CHAPTER IX
FINALE
Mr. Valiant summoned. His will. His last words.
Then, said he, “I am going to my Father’s.... My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it.” ... And as he went down deeper, he said, “Grave, where is thy victory?”
So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.--BUNYAN’S “Pilgrim’s Progress.”
The personal letters and official reports of Robert E. Lee, reproduced in this work, clearly established that from Gettysburg to Appomattox Longstreet continued to be Lee’s most trusted Lieutenant; their mutual affection and admiration had no diminution.
The official reports of Lee and Pendleton herein given make it clear as noonday that Longstreet disobeyed no orders of his chief at Gettysburg, and was at no time “slow” or “obstructive” on that great field.
The man who, under the weight of official evidence massed in this little story, can still raise his voice to assert that “Longstreet was slow and balky” at Gettysburg, takes direct issue with the official reports of Robert E. Lee and the Rev. Mr. Pendleton, and his becomes a quarrel with the war records.
Longstreet had unhesitatingly thrown up his commission in the old army and joined the Southern cause at the very outset. He was a chief participant in the first and last great scenes of the drama in Virginia. He had copiously shed his blood for the South. The sum of General Longstreet’s offending was,--
1. When the war was over he placed himself on the high plane of American citizenship, where all patriots now stand. He accepted office at the hands of a Republican President (pardonable offence in this good day); these were crimes which the temper of the South could not condone some forty years ago.
2. He had protested against wrecking the Confederate cause on the rocks of Cemetery Hill. In sheer self-defence he was compelled to recapitulate in plainest terms General Lee’s tactical mistakes and their fatal consequences. To many that was a crime never to be forgiven. Yet at the time and on the spot General Lee was morally brave enough to place the blame where it belonged,--on his own shoulders. Lee never sought a scape-goat for the mistakes of Gettysburg.
This is the story, short enough for the busy; clear and straight enough for the young. It is the story of sentiment as well as reverence and admiration, growing up from childhood, of him who led the forlorn hope at Gettysburg.
But behind the sentiment is the unassailable truth. It is undeniably the story of the records, of the events exactly as they occurred. It is fully corroborated by all the probabilities; in no part disputed by one. It is the story told by General Longstreet himself, and nobody familiar with his open character and candid manner of discussing its various phases can doubt for one instant that he tells the details of Gettysburg exactly as they occurred, in so far as his personal part was concerned.
[Illustration: GENERAL LONGSTREET IN 1901]
Of him I would say, as his sun slants towards the west and the evening hours draw near, that his unmatched courage to meet the enemies of the peace time outshines the valor of the fields whereon his blood was shed so copiously in the cause of his country. I would tell him that his detractors are not the South; they are not the Democratic party; they represent nobody and nothing but the blindness of passion that desires not light. I would tell him that the great, loyal South loves him to-day as in the old days when he sacrificed on her altars a career in the army of the nation; when the thunder of his guns was heard around the world and the earth shook beneath the tread of his soldiers.
And as he journeys down to the Valley of Silence, the true sentiment of the generous South that he loves so well is voiced by Hon. John Temple Graves, in the Atlanta, Georgia, _News_:
“As there walks ‘thoughtful on the silent, solemn shore of that vast ocean he must sail so soon,’ one of the last of the great figures that moved colossal upon the tragic stage of the Civil War,--Longstreet, the grim and tenacious, the bulldog of war whose grip never relaxed, whose guns never ceased to thunder,--as the eye grows dim that blazed like lightning over so many stormy fields, let the noble woman who bears his name read to her heroic soldier the message that the South of the present, the not ignoble offspring of the past, compasses the couch of Longstreet with love, and covers his fading years with unfading admiration and unforgetting tenderness.”
WASHINGTON, D. C., December, 1903.
LONGSTREET THE MAN
HIS BOYHOOD DAYS
The original plan of this little work was to publish only the short story of Gettysburg which was written while General Longstreet lived. My friends have insisted that the generous public, although it has received the prospectus of the work with such warm appreciation, will be disappointed if I discuss only the one event of his most eventful life. And so have been added the paper on the Mexican War and chapters on his famous campaigns of the Civil War.
They have insisted further that I must speak of Longstreet the man. I have replied that I could not. My heart is sore. I cannot forget that he poured out his heroic blood in defence of the Southern people, and when there was not a flag left for him to fight for many of them turned against him and persecuted him with a bitterness that saddened his last years. They undertook to rob him of the glories of his many peerless campaigns; to convict him of treason to his cause on the field of battle. And when he lay dead, forty years after his world-famous victories, perhaps from an opening of the old wound received at the Wilderness, a Chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy of the State beneath whose sod rests his valiant dust, refused to send flowers to his grave, because, they said, he disobeyed orders at Gettysburg. And a Southern Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans refused, for the same alleged reason, to send a message of sympathy to his family. If I should now undertake to write about him I might speak of such things as these with bitterness; and I must not so speak, because I am a Southern woman, and the Southern people--my people--must forever be to me as they were to him, “dear as the ruddy drops about his heart.”
I must not write about him until I can write bravely, sweetly, cheerfully, and in this hour it is, perhaps, more than my human nature can do. And I cannot take the public into my confidence about the man I loved. The subject is too sacred. But my friends demand at least one page on the man as I knew him, that the South at last--the dear South that I love with all my heart--may know him and love him as I did.
And so I undertake to string together disjointedly a few incidents of a life that was lived upon high levels, brave and blameless, and that the days give back to me a glorified memory, coupled with a great thankfulness that I had a small part in it.
From my childhood he had been the fine embodiment of my ideals of chivalry and courage. The sorrows of his later years aroused all the tender pity of my heart. His wounds and sufferings enveloped him with poetic interest. He was fighting the battles of my country before I was born. The blood of my ancestors had dyed the brilliant fields whereon he led. He was ever the hero of my young dreams; and throughout a long and checkered career always to me a figure of matchless splendor and gallantry.
