, and administrator. However, his conversion to the Republican Party and his cooperation with his old friend, President Ulysses S. Grant, as well as critical comments he wrote in his memoirs about General Lee's wartime performance, made him anathema to many of his former Confederate colleagues. Authors of the Lost Cause movement focused on Longstreet's actions at Gettysburg as a primary reason for the Confederacy's loss of the war. His reputation in the South was damaged for over a century and has only recently begun a slow reassessment.

Early life and career

Longstreet was born in Edgefield District, South Carolina. He was the fifth child and third son of James and Mary Ann Dent Longstreet, originally from New Jersey and Maryland, respectively, who owned a cotton plantation close to where the village of Gainesville would be founded in northeastern Georgia. James's ancestor Dirck Stoffels Langestraet immigrated to the Dutch colony of New Netherland in 1657, but the surname became Anglicized over the generations.[2] James's father was impressed by his son's "rocklike" character on the rural plantation, giving him the nickname Peter, and he was known as Pete or Old Pete for the rest of his life.[3]

James's father decided on a military career for his son, but felt that the local education available to him would not be adequate preparation. At the age of nine, James was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Augusta, Georgia. His uncle, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, was a newspaper editor, educator, and a Methodist minister. James spent eight years on his uncle's plantation, Westover, just outside the city, while he attended the Richmond County Academy. His father died from a cholera epidemic while visiting Augusta in 1833; although James's mother and the rest of the family moved to Somerville, Alabama, following his father's death, James remained with uncle Augustus.[4]

In 1837, Augustus attempted to obtain an appointment for James to the United States Military Academy, but the vacancy for his congressional district had already been filled, so James was appointed in 1838 by a relative, Reuben Chapman, who represented the First District of Alabama, where Mary Longstreet lived. James was a poor student academically and a disciplinary problem at West Point, ranking 54th out of 56 cadets when he graduated in 1842. He was popular with his classmates, however, and befriended a number of men who would become prominent during the Civil War, including George Henry Thomas, William S. Rosecrans, John Pope, D.H. Hill, Lafayette McLaws, George Pickett, John Bell "Sam" Hood, and his closest friend, Ulysses S. Grant of the class of 1843. Longstreet was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant in the 4th U.S. Infantry.[5]

Longstreet spent his first two years of service at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, where he was soon joined by his friend, Lieutenant Grant. Longstreet introduced Grant to his fourth cousin, Julia Dent, and the couple eventually married. Soon after that introduction, Longstreet met Maria Louisa Garland, called Louise by her family, the daughter of Longstreet's regimental commander, Lt. Col. John Garland. They were married in March 1848, after the Mexican-American War. Although their marriage would last for over 40 years and produce 10 children, Longstreet never mentioned Louise in his memoirs and most anecdotes about their relationship came to historians through the writings of his second wife.[6]

Mexican-American War

Longstreet served with distinction in the Mexican War with the 8th U.S. Infantry. He received brevet promotions to captain for Contreras and Churubusco and to major for Molino del Rey. In the Battle of Chapultepec on September 12, 1847, he was wounded in the thigh while charging up the hill with his regimental colors; falling, he handed the flag to his friend, Lt. George E. Pickett, who was able to reach the summit.[7]

After the war and his recovery from the Chapultepec wound, Longstreet and his new wife served on frontier duty in Texas, primarily at Fort Bliss. He performed scouting missions and also served as major and paymaster for the 8th Infantry from July 1858.[8]

After the election of Abraham Lincoln, Longstreet decided that his allegiance belonged to the South. He was not enthusiastic about secession from the Union, but he had learned from his uncle Augustus about the doctrine of states' rights early in his life and had seen his uncle's passion for it. Although he was born in South Carolina and raised in Georgia, he offered his services to the state of Alabama, which had appointed him to West Point, and where his mother still lived. Furthermore, he was the senior West Point graduate from that state, which implied a commensurate rank in the state's forces would be available. He resigned from the U.S. Army in June 1861 to cast his lot with the Confederacy in the Civil War.[9]

Civil War

First Bull Run and the Peninsula

Longstreet arrived in Richmond, Virginia, with a commission as a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate States Army. He met with Confederate President Jefferson Davis at the executive mansion on June 22, 1861, where he was informed that he had been appointed a brigadier general with date of rank on June 17, a commission he accepted on June 25. He was ordered to report to Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard at Manassas, where he was given command of a brigade of three Virginia regiments—the 1st, 11th, and 17th Virginia.[10]

