James Longstreet
James Longstreet (born January 8, 1821 in Edgefield District , South Carolina , † January 2, 1904 in Gainesville , Georgia ) was an officer in the US Army until 1861 , then a general in the Confederate Army and, after the Civil War, inspector of the customs administration in New Orleans , Commander of the state police and militia in New Orleans and ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
Longstreet was the most important subordinate of General Robert E. Lee , who called him "My Old War Horse" (Eng .: my old warhorse). Longstreet served as the commanding general in both the Northern Virginia Army in the Eastern Theater and under General Braxton Bragg in the Tennessee Army in the Western Theater.
Longstreet took part in all the major battles in 1862 and 1863 in the eastern theater of war. In the western theater of war, Longstreet decisively strengthened the Tennessee Army during the Battle of Chickamauga and led the Knoxville campaign autonomously. Back in the eastern theater of war, he was badly wounded during the Battle of the Wilderness . After his recovery he again led a corps under Lee and took part in the siege of Petersburg and the Appomattox campaign .
The most controversial operation took place at the Battle of Gettysburg , where he did not share General Lee's tactical view and was reluctant to lead the devastating infantry attack - later known as Pickett's Charge .
After the Civil War, he joined the Republican Party and worked closely with his friend, President Ulysses S. Grant . In his memoirs, Longstreet critically described some of General Lee's actions, which earned him hatred from some of his former Confederate fellow-generals. Eventually, this led to the Lost Cause advocates blaming Longstreets at Gettysburg for the loss of the war.
Youth and Career in the US Army
Longstreet was the fifth child and third son of James and Mary Ann Dent Longstreet, who ran a cotton plantation near Gainesville, Georgia. Their ancestors immigrated from the Netherlands in 1657 to the New Netherlands in the northeast of the continent. Longstreet's father nicknamed him Saint Peter because of his imperturbable character , which he kept as Old Pete throughout his life.
Longstreet lived with his uncle near Augusta , Georgia from age nine to seventeen in order to receive adequate education for admission to the Military Academy at West Point , New York . Appointed to the Academy in 1838, he proved to be a mediocre and indisciplined student. He graduated from the academy in 1842 as the 54th of 56 classmates. He was popular with his fellow cadets and friends with many who later became famous during the Civil War: George Henry Thomas , William S. Rosecrans , John Pope , Daniel Harvey Hill , Lafayette McLaws , George E. Pickett , John Bell Hood and his best friend, who graduated from the academy a year after him, Ulysses S. Grant. Longstreet was promoted to lieutenant and transferred to the 4th US Infantry Regiment in St. Louis , Missouri .
A year later, Grant was transferred there and married Julia Dent , Longstreet's cousin. Longstreet met the daughter of his regimental commander there and married Maria Louisa Garland after the Mexican-American War in March 1848. The marriage lasted more than 40 years. The couple had ten children.
During the Mexican War acquired Longstreet is merit in the 8th Infantry Regiment and was recognized for his achievements at Contreras and Churubusco to Brevet - captain and for those in the Battle of Molino del Rey for Brevet- Major appointed. In Chapultepec Longstreet was wounded.
After the war, Longstreet was transferred to the Texas frontier and served with the rank of major as paymaster. He was not enthusiastic about the secession, but he had internalized the doctrine of the rights of the individual states from his uncle early on. Longstreet left the US Army in June 1861 and offered his services to the state of Alabama , which had nominated him to West Point. As the oldest west pointer in this state, this should secure him an appropriate rank.
Civil war
From the Bull Run to Gettysburg
Longstreet reported to President Jefferson Davis in Richmond , Virginia and was promoted to brigadier general effective June 17, 1861 . He was subordinate to Brigadier General PTG Beauregard near Manassas , Virginia and entrusted with the command of a Virginia brigade.
Longstreet's first armed confrontation with Union troops was the skirmish at Blackburn's Ford on July 18, 1861. He was not involved in the subsequent first battle at Bull Run . Longstreet was promoted to major general and division commander on October 7, 1861 .