His life was set to serious work. His father died before he was old enough to understand the meaning of a father’s care. He had but little schooling before he went to West Point as cadet of the Military Academy. From West Point he went into service in the Mexican War, and was in every battle, save one, of the war that gave to us an empire in wealth and territory; winning promotions for gallantry on the field. After the Mexican War he saw long service on the Western frontier. He entered the Civil War of 1861-65, and the greatest Confederate victories of that greatest war of civilized times are inscribed upon his battle-flags. The glories of Manassas, Williamsburg, Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, the East Tennessee campaigns, the Wilderness, the campaigns about Richmond, and the last desperate struggles on the way to Appomattox, gather about his name.
After the Civil War came the most trying period of his life,--the dark days of reconstruction, the fierce dissensions between the sections, and between those holding different views in the same section, the hot feeling and prejudices of the time, the struggle to repair the ruined fortunes of war. When he was finally gathered to his fathers, at the ripe old age of eighty-three, he was still in harness, holding the position under the government of United States Commissioner of Railroads.
This busy, exciting, and strenuous life was calculated to develop in him the qualities of the soldier, the man of affairs, the blood and iron of nature rather than her gentler qualities. Nevertheless, his heart was as tender as a woman’s, the sentiment and romance of his being never ceased to be exerted, and he exhibited to the last a tenderness of feeling and thoughtfulness regarding others which were in singular and beautiful contrast to the main currents of his life. This, I think, will appear without any special effort to show it as this sketch goes on.
General Longstreet was born in Edgefield District, South Carolina, January 8, 1821. His early years were spent in the country. His father was a planter. Natural to him was all the vigor and fire of that heroic section, and still there was in him a coolness, conservatism, and iron will tempered by justice and fair judgment embracing the best of his Dutch ancestry. His ancestors on this side of the water were chiefly the Dents, Marshalls, and Randolphs, of Virginia. On the maternal side, his grandfather, Marshall Dent, traced his line back to the Conqueror. His mother was Mary Ann Dent, of the family that furnished the lady who became famous as the wife of the soldier-President, Grant. His father was James Longstreet. His grandfather on his father’s side was William Longstreet.
It is interesting here to note that this William Longstreet was the inventor of the steamboat. He discovered the principle in a series of experiments about the kitchen and the mills, and after much care and trouble he was able to apply the principle. He made a rather pudgy steamboat, rigged it up with all necessary equipment, and successfully ran it for some miles up and down the Savannah River. He did not have the means to develop it to such extent as to demonstrate to the world its possibilities. Fully appreciating the importance of the invention, he appealed to Governor Telfair, the then governor of Georgia, for aid. Very naturally, the aid was refused him, for that was a day of scepticism regarding new-fangled things. He was made sport of by the people around, and called “Billy Boy,” the dreamer, and made the subject of doggerel poetry. As an authentic part of the story, I give here the letter which he wrote to Governor Telfair, which is still preserved in the State archives of Georgia:
“AUGUSTA, GEORGIA, September 26, 1790.
“SIR,--I make no doubt but you have often heard of my steamboat, and as often heard it laughed at, but in this I have only shared the fate of other projectors, for it has uniformly been the custom of every country to ridicule the greatest inventions until they had proved their utility. In not reducing my scheme to
## active use it has been unfortunate for me, I confess, and perhaps
the people in general; but, until very lately, I did not think that artists or material could be had in the place sufficient. However, necessity, that grand mother of invention, has furnished me with an idea of perfecting my plan almost entirely of wooden material, and by such workmen as may be had here; and, from a thorough confidence of its success, I have presumed to ask your assistance and patronage. Should it succeed agreeably to my expectations, I hope I shall discover that sense of duty which such favors always merit; and should it not succeed, your reward must lay with other unlucky adventures.
“For me to mention all of the advantages arising from such a machine would be tedious, and, indeed, quite unnecessary. Therefore I have taken the liberty to state, in this plain and humble manner, my wish and opinion, which I hope you will excuse, and I shall remain, either with or without your approbation,
“Your Excellency’s most obedient and humble servant,
“WM. LONGSTREET.
“GOVERNOR TELFAIR.”
Some time afterwards Robert Fulton took up and developed the idea. At first he, too, was laughed at and discredited fully as much as was William Longstreet; but he finally succeeded in enlisting the patronage of Gouverneur Morris, a rich New Yorker, and the success of the steamboat, with all its tremendous meaning to civilization, was the result.
His father having died when he was but twelve years old, General Longstreet’s mother moved shortly afterwards to Augusta, Georgia, where she resided a few years, after which she moved to Alabama. The education of young Longstreet was then intrusted to his uncle, Judge A. B. Longstreet, for many years president of Emory College, at Oxford, Georgia, and one of the most illustrious presidents of that famous old college. Judge Longstreet was noted as lawyer, judge, educator, and writer. He is a very poorly read Georgian, a rather poorly read Southerner, who has not enjoyed and talked to his friends about that book of wonderful naturalness, humor, and human philosophy, “Georgia Scenes.” The author of this book was Judge A. B. Longstreet. In later years its authorship has been often erroneously credited to General Longstreet.
Entirely immersed in his college duties, Judge Longstreet had but little time to give to his youthful nephew. Of those early days, it is only known that the boy was not much of a student; that the massive old oaks of Oxford appealed to him more than the school-room; that fishing in the streams around and chasing rabbits over the fields formed his dearest enjoyment. In his habits and feeling he was then and always near to nature. The flash of the lightning in mid-heaven interested him more than the Voltaic sparks of the lecture-room. He was mischievous, full of fun and frolic, but beneath all that he was almost from babyhood planning for a larger career in the outside world and longing to be a soldier and fight his country’s battles. The books that he loved most told of Alexander and Cæsar, of Napoleon and his marshals, of George Washington and the Revolution. He wanted to do things, not to study about them.
He received his West Point appointment through a relative in Alabama, who was a member of Congress. The appointment came naturally from Alabama, because his mother was living there. He went to West Point at the age of sixteen. This was one of the proudest days of his life; it was the beginning of the fulfilment of his dreams; he had not an idea that any human agency could turn him from the soldier course in which he was directed, or could delay him for an instant. And yet, while he was in New York City arranging for the change from the cars to the Hudson River boat, he was approached by two little boys of guileless appearance, who told him that their father had recently died away down in South Carolina, that they had no money, that their mother had no money, that they just must get to their dead father, and wouldn’t he help them out. With a tenderness of heart characteristic of him then and always, he was about to open to them his purse and take the chances of never reaching West Point, when a policeman who had observed the performance approached and prevented the innocent embryo soldier from being fleeced by the youthful bunco steerers of the city.