Longstreet assembled his staff and trained his brigade incessantly. They saw their first action at Blackburn's Ford on July 18, resisting a Union Army reconnaissance in force that preceded the First Battle of Bull Run. When the main attack came at the opposite end of the line on July 21, the brigade played a relatively minor role, although it endured artillery fire for nine hours. Longstreet was infuriated that his commanders would not allow a vigorous pursuit of the defeated Union Army. His trusted staff officer, Moxley Sorrel, recorded that he was "in a fine rage. He dashed his hat furiously to the ground, stamped, and bitter words escaped him." He quoted Longstreet as saying, "Retreat! Hell, the Federal army has broken to pieces."[11] Longstreet was promoted to major general on October 7 and assumed command of a division in the Confederate Army of the Potomac—four infantry brigades and Hampton's Legion.[12]

Tragedy struck the Longstreet family in January 1862. A scarlet fever epidemic in Richmond claimed the lives of his one-year-old daughter Mary Anne, his four-year-old son James, and six-year-old Augustus ("Gus"), all within a week. His 13-year-old son Garland almost succumbed. The losses were devastating for Longstreet and he became withdrawn, both personally and socially. In 1861, his headquarters were noted for parties, drinking, and poker games. After he returned from the funeral, the headquarters social life became more somber, he rarely drank, and he became a devout Episcopalian.[13]

Longstreet turned in a mixed performance in the Peninsula Campaign that spring. He executed well as a rear guard commander at Yorktown and Williamsburg, delaying the advance of Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's army toward Richmond. At the Battle of Seven Pines, he marched his men in the wrong direction down the wrong road, causing congestion and confusion with other Confederate units, diluting the effect of the massive Confederate counterattack against McClellan. His report unfairly blamed fellow general Benjamin Huger for the mishaps.[14] General Joseph E. Johnston was wounded during the battle and he was replaced in command of the Army of Northern Virginia by Gen. Robert E. Lee.

During the Seven Days Battles that followed in late June, Longstreet had operational command of nearly half of Lee's army—15 brigades—as it drove McClellan back down the Peninsula. Longstreet performed aggressively and well in his new, larger command, particularly at Gaines' Mill and Glendale. Lee's army in general suffered from weak performances by Longstreet's peers, including, uncharacteristically, Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, and was unable to destroy the Union Army. Moxley Sorrel wrote of Longstreet's confidence and calmness in battle: "He was like a rock in steadiness when sometimes in battle the world seemed flying to pieces." Gen. Lee said, "Longstreet was the staff in my right hand." He had been established as Lee's principal lieutenant.[15]

Second Bull Run, Maryland, and Fredericksburg

The military reputations of Lee's corps commanders are often characterized as Stonewall Jackson representing the audacious, offensive component of Lee's army, whereas Longstreet more typically advocated and executed defensive strategies and tactics. Jackson has been described as the army's hammer, Longstreet its anvil.[16] In the Northern Virginia Campaign of August 1862, this stereotype did not hold true. Longstreet commanded the Right Wing (later to become known as the First Corps) and Jackson commanded the Left Wing. Jackson started the campaign under Lee's orders with a sweeping flanking maneuver that placed his corps into the rear of Union Maj. Gen. John Pope's Army of Virginia, but he then took up a defensive position and effectively invited Pope to assault him. On August 28 and August 29, the start of the Second Battle of Bull Run, Pope pounded Jackson as Longstreet and the remainder of the army marched north to reach the battlefield. Postwar criticism of Longstreet claimed that he marched his men too slowly, leaving Jackson to bear the brunt of the fighting for two days, but they covered roughly  miles ( km) in a little over 24 hours and Gen. Lee did not attempt to get his army concentrated any faster.[17]

When Longstreet's men arrived around midday on August 29, Lee ordered a flanking attack on the Union Army, which was concentrating its attention on Jackson. Longstreet delayed for the rest of the afternoon, requesting time for personal reconnaissance, and forcing a frustrated Lee to issue his order three times. By 6:30 p.m., the division of Brig. Gen. John Bell Hood moved forward against the troops of the Union V Corps, but Longstreet withdrew them at 8:30 p.m. Once again, Longstreet was criticized for his performance and the postbellum advocates of the Lost Cause claimed that his slowness, reluctance to attack, and disobedience to Gen. Lee were a harbinger of his controversial performance to come on July 2, 1863, at the Battle of Gettysburg. Lee's biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman, wrote: "The seeds of much of the disaster at Gettysburg were sown in that instant—when Lee yielded to Longstreet and Longstreet discovered that he would."[18]