In January 1862, Longstreet suffered a stroke of fate - three of his children died of scarlet fever within a week . If Longstreet was not averse to alcohol, parties and poker before these bereavement, he returned from the funeral withdrawn, drank very rarely and became a devout member of the Episcopal Church .
Longstreet performed differently during the peninsula campaign . He waged the rearguard skirmishes at Yorktown and Williamsburg cautiously, at the Battle of Seven Pines he led the division on the wrong road in the wrong direction, diluting the success of the attack. Longstreet blamed Major General Benjamin Huger , the division commander of the neighboring division, for this.
During the seven-day battle he aggressively and successfully led nearly half of the Northern Virginia Army - 15 brigades - now under General Lee's command. This time, mistakes by his subordinates actually led to the Northern Virginia Army being denied complete success. His solid leadership performance cemented his reputation as Lee's most important subordinate.
Longstreet led the right wing of the army in August 1862. The left wing was led by Maj. Gen. Thomas Jonathan Jackson , who bypassed the Northern Virginia Army under Maj. Gen. John Pope on the left. It is often said of the two commanding generals that Jackson leads the offensive and Longstreet the defensive part of the army. During the Second Battle of Bull Run , however, it was the other way around. Jackson defended himself against the Virginia Army for two days, before Longstreet attacked the Virginia Army in the flank on the third day and forced them to evade against fierce resistance, which in part resembled the flight of the Union troops from a year ago.
Longstreet was later accused of having reached the battlefield too slowly. In fact, the soldiers marched about 50 km in a little over 24 hours. The interaction of offensive and defensive led Longstreet to believe that it was necessary to use defensive tactics in a strategic offensive.
This belief became stronger during the Maryland campaign. On South Mountain he successfully defended himself against Union forces twice as strong, on Antietam he succeeded in defending himself through clever use of the terrain. At the end of the "bloodiest day" of the Civil War, Lee greeted him with the words:
- “Here is Longstreet; here's my Old War Horse! " (German: "Here comes Longstreet; here comes my old warhorse!").
Longstreet was promoted to Lieutenant General on October 11, 1862 , retroactively to October 9. This made him the longest-serving lieutenant general in the Confederate army. In the Northern Virginia Army he led the I. Corps with five divisions and approximately 41,000 soldiers.
During the Battle of Fredericksburg , Longstreet played a crucial role with the I. Corps. He fended off 14 attacks by the Union from positions at Marye's Height and lost about 500 soldiers. This defensively achieved success resulted from the skillful use of the terrain, the construction of positions and the concentrically directed fire of the artillery.
In the spring of 1863, Longstreet proposed to General Lee that the 1st Corps should be moved to the western theater of war and placed under the Tennessee Army because his roommate at Westpoint, Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans, was making General Braxton Bragg in distress. Instead, Lee ordered him to southern Virginia, where he, as commander of the military areas of North Carolina and southern Virginia through the siege of Suffolk , Virginia, enabled the Northern Virginia Army to procure much-needed supplies.
After the victory at Chancellorsville , Longstreet discussed how to proceed with Lee. Longstreet spoke out again in favor of strengthening the Tennessee Army with part of the Northern Virginia Army. Lee continued to oppose a division of the army. With the regrouping of the Northern Virginia Army, the I. Corps consisted of the McLaws, Picketts and Hoods divisions at the beginning of the Gettysburg campaign.
The Battle of Gettysburg
Longstreet reached the battlefield with the foremost parts of the 1st Corps on the afternoon of July 1st. Judging the positions of the Potomac Army along Cemetery Ridge as very strong, he suggested to Lee that the engagement be broken off and the Northern Virginia Army moved between the Potomac Army and Washington, DC . This was intended to force the Commander in Chief of the Potomac Army, Major General George G. Meade , to attack the southerners in turn. However, Lee declined this proposal.