Arriving at West Point, he proudly went to the hotel to register and take a room, and was much chagrined upon being told by the proprietor that they didn’t “take in kids.” He was directed to the cadets’ quarters, and his first humiliation there was the further discovery that instead of being waited on as a dignified soldier should be by half a dozen servants, he had to keep his own room, make his own bed, black his own boots.
His thoughts of war had been associated with fierce fighting, the killing of many enemies, the capturing of many prisoners. His preconceived idea of a prisoner was gained while a small boy in Alabama. He had heard that a prisoner was down at the station, and ran there full of expectancy to see what a “prisoner” was like. He discovered a big buck negro, black as midnight, large as two ordinary men, with countenance ferocious. His first West Point assignment which gave promise of the heroic was to guard a “prisoner.” He was given a gun for the purpose. The figure of the Alabama darky came to his mind, and he wondered if the gun were big enough to kill him in case that should be necessary. Examining it, he discovered, alas! that it was not even loaded. Sent to guard a terrible prisoner with an unloaded gun! When he got to the place of service he was relieved, surprised, and equally disgusted by the discovery that the prisoner was a fellow-student who had broken the rules--a poor little weakly, cadaverous fellow, whom he could pick up and throw into the Hudson without half trying.
As a West Point cadet, so far as the drilling, the field practice, the athletics, all the out-door work was concerned, he sustained himself well. He was very large, very strong, well proportioned. He had dark-brown hair, blue eyes, features that might have served for a Grecian model. He was six feet two inches tall, of soldierly bearing, and was voted the handsomest cadet at West Point. As a student of books, however, he was not a success. They seemed to contain so much that did not properly belong to the life of a soldier that he could not become interested enough in them to learn them. In his third year he failed in mechanics, and did not “rise” until given a second trial. In scholarship, he always ranked much closer to the foot than to the head of his class. He was just a little better student than his friend, U. S. Grant, which was poor praise, indeed. But their after careers told a different story.
LIFE-LONG FRIENDSHIP OF GRANT AND LONGSTREET
I may be pardoned for digressing here to speak of the strong school-boy friendship which began at West Point between Grant and Longstreet and lasted throughout their lives. Grant was of the class after Longstreet, but somehow their silent serious natures were in spontaneous accord, and they became fast friends from their first meeting. That one was from the West and one from the South made no difference, just as later it made no difference in their feeling of personal affection that one led the army of the Union and the other the army of the Confederacy.
After their graduation at West Point they were both stationed at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis. The Dent family lived near by; Longstreet was a cousin. And he was particularly fond of his cousin Julia Dent! He took his friend Grant out to see her, and the result of the introduction was their marriage five years later. There was such a contrast between her tall cousin James and her short admirer, Ulysses, that her friends often joked her about “the little lieutenant with the big epaulettes.”
Grant and Longstreet went through the Mexican War together, and their boyhood friendship was indissolubly cemented by the associations of camp life on the Mexican border. Longstreet went in as a lieutenant and came out as a major. General Worth apologized, giving Longstreet’s youth as an excuse for not recommending him for higher promotion. Promotions in the army in those days were not so rapid as at the present time.
The first meeting of Grant and Longstreet during the Civil War was not a personal meeting; it was when they were leading opposing forces at the battle of the Wilderness. It is known to all students of our Civil War history that the Confederate forces led by Longstreet were getting all the better of it at the Wilderness and that the Union forces under Grant were being driven back, when Longstreet was shot down and carried from the field. He was _leading_ his men, after his custom,--he never followed, never told them to go, but always bade them come. He was at this crucial point at the battle of the Wilderness far in advance of his men--so far in advance that they mistook him for the enemy and fired upon him. Shot through the shoulder and the throat, wounded nigh unto death, he was taken from the field. With this calamity discovered, the Confederates held up in their swift advance. The impression rapidly spread that Longstreet was killed. The surgeons and attendants who were bearing him to the rear called out to the soldiers and asked that the cry be sent down the lines: “Longstreet is not killed, he is only wounded.” The men who had seen him fall cried out, “They are fooling us; he is dead.” General Longstreet has said that he heard both cries; he knew he was not dead, but did not know how soon he might be; he had just strength enough left to lift his hat. For this purpose he exerted that strength, and waved his hat to his men that they might see that he still lived. But the genius of the battle of the Wilderness borne to the rear, even the ever dauntless Confederates could not follow up the advantage they had won.
The next meeting of these two personal friends and opposing generals was at Appomattox. In the beginning of that momentous conference General Lee called General Longstreet to him and asked him, in case honorable terms of surrender should not be offered, and in the ensuing developments it should be necessary for the Confederates to fight their way out, if he would stand by him. Longstreet replied that he would fight and die fighting.
General Longstreet often spoke of the details of the capitulation at Appomattox. He said that when he went into the conference-room, in the McLean residence, as one of the Confederate Commissioners, he was compelled to pass through the room occupied by General Grant as his head-quarters. He felt curious to know how General Grant would receive him. He had loved Grant as one of his closest boyhood friends, but times were much changed. Grant was victor, he was vanquished. He was therefore prepared to observe the rigid demeanor of those between whom ceremony only forces recognition. But immediately he entered the room Grant rose, approached him with a greater show of demonstration than ever in the olden days, and slapped him on the shoulder, exclaiming, “Well, Old Pete, can’t we get back to the good old days by playing a game of brag?” At West Point the nickname among the boys for General Longstreet was “Old Pete.” No one ever knew why, any more than they know why this or that college president is designated Peleg or Squeers.