Despite this criticism, the following day, August 30, was one of Longstreet's finest performances of the war. Pope came to believe that Jackson was starting to retreat and Longstreet took advantage of this by launching a massive assault on the Union army's left flank with over 25,000 men. For over four hours, they "pounded like a giant hammer"[19] with Longstreet actively directing artillery fire and sending brigades into the fray. Longstreet and Lee were together during the assault and both of them came under Union artillery fire. Although the Union troops put up a furious defense, Pope's army was forced to retreat in a manner similar to the embarrassing Union defeat at First Bull Run, fought on roughly the same battleground. Longstreet gave all of the credit for the victory to Lee, describing the campaign as "clever and brilliant." It established a strategic model he believed to be ideal—the use of defensive tactics within a strategic offensive.[20]

Longstreet's reputation as a defensive general was cemented by his performance in the final two major battles of 1862. In the Maryland Campaign of September, at the Battle of Antietam, Longstreet held his part of the Confederate defensive line against Union forces twice as numerous. (He coordinated his defense on the battlefield while wearing carpet slippers and riding sidesaddle, on account of a painful boot-chafed heel.) At the end of that bloodiest day of the Civil War, Lee greeted his subordinate by saying, "Ah! Here is Longstreet; here's my old war-horse!" On October 9, a few weeks after Antietam, Longstreet was promoted to lieutenant general. Lee arranged for Longstreet's promotion to be dated one day earlier than Jackson's, making the Old War-Horse the senior lieutenant general in the Confederate Army. In an army reorganization in November, Longstreet's command, now designated the First Corps, consisted of five divisions, approximately 41,000 men.[21]

Fredericksburg.
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Fredericksburg.

In December, Longstreet's First Corps played the decisive role in the Battle of Fredericksburg. There, Longstreet positioned his men behind a stone wall on Marye's Heights and held off fourteen assaults by Union forces. About 10,000 Union soldiers fell; Longstreet lost only 500. His great defensive success was not based entirely on the advantage of terrain, however. Remembering the slaughter at Antietam that had been magnified by a lack of defensive works, Longstreet ordered trenches, abatis, and fieldworks to be constructed, which would set a precedent for future defensive battles of the Army of Northern Virginia.[22]

Suffolk

In the early spring of 1863, Longstreet suggested to Lee that his corps be detached from the Army of Northern Virginia and sent to reinforce the Army of Tennessee, where Gen. Braxton Bragg was being challenged in Middle Tennessee by Union Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, Longstreet's roommate at West Point. It is possible that Longstreet believed that an independent command in the West offered better opportunities for advancement than a corps under Lee's shadow. Lee did detach two divisions from the First Corps, but ordered them to Richmond, not Tennessee. Seaborne movements of the Union IX Corps potentially threatened vital ports on the mid-Atlantic coast. The division of George Pickett started for the capital in mid-February, was followed by John Hood's, and then Longstreet himself was ordered to take command of the detached divisions and the Departments of North Carolina and Southern Virginia.[23]

In April, Longstreet besieged Union forces in the city of Suffolk, Virginia, a minor operation, but one that was very important to Lee's army, still stationed in war-devastated central Virginia. It enabled Confederate authorities to collect huge amounts of provisions that had been under Union control. However, this operation caused Longstreet and 15,000 men of the First Corps to be absent from the Battle of Chancellorsville in May. Despite Lee's brilliant victory at Chancellorsville, Longstreet once again came under criticism, claiming that he could have marched his men back from Suffolk in time to join Lee.[24]

Gettysburg

Campaign plans

Following Chancellorsville and the death of Stonewall Jackson, Longstreet and Lee met in mid-May to discuss options for the army's summer campaign. Longstreet advocated, once again, detachment of all or part of his corps to be sent to Tennessee. The justification for this course of action was becoming more urgent as Union Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was advancing on the critical Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River, Vicksburg. Longstreet argued that a reinforced army under Bragg could defeat Rosecrans and drive toward the Ohio River, which would compel Grant to break his hold on Vicksburg. Lee was opposed to a division of his army, however, and instead advocated a large-scale offensive or raid into Pennsylvania.[25] In his memoirs, Longstreet described his reaction to Lee's proposal:


His plan or wishes announced, it became useless and improper to offer suggestions leading to a different course. All that I could ask was that the policy of the campaign should be one of defensive tactics; that we should work so as to force the enemy to attack us, in such good position as we might find in our own country, so well adapted to that purpose—which might assure us of a grand triumph. To this he readily assented as an important and material adjunct to his general plan.[26]

This was written years after the campaign and is affected by hindsight, both of the results of the battle and of the postbellum criticism of the Lost Cause authors. In letters of the time, Longstreet made no reference to such a bargain with Lee. In April 1868, Lee said that he "had never made any such promise, and had never thought of doing any such thing." Yet in his post-battle report, Lee wrote, "It had not been intended to fight a general battle at such a distance from our base, unless attacked by the enemy."[27]

The Army of Northern Virginia was reorganized after Jackson's death. Two division commanders, Richard S. Ewell and A.P. Hill, were promoted to lieutenant general and assumed command of the Second and Third Corps, respectively. Longstreet's First Corps gave up the division of Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson during the reorganization, leaving him with the divisions of Lafayette McLaws, George Pickett, and John Hood.[28]

In the initial movements of the campaign, Longstreet's corps followed Ewell's through the Shenandoah Valley. A spy he had hired, Harrison, was instrumental in warning the Confederates that the Union Army of the Potomac was advancing north to meet them more quickly than they had anticipated, prompting Lee to order the immediate concentration of his army near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.[29]

Battle of Gettysburg

Gettysburg, July 2.
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Gettysburg, July 2.
Pickett's Charge, July 3.
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Pickett's Charge, July 3.

Longstreet's actions at the Battle of Gettysburg would be the centerpiece of the controversy that surrounded him for over a century. He arrived on the battlefield late in the afternoon of the first day, July 1, 1863. By then, two Union corps had been driven by Ewell and Hill back through the town into defensive positions on Cemetery Hill. Lee had not intended to fight before his army was fully concentrated, but chance and questionable decisions by A.P. Hill brought on the battle, which was an impressive Confederate victory on the first day. Meeting with Lee, Longstreet was concerned about the strength of the Union defensive position and advocated a strategic movement around the left flank of the enemy, to "secure good ground between him and his capital," which would presumably compel the Union commander, Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, to attack defensive positions erected by the Confederates. Instead, Lee exclaimed, "If the enemy is there tomorrow, we must attack him."[30]

Lee's plan for July 2 called for Longstreet to attack the Union's left flank, which would be followed up by Hill's attack on Cemetery Ridge near the center, while Ewell demonstrated on the Union right. Longstreet got off to a slow start, waiting for some of his brigades to arrive and forced to take a long detour while approaching the enemy position. Postbellum criticism of Longstreet claims that he was ordered by Lee to attack in the early morning and that his delays were a significant contributor to the loss of the battle.[31] However, Lee agreed to the delays for arriving troops and did not issue his formal order for the attack until 11 a.m. Historians do agree that Longstreet did not aggressively pursue Lee's orders.[32] Once the assault began, around 4 p.m., Longstreet pressed the assault by McLaws and Hood (Pickett's division had not yet arrived) competently against fierce Union resistance, but it was largely unsuccessful, with significant casualties.[33]

On July 3, Lee ordered Longstreet to coordinate a massive assault on the center of the Union line, employing the division of George Pickett and brigades from A.P. Hill's corps. Longstreet displayed great reluctance to following this order, which he considered to have no chance of success. He claims to have told Lee:


General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arranged for battle can take that position.[34]

During the artillery barrage that preceded the infantry assault, Longstreet attempted to pass the responsibility for launching Pickett's division to his artillery chief, Lt. Col. Edward Porter Alexander. And when the time came to actually order Pickett forward, Longstreet could only nod in assent, not verbalize the order. The assault, known as Pickett's Charge, suffered the heavy casualties that Longstreet anticipated. It was the decisive point in the Confederate loss at Gettysburg and Lee ordered a retreat back to Virginia the following day.[35]

Criticism of Longstreet after the war was based not only on his reputed conduct at the Battle of Gettysburg, but also intemperate remarks he made about Robert E. Lee and his strategies, such as:


That he [Lee] was excited and off his balance was evident on the afternoon of the 1st, and he labored under that oppression until enough blood was shed to appease him.[36]