Instead, Lee instructed Longstreet to attack the left wing of the Potomac Army as early as possible on July 2nd. McLaw's division did not reach the battlefield until noon, Pickett's division was still marching. Due to inadequate reconnaissance, the approach was delayed and the attack finally began around 4 p.m. Longstreet carried out the attack competently as usual and according to Lee's orders, but was unable to force the decisive breakthrough despite some gains in terrain.
On July 3rd, Longstreet with Pickett's division and subordinate brigades from III. Corps lead the attack against the center of the Potomac Army. However, he himself gave the project only a slim chance of success. During the preparatory artillery fire, he tormented himself with the thought of the great losses the attack would entail. He tried to hand over responsibility for starting the attack to his artillery commander. When Pickett asked him if he should compete now, Longstreet had no words and he just nodded. When Pickett sent an officer back to call in the second wave of attacks, Longstreet ordered Major General Anderson, who was ready to attack, to halt the movement:
- “... I was about to move forward Wright's and Posey's brigades, when Lieutenant-General Longstreet directed me to stop the movement, adding that it was useless, ...” (German: “... I was just doing it, Wrights and to put Posey's brigades in march when Lieutenant General Longstreet ordered me to stop the movements and added that it was useless ... ").
Tennessee
Longstreet tried again in mid-August 1863 to be used in the western theater of war. When General Bragg's Tennessee Army had to move to northern Georgia, Lee and Davis approved the request. Longstreet moved with two divisions, a brigade and 26 guns in rail transport over 1250 km through the Carolinas to northern Georgia. The entire operation lasted three weeks, Longstreet arrived on September 17th with the heads of the 1st Corps and attacked the right wing of the Union troops with eight brigades in the Battle of Chickamauga . This attack led to the Confederate victory.
General Bragg forbade the pursuit of the defeated Union forces and then besieged Chattanooga , Tennessee . Because of this wrong behavior in Long Street's eyes, he supported the Fronde of commanders of the Tennessee Army against Bragg.
With Davis' support, Bragg stayed in office. Longstreet developed a plan to prevent reinforcements for the beleaguered Union troops from Alabama. Bragg refused the plan and sent Longstreet to eastern Tennessee to defeat the IX. Corps to fend off Major General Burnsides . After the unsuccessful siege of Knoxville, the 1st Corps was ordered to northern Georgia after the Battle of Chattanooga . In the winter, the corps returned to the Northern Virginia Army.
As with Seven Pines, Longstreet looked for the reasons for the failure in East Tennessee with others. On December 30th, he asked to leave the service. The Inspector General of the Confederate Army, General Samuel Cooper , rejected this request .
From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House
During the Battle of the Wilderness , Longstreet carried out a successful flank attack by the 1st Corps. In the attack, he was seriously wounded by his own fire only a few kilometers from the place where Jackson was also fatally wounded by his own soldiers in 1863. The failure of the commanding general stopped the attack and the 2nd US Corps escaped destruction.
Longstreet recovered and returned to the Northern Virginia Army in October 1864. His right arm remained paralyzed for many years. Longstreet took over the defense of Richmond. During the Appomattox campaign, he again took over the I. Corps and after the death of APHills also led the remains of the III. Corps until surrender at Appomattox Court House. When General Lee rode to surrender on April 9, Longstreet said:
- "Unless he offers us honorable terms, come back and let us fight it out." (German: "If he does not offer us honorable conditions, come back and we will fight to the end.").
Peace time
Longstreet and his family moved to New Orleans, Louisiana after the war and became president of an accident insurance company. A pardon, supported by his friend Grant, was turned down by President Andrew Johnson . It was not until 1868 that Congress recognized Longstreet again as a citizen.
During the Reconstruction , Longstreet joined the Republican Party and supported Grant's election campaign. He attended the induction ceremonies and was appointed inspector of customs in New Orleans six days later. Longstreet lost the reputation of many southerners through these acts, especially among the former generals. Under the Louisiana Republican Governor in 1872, he was given command of the militia and state police in the New Orleans district. Longstreet was wounded in rioting in 1874.