It has often been related by General Longstreet and by others that General Lee went into the Appomattox conference dressed in full uniform, and making withal the best appearance that this most noble soldier in his dire defeat could make. General Grant, on the contrary, had not dressed up for the occasion. He wore his old fighting uniform, mud bespattered, evidencing no acquaintance even with a dusting-brush. The important part of that meeting, the splendid bearing of the conquered Confederates, the modest demeanor of the Union victors, and, above all, the noble generosity of Grant in refusing to accept the sword of Lee and in giving the fairest terms possible under the existing conditions,--these are known to all who have read United States history. When General Lee rode back to his head-quarters from this fateful conference, his half-starved, ragged, worn-out, worshipful followers saluted him from both sides of the road. Overcome with emotion, he dared not look directly into their faces. He held his hat in his hand and fixed his eyes straight between his horse’s ears. The parting at Appomattox between Lee and his officers was most kindly, affectionate, and touching in every instance. But when General Longstreet approached, General Lee threw his arms about him, and, locked in each other’s embrace, the two wept with a bitterness of regret that ordinary mortals can never understand.
Soon after the war General Longstreet visited Washington and was invited to be the guest of a Union officer. He protested against accepting the invitation, saying that it was too soon after the fighting. But the insistence was so cordial as to leave no excuse for refusal. Once under an officer’s roof, it became his pleasant duty to pay his respects to the commanding general, who was, of course, General Grant. Grant received him with all his old-time cordiality, and invited him to take supper at his house that evening, saying quickly, as enforcement of the invitation, that his wife would be anxious to see him. The evening was pleasantly spent, and upon taking his leave, General Grant walked to the gate with General Longstreet, where he said, “Now that it is all over, would you not like to have pardon?” General Longstreet replied, with a touch of Southern fire, that he was unaware of having done anything in need of pardon. General Grant replied that he had perhaps used the wrong word, as he was more of a soldier than a linguist; that he meant to ask if General Longstreet would like to have amnesty. General Longstreet answered that he was back in the Union, meant to live in the Union, was ready at that moment to fight for the Union, and would be happy if his old friend could place him in the way of restored citizenship. General Grant requested him to come again to his office the following morning, and said that in the mean time he would see the President and Secretary of War in General Longstreet’s behalf. In the morning he gave General Longstreet a letter to President Johnson full of warm interest and broad-mindedness characteristic of Grant, which is here reproduced:
“HEAD-QUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON, D. C., November 7, 1865.
“HIS EXCELLENCY, A. JOHNSON, “President:
“Knowing that General Longstreet, late of the army which was in rebellion against the authority of the United States, is in the city, and presuming that he intends asking executive clemency before leaving, I beg to say a word in his favor.
“General Longstreet comes under the third, fifth, and eighth exceptions made in your proclamation of the 29th of May, 1865. I believe I can safely say that there is nowhere among the exceptions a more honorable class of men than those embraced in the fifth and eighth of these, nor a class that will more faithfully observe any obligation which they may impose upon themselves. General Longstreet, in my opinion, stands high among this class. I have known him well for more than twenty-six years, first as cadet at West Point and afterwards as an officer of the army. For five years from my graduation we served together, a portion of the time in the same regiment. I speak of him, therefore, from actual personal acquaintance.
“In the late rebellion, I think, not one single charge was ever brought against General Longstreet for persecution of prisoners of war or of persons for their political opinions. If such charges were ever made, I never heard them. I have no hesitation, therefore, in recommending General Longstreet to your Excellency for pardon. I will further state that my opinion of him is such that I shall feel it as a personal favor to myself if this pardon is granted.
“Very respectfully, your obedient servant, “U. S. GRANT, “_Lieutenant-General_.”
Armed with this letter, General Longstreet sought President Johnson. In the interview that followed the presentation of the letter the President was nervous, ill at ease, and somewhat resentful. He would not decide to grant the request, and he would not positively refuse. Finally, he asked General Longstreet to call again the following morning. At this next meeting he was still non-committal, and at length closed the interview by saying, “There are three men this Union will never forgive. They have given it too much trouble. They are Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and James Longstreet.” General Longstreet said, “Those who are forgiven much, love much, Mr. President.” Johnson answered, “You have high authority for that statement, General, but you cannot have amnesty.” It was shortly afterwards granted by act of Congress, General Longstreet’s name being added to a list of prominent Confederate officers by the especial request of Grant.
These incidents in the associations of Grant and Longstreet come in naturally in a paper of this kind. I always think of them together,--as chums at West Point; as comrades in the West and on the fields of Mexico; as opposing forces in the mightiest war the world has witnessed; and after that war was ended, as good friends again in the stronger nation.
President Johnson, who had started out with the plan of being generous to the South, and for some unknown reason departed from that policy, conceived the idea of having arrested and thrown into prison and tried for treason a number of the high officers of the Confederacy. He called for a Cabinet meeting to get an endorsement of this plan, and sent for General Grant to attend the meeting. He forcibly presented his reasons for the procedure, and asked for the opinions of those present. After much discussion there was general acquiescence by the Cabinet. “The silent man of destiny” was the last member of the conference to open his lips. He said, “I will resign my commission in the army before I will, as commanding general, sign a warrant for the arrest of any of these Confederate officers as long as they observe the honorable terms of surrender made to me.”
It would be easy to write a book about a statement like that, but the book when written would not be as good as the unadorned statement.
The illustrious Union general’s noble generosity to the conquered South is an old tale. But it is so beautiful that it bears repetition, and I love to repeat it. I have digressed from the main line of this paper to pay to General Longstreet’s boyhood friend the modest tribute of my admiration. From early childhood I reverenced Grant. I always regarded him as the greatest man, the greatest general, the greatest hero on the Union side. I have now a life-size steel-engraving of him that I secured when a girl. This was long before I knew much of that side of his life which has since most appealed to me. My admiration of him has been in every way strengthened by the stories General Longstreet told me of him, particularly the stories showing his generosity to his foes and his many private and official kindnesses to the widows and orphans of Confederate officers and privates. Of these stories I give one typical of many: When Grant was President, a widow of a Confederate officer applied for a post-office in a small Southern town. Hearing nothing of her application, she came to Washington to press it. She was unable to move the authorities at the Post-Office Department, and was about to go home in despair, when a friend suggested that it might be worth while for her to see the President. With much effort she summoned courage and appeared at the White House. The President received her in a most friendly manner, and after hearing her story took her application and wrote a brief but strong endorsement on the back of it. She hurried in triumph to the Post-Office Department. The official to whom she presented the application frowned and pondered over it for some time, and then wrote under the President’s endorsement: “This being a fourth-class office, the President does not have the appointing power.” The application was handed back to her, and she went away in deep distress, and was again preparing to return home, when another friend told her by all means to take the paper back to the President so that he might see how his endorsement had been received. She did so. The President wrote under the last endorsement: “While the President does not have the appointing power in this office, he has the appointment of the Postmaster-General,” and, summoning his secretary, directed him to accompany the lady to the Department and in person deliver her application to the Postmaster-General. It is needless to add that she received the commission before leaving the office.