Tennessee

In mid August 1863, Longstreet resumed his attempts to be transferred to the Western Theater. He wrote a private letter to Secretary of War James Seddon, requesting that he be transferred to serve under his old friend Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. He followed this up in conversations with his congressional ally, Senator Louis Wigfall, who had long considered Longstreet a suitable replacement for Braxton Bragg. Since Bragg's army was under increasing pressure from Rosecrans outside of Chattanooga, Lee and President Davis agreed to the request on September 5. In one of the most daunting logistical efforts of the Confederacy, Longstreet, with the divisions of Lafayette McLaws and John Hood, a brigade from George Pickett's division, and Porter Alexander's 26-gun artillery battalion, traveled over 16 railroads on a  mile ( km) route through the Carolinas to reach Bragg in northern Georgia. Although the entire operation would take over three weeks, Longstreet and lead elements of his corps arrived on September 17.[37]

The First Corps veterans arrived in the early stages of the Battle of Chickamauga. Bragg placed Longstreet in command of the Left Wing of his army, Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk the Right. On September 20, 1863, Longstreet organized an attack of eight brigades in a deep column against a narrow front. By chance, a mistaken order from General Rosecrans caused a gap to appear in the Union line and Longstreet took advantage of it, but the organization of the attack was well suited to the terrain and would have made a powerful impact on the Union line regardless. The Union right collapsed and Bragg's army came close to destroying their enemy. As Rosecrans and a number of his units retreated toward Chattanooga, it was only the stout defense of Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas that prevented a total rout. Bragg also neglected to pursue the retreating Federals aggressively. Nevertheless, Chickamauga was the greatest Confederate victory in the Western Theater and Longstreet deserved a good portion of the credit.[38]

Longstreet soon clashed with the much maligned Bragg and became leader of a group of senior commanders of the army who conspired to have him removed. Bragg's subordinates had long been dissatisfied with his leadership and abrasive personality; the arrival of Longstreet, the senior lieutenant general in the army, proved to be a catalyst toward action. Longstreet wrote to Seddon, "I am convinced that nothing but the hand of God can save us or help us as long as we have our present commander." The situation became so grave that President Davis was forced to intercede in person. What followed was one of the most bizarre scenes of the war, with Bragg sitting red faced as a procession of his commanders condemned him. Longstreet stated that Bragg "was incompetent to manage an army or put men into a fight" and that he "knew nothing of the business." Davis sided with Bragg and did nothing to resolve the conflict.[39]

Bragg retained his position and retaliated against Longstreet by reducing his command to only those units that he brought with him from Virginia. After participating in some minor battles that preceded the Battle of Chattanooga, Longstreet and his men were dispatched to East Tennessee to deal with an advance by Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. Longstreet was selected for this assignment partially due to enmity on Bragg's part, but also because the War Department intended for Longstreet's men to return to Lee's army and this movement was in the correct direction.[40]

Longstreet was criticized for the slow pace of his advance toward Knoxville in November and some of his troops began using the nickname Slow Peter. Burnside evaded him at the Battle of Campbell's Station and settled into entrenchments around the city, which Longstreet besieged unsuccessfully. The Battle of Fort Sanders failed to bring a Confederate breakthrough. When Bragg was defeated by Grant at Chattanooga on November 25, Longstreet was ordered to join forces with the Army of Tennessee in northern Georgia. He demurred and began to move back to Virginia, soon pursued by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman in early December. The armies went into winter quarters and the First Corps rejoined the Army of Northern Virginia in the spring. The only real effect of the minor campaign was to deprive Bragg of troops he sorely needed in Chattanooga. Longstreet's second independent command (after Suffolk) was a failure and his self-confidence was damaged. He reacted to the failure of the campaign by blaming others, as he had done at Seven Pines. He relieved Lafayette McLaws from command and requested the court martial of Brig. Gens. Jerome B. Robertson and Evander M. Law. He also submitted a letter of resignation to Adjutant General Samuel Cooper on December 30, 1863, but his request to be relieved was denied.[41]

As his corps suffered through a severe winter in Eastern Tennessee with inadequate shelter and provisions, Longstreet again developed strategic plans. He called for an offensive through Tennessee into Kentucky in which his command would be bolstered by P.G.T. Beauregard and 20,000 men. Although he had the concurrence of Gen. Lee, Longstreet was unable to convince President Davis or his newly appointed military adviser, Braxton Bragg.[42]

Wilderness to Appomattox

Battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864.
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Battle of the Wilderness,