President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Longstreet in 1880 to the United States ambassador in the Ottoman Empire . Upon his return, he served as a US Marshal from 1881 to 1884 .
Longstreet converted to Catholicism in 1877 and remained a devout Catholic Christian until his death.
The Democratic presidency under Grover Cleveland ended Longstreet's political activities. He ran a farm in Gainesville that burned down in 1889. In December of that year his wife Louise died. Longstreet remarried in 1897. His wife, Helen Dortch, was 34 years old and outlived him by 58 years. She died in 1962.
Longstreet's last years of life were marked by poor health. After undergoing cancer treatment, he died of pneumonia on January 2, 1904. He is buried in Alta Vista Cemetery in Gainesville.
Longstreet and the 'Lost Cause'
Longstreet's entry into the Republican Party was an affront for many southerners. His friend D. H. Hill referred to him as a Scalawag , which was worse than a carpet excavator because he came from the south. Longstreet earned his reputation as the prime suspect of the Lost Cause in 1872 when Jubal Anderson Early falsely accused him in a speech of attacking Gettysburg too late on the second day and of being solely responsible for the debacle on the third day. Further allegations followed. Longstreet initially failed to publicly counter these historical falsifications. By the time he finally spoke up in 1875, his reputation in the south was already ruined. The memoir From Manassas to Appomatox , published in 1896, did nothing to change this.
Douglas Southall Freeman took up again in his biography of General Lee the allegations against Longstreet, which were then rehashed in the 1950s and 1960s. After that, the "lost cause" lost more and more of its credibility and is now only represented by marginalized groups.
In Longstreet's defense, his wife Helen published the book "Lee and Longstreet at High Tide" after his death, in which she stated that the South had been falsely taught that the victory of the North was solely due to the fortuitous result of the general's culpable disobedience Longstreets attributed.
It was not until the novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (1974) and the film Gettysburg (1993), in which Longstreet was portrayed by Tom Berenger , that his reputation as a troop leader restored and increased his level of awareness considerably.
Others
Some places in the USA are named after James Longstreet: a village in De Soto Parish , Louisiana, a bridge over the Chattahootchee near Gainesville and the main street in Fort Bragg , North Carolina. During World War II, the Navy put the Liberty freighter SS James Longstreet into service.
In 1998 the artist Gary Casteel erected an equestrian statue of Longstreets on the grounds of the Gettysburg National Military Park . In contrast to the monuments of the other generals, this is built at ground level.
Publications
- James Longstreet: From Manassas to Appomatox. Memoirs of the Civil War in America . here online reprint: Da Capo Press 1992 ISBN 0-306-80464-6
literature
- Hamilton J. Eckenrode & Bryan Conrad: James Longstreet. Lee's was horse . University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill 1986 ISBN 0-8078-1690-6
- Alexander Mendoza: Confederate Struggle for Command. General James Longstreet and the First Corps in the West . Texas A&M University Press, College Station, TX ISBN 1-60344-052-6
- Richard L. Di Nardo: James Longstreet. The man, the soldier, the controversy . Combined Publ., Conshohocken (Pennsylvania) 1998 ISBN 0-938289-96-9
- William Garret Piston: Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant. James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History . University of Georgia Press 1990 ISBN 0-8203-1229-0
- Jeffrey D. Wert: General James Longstreet, the Confederacy's Most Controversial Soldier: A Biography . Simon & Schuster, New York 1993 ISBN 0-671-89287-8
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ The War of the Rebellion , Series I, Volume XXVII, Part II, p. 615: No Support
- ^ Shelby Foote , Red River to Appomattox , pp. 944f
- ↑ grave of James Longstreet in the database of Find a Grave (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Longstreet, James |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | General of the Confederate Army |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 8, 1821 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Edgefield District , South Carolina |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 2, 1904 |
| Place of death | Gainesville , Georgia |