While on a tour through the West in 1899, General Longstreet was entertained in San Diego, California, at a dinner at the home of U. S. Grant, Jr. After dinner he requested the company to stand while he proposed a toast. We expected, perhaps, some pleasantry or gallant compliment to the hostess. He said: “Thirty-odd years ago I first met General Grant in the Civil War at the Wilderness, and there received the wound that paralyzed my right arm. During the fiercest warfare this nation has seen, General Grant was the strongest obstacle that stood between me and my people and the consummation of the dearest hopes that they then cherished. Now, in this day of peace and union, with not a cloud upon the sky of a reunited country, in the presence of General Grant’s descendants, under the roof of his namesake son, I want to drink this toast to the memory of Grant, revered alike by the brave men who fought with him and the equally brave men who fought him.”
HIS FIRST ROMANCE
Fifty years before the pleasant day in San Diego, fresh from the fields of his honors and victories in Mexico, young Major Longstreet had come home to wed the daughter of his old brigade commander, Colonel John Garland. She was Marie Louise Garland, a very charming woman, and so small of figure as to be in striking contrast to her husband of six feet two. They were engaged for some time before the breaking out of the Mexican War. With a lofty deference, which he bravely overcame in later life, he had never kissed his fiancée. In setting out for the Mexican War, he said that he thought, inasmuch as he might get killed and never see her again, it might not be improper, under all the sad circumstances, to kiss her. They had ten children, five of whom died in infancy. A word as to the living five. A son born in Virginia during the war was named Robert Lee, after the Southern Commander. This son served in the recent Spanish-American War, and was, by happy fortune, a member of the staff of General Fitzhugh Lee. He is now in the government service at Washington City. Another son, named James, after his father, was born in Virginia not long after the surrender. At the time, General Longstreet wrote to an absent relative: “This is my Union son, but he has a yell like the rebel yell when trying to reach the breastworks. I have named him James, after myself, and I know he will always be as good a Union man as I am going to be hereafter.” This son likewise saw volunteer service in the Spanish-American War. He afterwards received a commission in the regular army, and is now serving in the Philippines in the Thirteenth Cavalry. This Union officer son is a strong Democrat; his brother in Washington is an equally strong Republican. The General always taught that political alignment should be based upon conviction alone. His oldest son, John, an architect, lives in Atlanta, the youngest son, Randolph, a farmer, lives on the home place at Gainesville; the only daughter is Mrs. Whelchel, of Gainesville, Georgia. There are five grandchildren.
General Longstreet said that he started out in his married life with the purpose of preserving military discipline in the family,--managing the family as he would manage soldiers on the field. He soon found that this would not work, and turned over the chief control of his home to his wife.
General Longstreet was a great admirer of ladies, and has often said that he never saw enough of them, never knew as many as he wanted to know. Into his soldier life few ladies had come. When he got into civil life he wondered where all the ladies came from. After the Civil War he was much petted and kissed by the ladies of the South, as was the custom with the old heroes of the war. He submitted to it with something more than willingness, particularly from the younger and prettier girls. He always had for woman in the abstract the tenderest love and reverence. He considered her the human temple of all loveliness. He preserved to the end of his long life the romance and sentiment which, having but half a chance to develop in his youth, had continued to develop in his later years. The home was ever to him the holy of holies.
Last summer, at Chicago, he met the daughter of his first sweetheart, and told her, with beautiful _naïveté,_ that her mother had been his sweetheart before going to West Point; that he had meant to marry her when he got back, though he had not told her so; and on returning, to his disgust, he found her married to another fellow.
After the Mexican War General Longstreet served extensively in the Indian campaigns out West. He considered it his duty and made it his delight, as do all good soldiers, to go willingly where he was sent. When choice was allowed him he went where the service was hardest. He did not ask to dine nicely nor to sleep warm. A storm cloud was not too rough a covering for him. He did not seek Olympian sunshine. He could gladly make the Rocky Mountains his bed, and the war-whoop of the Indian seeking to disturb the peace of his country was music to his ears. The highest word that he knew was duty. His country he loved above all things else. He served in the United States army for almost a quarter of a century, nearly always west of the Mississippi.
When the Civil War broke out he was paymaster at Albuquerque, New Mexico, with the rank of major. The country had for years been in comparative peace, and he had given up the cherished idea of military glory and high promotion. Where did his duty lie in this hour? He had loyally served in the Union army for nearly twenty-five years and through the war that gave to the nation a rich empire. His State and his people were now going to fight the Union. The Union officers with whom he was serving and the Union soldiers whom he had commanded, pleaded with him to stay with the Union; their wives and daughters entreated him and wept over him; the power of vast association appealed wonderfully to him; but he thought that duty called him to the service of the South, and no earthly power could keep him from that service. He sent in his resignation, and set out at once for Richmond. His relatives and friends along the way, only taking time to speak to him as he passed, hastened him on to Richmond. It was a gala journey that he made through the Southern country. The music of Southern songs was borne upon every breeze. The wildest enthusiasm electrified town and hamlet; from the open doors of every farm-house came salutations cheering the passengers on to Richmond. He was not allowed to pay for entertainment at any Southern hotel. Everything was free for those who were going to join “Jeff. Davis for Dixie and for Southern rights.”
HEROIC CITIZEN OF THE RECONSTRUCTION PERIOD
Longstreet entered the Confederate service as brigadier-general, and reported for duty to General Beauregard at the first Manassas. After the baptism of fire at Antietam, in 1862, Longstreet was made lieutenant-general, next in rank to Lee. This rank he retained to the end of the war, ranking even Stonewall Jackson. This fact is especially mentioned, because the last generation of the South have often confused the rank secured by their fathers in the war with the paper ranks given by the Confederacy when the war was over and that government, heroic in its ruins, had nothing else to give.
I have heard it said by many Union officers that Longstreet’s corps, the First Corps, was the terror of the Union army. I have heard it said that Longstreet was the only officer in the Confederate army whom Grant and Lincoln wholesomely feared. He was Lee’s right arm in very truth. The morning of the battle of the Wilderness, while President Lincoln was at the War Department, some one asked him, “What is the best thing that can happen to the Union to-day?” He answered, “To kill Longstreet.” It nearly happened, but by the bullets of Longstreet’s own men, because in so gallantly leading them he went too far in front.
After the fall of the curtain at Appomattox General Longstreet went to New Orleans and engaged in the cotton and insurance business. He developed in business the splendid ability that marked him as a soldier. He was making ten thousand dollars a year at the time the celebrated difference of opinion came up as to the course the South should pursue in the rehabilitation of the war-wasted land. It was then that he wrote the famous political letter of 1867 that turned the South against him and made it practically impossible for him to do business in that section of the country. The idea that this letter was written to secure political preferment from the powers in authority is perfectly absurd. He was making more in business, and would have made still more and more as the years went on, than he could make then or ever afterwards in politics. Besides, to me, and to any one who ever knew the real man, the idea of his changing his convictions a hair’s breadth for any sort of gain is too far-fetched for serious discussion. The very head and front of his offending consisted in his belief that it was better for the South to accept the situation then presented; better for the high-class men of the South to hold the offices than to have the negroes and scallawags hold them; better for the South to keep faith with its Appomattox parole, which promised obedience to constituted authority. It was a few years after this letter that President Grant appointed him Surveyor of the Port at New Orleans. He never asked for this appointment, and was not consulted about it. President Grant, in the generosity of his heart, voluntarily sent his name to the Senate, and the first news General Longstreet had of it came through the press.
General Longstreet never affiliated with the controlling element of the Republican party in the South. He believed in a white man’s Republican party in the South, and therefore was never in favor with the dominant Republican party in that section that believed differently. The political appointments that came to him came because of his high character and his record of substantial achievement, and in spite of the opposition of miscellaneous competitive place-seekers. He led a political movement that has had no following in the Southern section. It would seemingly have been easy for him to have acquiesced in the methods of the Republican machinery in the Southern States which would naturally have made him the head and front of the Southern Republican party. It would have seemed easier in an earlier day for him to have gone with the Democracy, which would have made him the political idol of the South, as he had been its military idol. Is is so much easier to be a demagogue than it is to be a man. It requires no unusual moral caliber to take a seat on the band-wagon and go with the crowd. Conscience compelled James Longstreet to oppose politically, for their own good, as he saw it, his Southern fellow-countrymen. He announced his convictions and stood by them. He never profited, as we measure material benefits; he lost. The qualities he exhibited in these crucial periods of his life differentiated the man from the time-server and place-seeker.
One who loved him and was close to him in life said, regretfully, not long ago, in speaking of him, that he never did anything after Appomattox that “turned out for his own good.” I felt a sudden tightening about my heart at this criticism. Perhaps as we view worldly honors and earthly goods the things he did after Appomattox did not “turn out for his own good.” But to me he has always been a figure of more sublime courage in the gathering storms of ’67 and the years that followed than on any of the brilliant fields of the Civil War. And I love best to think of him, not as the warrior leading his legions to victory, but as the grand citizen after the war was ended, nobly dedicating himself to the rehabilitation of his broken people, offering a brave man’s homage to the flag of the established government, and standing steadfast in all the passions, prejudices, and persecutions of that unhappy period. It was the love and honor and soul of the man crystallized into a being of wonderful majesty, immovable as Gibraltar.
“There be things, O sons of what has deserved birthright in the land of freedom, the ‘good of which’ and ‘the use of which’ are beyond all calculation of earthly goods and worldly uses--things that cannot be bought with a price and do not die with death;” these, gathering strength and beauty in James Longstreet’s character, through the four terrible years of warfare, assumed colossal proportions in the dark reconstruction era. And when the story of his life has finally been told, in all its grandeur, the finer fame will settle not about the valorous soldier, but about Longstreet, the patriot-citizen.
THE CHRISTIAN PATRIOT LOVED THE SOUTH TO THE LAST
When General Longstreet quit fighting, he quit fighting for good. He considered that the South was back in the Union to stay. There is no doubt in the minds of many with whom I have talked that General Longstreet’s conciliatory course, because of its effect in holding thousands obedient to the laws of the government, prevented the confiscation of much property in the South immediately after the war, and greatly alleviated the trials of that distressing period. The local ostracism of that day and subsequently cut General Longstreet deeply. He loved the South with all the tenderness of one who was willing to die for it. In all the quiet hours that he discussed the misrepresentations of the Southern people, the resentment they bore him, the criticisms and slanders that had been hurled at him, I never heard him utter a word against them or give expression to a note of bitterness. But I think towards the last, exhausted by much suffering, he had a pitiful yearning for complete reconciliation with all his people. Not many months before he died an officer of the Northern armies was calling on him at his hotel in Washington, and in discussing the Civil War and subsequent events, and General Longstreet’s part therein, said, “The Southern people have not appreciated you since the war, General, but when you are dead they will build monuments to you.” General Longstreet said nothing, but his eyes slowly filled. While he bore unjust criticism in silence, he was visibly moved by any evidence of affection from the Southern people.
I recall two very beautiful press tributes that appeared last summer while he was lying desperately ill at his home in Gainesville, Georgia; one was from the pen of Hon. John Temple Graves, in the Atlanta, Georgia, _News_; the other by Mrs. W. H. Felton, an old-time friend, in the Atlanta _Journal_. Mr. Graves, a representative of the splendid new South, spoke of the new generations as worthy descendants of the heroic days, and the place General Longstreet would always hold in their hearts; and Mrs. Felton, one of the important figures of the old South, told of the undying love for him of the soldiers of the Confederacy, and of the place he had worthily won in the affections of all the people; she wanted to speak these words to him for the comfort they would give him; and because he had nobly earned the right to hear them, and ten thousand times more from the people whose battles he had fought. When he seemed out of immediate danger, and strong enough to understand, I read these tributes to him, and he wept like a child.
The forbearance of the man and his generous feeling towards those who used him harshly finally became a wonder, and is to-day a joy for me to remember. I will here give an instance or two touchingly illustrative of this side of his character. General Wade Hampton, as stoical as ever a Roman was, felt very bitterly against General Longstreet because of his Republican politics. He expressed his feelings freely both in public and private, and was embittered to the extent that he refused to speak to General Longstreet. When General Longstreet succeeded him as United States Commissioner of Railroads, he would not come to the office to turn it over to his successor. General Longstreet went to the office, took the oath alone, and endeavored as best he could to make himself acquainted with the duties of the position. When he came home that evening and told me, with evident surprise, that General Hampton was still bitter against him, I asked, rather in the hope of getting a reply in criticism of General Hampton, “What sort of a soldier was General Hampton, since he seems so intractable in civil life?” General Longstreet replied, without a moment’s hesitation: “There was not a finer, braver, more gallant officer in the Confederate service than Wade Hampton.” And when General Hampton died, I think the most splendid tribute paid him came from the pen of General Longstreet.
Years ago there were political differences between General Longstreet and Judge Emory Speer, now of the Federal Bench of Georgia, then a member of Congress from the old Eighth District of Georgia. General Longstreet felt that he had been wronged. The summer before his death we were at Mt. Airy, Georgia, for a short time. One day I saw Judge Speer in the hotel where we were stopping, and asked General Longstreet how he was going to receive him if Judge Speer should come to speak to him, in view of their past differences. The General replied, “As I would receive any other distinguished American. And as for our past differences, that has been a long time ago, and I have forgotten what it was all about.”
General John B. Gordon, during recent years, did General Longstreet injustice. I know he caused him much pain. At a time when General Longstreet was suffering horribly,--one eye had already been destroyed by the dreadful disease; he had long been deaf and paralyzed from war service; the wound in his throat was giving him severest pain,--at this sad time General Gordon revived the old, threadbare story that he had disobeyed orders at Gettysburg. But when a reporter from one of the New York dailies called to interview him about General Gordon and his charges, he refused to say one word. It was then that I said, “If you will not reply to General Gordon, I will. And in the future, so long as I shall live, whenever your war record is attacked, I will make answer.” And so it happened that the little story of Gettysburg was written while General Longstreet was nearing the grave. During these last, sorrowful days he had heard that General Gordon was not in good health, and he asked me, with touching concern, about his condition. I expected to tell General Gordon of these occurrences, but I never saw him again. The Reaper gathered him in, ten days after General Longstreet answered the call.
General Longstreet was a most devout churchman. In early life he was an Episcopalian, and he regularly attended that church in New Orleans until the political differences developed between himself and his friends. After that he noticed that even his church associates avoided him. They would not sit in the same pew with him. Cut to the quick by such treatment, he began to wonder if there was any church broad enough to withstand differences caused by political and sectional feeling. He discovered that the Roman Catholic priests extended him the treatment he longed for. He began to attend that church, and has said that its atmosphere from the first appealed to him as the church of the sorrow-laden of earth. He was converted under the ministration of Father Ryan. After accepting the faith of the Catholic Church he followed it with beautiful devotion. He regarded it as the compensation sent him by the Almighty for doing his duty as he saw it. He clung to it as the best consolation there was in life. He went to his duties as devoutly as any priest of the church, and was on his knees night and morning, with the simple, loving faith of a little child.
WORSHIPPED BY THE SOLDIERS OF THE CONFEDERACY
The political estrangements between General Longstreet and many of the leaders of the South never extended to the soldiers who did any large amount of fighting for the South. There was a Confederate reunion in Atlanta in 1898. A camp of Confederate Veterans, of Augusta, Georgia, made up of his old command, sent General Longstreet a special request to come down from his home in Gainesville, and to wear his old uniform. He replied that his uniform had been destroyed years ago in the fire which burned his home and practically everything else he had, but that he would gladly go down with what was left of himself--that his old trunk of a body was the only relic of the Confederacy remaining to him. They then secured his measure and had a new Confederate uniform made for him to represent the old as nearly as possible. During all his stay at that reunion the old soldiers flocked about him with a devotion that Napoleon would have envied. They went wild over him. When he went to the dining-room at the hotel, the doors had to be closed so that he could take his meals without interruption. One evening, in the Kimball, his old “boys” surged about him by the thousands for hours, eager to touch his hand, to touch his garments, to look into his face, and the tears streamed down his cheeks. Just before that, one day, outraged at some unkindness that had come from the South, I had said to General Longstreet, “The Southern people are no longer my people. I have no home and no country.” In the midst of the splendid demonstration at the reunion of 1898, when the thousands who had followed his colors stood with uncovered heads in his honored presence, I said to him, “This is the South that I love, because it loves you; it is the magnificent, generous, loyal South that I love with every impulse of my heart; these are my people.”
I think he never forgot the Confederate reunion in Atlanta in 1898. His old soldiers came to his room in a continuous stream. One afternoon, when he was asleep, utterly worn out, a one-legged, one-armed veteran, poorly clad, looking poorly fed, came to his room. I told him of the General’s exhausted condition--that he needed the rest, and I was really afraid to disturb him. Then he said, “Won’t you let me go in and look at my old commander, asleep. I haven’t seen him since Appomattox. I came all the way from Texas to see him, and I may never see him again.” Without a word I opened the door, and as the worn veteran looked upon his old chieftain we both cried. In the midst of it General Longstreet wakened and called the veteran to him. They embraced like brothers and wept together.
On the eve of the Spanish-American War General Longstreet received hundreds of letters from his old soldiers in every part of the country, asking for the privilege of seeing service with him under the flag of the Union. One of them wrote: “If this country is going to have another war, I want to be in it, and I want to follow my old commander.” General Longstreet answered that he was seventy-eight, deaf, and paralyzed; that he had two sons he would send to fight for him, but that if his country needed his services, his sword was at its command.
As Commissioner of Railroads, General Longstreet made a tour of the West in 1899. He was received with beautiful consideration everywhere, but the welcome which touched him most was that of his old soldiers who greeted him in every State. It was marvellous to see how the veterans of a war that was over forty years ago had scattered through the West, and it certainly seemed that every one there had heard that General Longstreet was coming, and came to the nearest station to see him. With them were many Union veterans who gave him an equally cordial greeting.
I will digress here to say that General Longstreet could never stand on a foot of Northern soil where he was not received with every manifestation of earthly honor and esteem by the Union veterans and their descendants, and this touched him as nothing else in the world could have done. I wish to offer the humble tribute of my love to the chivalrous section that is to-day so close to my heart; the honors they paid General Longstreet, their tributes to him, did not end with the grave. Two weeks after the prospectus of this little volume had been sent out, the first edition had been bought, long before it was ready for delivery, by the Grand Army of the Republic, and the orders were accompanied by testimonials to General Longstreet as soldier and patriot that would make a memorial volume of rich value, and a brief selection, at least, I hope to give in future editions.
At one place, on his Western tour in 1899, it became necessary for him to telegraph to an official of the Rock Island road to ask if he would “pass” his car. It happened that this official had been a Union officer who had received hard blows from Longstreet on many bloody fields. He replied that in the old days that tried the courage of men he was much more anxious to “pass” Longstreet than to meet him; that now he was going to insist on meeting him first, and afterwards he would “pass” anything the General wanted him to “pass.”
Next to the pleasure of meeting his old friends on this Western tour, General Longstreet most enjoyed the wonderful development of the country that had taken place since he was chasing wild Indians across its wide plains. The smiling farms that greeted him, the magnificent cities, the marvellously fertile irrigated sections that he had last beheld as deserts, the net-work of competing railroads which had taken the place of the trail and the half-worked wagon-roads, the evidences everywhere of a magnificent country built up by progressive people,--all these, with all the suggestiveness attaching to them, appealed with mighty force to his heart and to his mental appreciation. The picture of industrial growth is a beautiful and impressive one. It is a story in itself that needs only a suggestion to make it as large a part of this as it should make.
Genuine Americanism, a love of his country in every sentiment that concerns it and every line of development affecting it, formed a very large and attractive phase of General Longstreet’s character. And so, from every stand-point he enjoyed this Western trip to the full.
HIS COUNTRY HOME IN PICTURESQUE NORTH GEORGIA
Next to the smoke of battle in the cause of his country, he loved nature in her gentlest and most quiet moods. He was fond of the forest and farm. He owned a small farm near Gainesville, Georgia, which was one of the delights of his life. Here he set out an orchard and a vineyard on a scale somewhat extensive, in which he found much pleasure. It is a hilly, uneven country, this rugged Piedmont section of north Georgia, noted for its red clay, its rocks, its mighty trees, the wild honeysuckles that carpet its woods, and the purity of the air that sweeps over it and the water that gushes in abundance from its depths. General Longstreet made his little farm in this picturesque section as productive and attractive as he could. It was mostly hills, and had to be terraced extensively to keep it from washing away. He had it terraced with much care, and laid off something after the manner of a battle-field. Thereupon the people around jokingly called it “Gettysburg.”
Here he had built and lived in a splendid home of the old colonial style of architecture, such as has long been popular in the South. The house was richly furnished. He had one of the finest libraries in the South, and had collected interesting and valuable souvenirs, and furnishings from all over the world. His residence was situated on a lordly eminence; beyond, the everlasting mountains stretched in unbroken length; in the valley between, the placid waters of the mountain streams wound lazily to the sea. The location was most beautiful, and has often been called “Inspiration Point.” Amid these romantic surroundings General Longstreet dispensed a hospitality characteristic of the most splendid days of the old South. He often laughingly said that his house became a rendezvous for old Confederates who were hastily going West, and needed a “little aid.” They never knocked in vain at his door. He has said that a favorite tale of theirs was that they “had just killed a Yankee, and had to go West hurriedly;” thinking, of course, that this plea would strike a sympathetic chord.
Some twenty years ago General Longstreet’s home and everything it contained, save the people, vanished in flames. After that he lived in one of the out-houses, a small frame cottage such as any carpenter might build and any countryman might own.
Some years ago Hamlin Garland visited Gainesville for the purpose of calling on General Longstreet. After talking with him Mr. Garland wrote a very interesting article about him. He especially marvelled that he should find so great a man, so colossal a character, living in such modest fashion, seemingly almost forgotten by all sections of the country in whose destiny he had played so important a part. He said he found a world-famous general pruning grape-vines on a red hill-side of the picturesque mountain region of Georgia. He was delighted with his versatility, his information, and, most of all, with his glowing love of country and his broad ideas of the future greatness of America.
When the imposing house stood and when he afterwards occupied the cottage, his home was still the boasted “show-place” of Gainesville. He was Gainesville’s grand historic character, her first gentleman, and her best-loved citizen. Whatever resentment towards him because of political views may have been felt in other parts of the country where men were striving to be at the head of state processions, in his little home city there was never a break in the loving and proud esteem in which he was held by his home people.
Here life remained interesting to him to the last. His heart was ever young; when he died he was eighty-three years young. Only a day or two before he was taken away he was planning things that were to take place years in the future. Blindness, deafness, paralysis, the decay of physical faculties, failed to move his dauntless courage or quell his splendid determination.
General Longstreet’s last days were spent in revising his memoirs of the Civil War, as were Grant’s in writing his. The two colossal characters passed away suffering the excruciating pains of the same dread disease,--cancer,--both disdaining death, heroic to the end.
On the eve of the Spanish-American War General Longstreet was invited by the New York _Herald_ to contribute to its columns a paper on the subject of the threatened trouble with Spain.
The closing paragraph of that paper comes across the years a prophecy and prayer for all mankind:
“As the evening hours draw near, the bugle calls of the eternal years sound clearer to my understanding than when drowned in the hiss of musketry and the roar of cannon. By memory of battle-fields and prophecy of coming events, I declare the hope that the present generation may witness the disbandment of standing armies, the reign of natural justice, the ushering in of the brotherhood of man. If I could recall one hour of my distant but glorious command, I would say, on the eve of battle with a foreign foe, “Little children, love one another.”
LONGSTREET ON THE FIELDS OF MEXICO[F]
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