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I am glad to write an introduction to a memoir of Lieutenant-General Longstreet.

If it be thought strange that I should write a preface to a memoir of a conspicuous adversary, I reply that the Civil War is only a memory, its asperities are forgotten, both armies were American, old army friendships have been renewed and new army friendships have been formed among the combatants, the truth of history is dear to all of us, and the amenities of chivalrous manhood are cherished alike by the North and the South, when justice to either is involved. Longstreet’s splendid record as a soldier needs neither apologies nor eulogium. And if I venture, further along in this introduction, to defend him from unfair criticism, it is because my personal knowledge of the battle of July 2, 1863, qualifies me to testify in his behalf. It was the fortune of my corps to meet Longstreet on many great fields. It is now my privilege to offer a tribute to his memory. As Colonel Damas says in “The Lady of Lyons,” after his duel with Melnotte, “It’s astonishing how much I like a man after I’ve fought with him.”

Often adversaries on the field of battle, we became good friends after peace was restored. He supported President Grant and his successors in their wise policy of restoration. Longstreet’s example was the rainbow of reconciliation that foreshadowed real peace between the North and South. He drew the fire of the irreconcilable South. His statesmanlike forecast blazed the path of progress and prosperity for his people, impoverished by war and discouraged by adversity. He was the first of the illustrious Southern war leaders to accept the result of the great conflict as final. He folded up forever the Confederate flag he had followed with supreme devotion, and thenceforth saluted the Stars and Stripes of the Union with unfaltering homage. He was the trusted servant of the republic in peace, as he had been its relentless foe in war. The friends of the Union became his friends, the enemies of the Union his enemies.

I trust I may be pardoned for relating an incident that reveals the sunny side of Longstreet’s genial nature. When I visited Georgia, in March, 1892, I was touched by a call from the General, who came from Gainesville to Atlanta to welcome me to his State. On St. Patrick’s Day we supped together as guests of the Irish Societies of Atlanta, at their banquet. We entered the hall arm in arm, about nine o’clock in the evening, and were received by some three hundred gentlemen, with the wildest and loudest “rebel yell” I had ever heard. When I rose to respond to a toast in honor of the Empire State of the North, Longstreet stood also and leaned with one arm on my shoulder, the better to hear what I had to say, and this was a signal for another outburst. I concluded my remarks by proposing,​—​

“Health and long life to my old adversary, Lieutenant-General Longstreet,”

assuring the audience that, although the General did not often make speeches, he would sing the “Star-Spangled Banner.” This was, indeed, a risky promise, as I had never heard the General sing. I was greatly relieved by his exclamation:

“Yes, I will sing it!”

And he did sing the song admirably, the company joining with much enthusiasm.

As the hour was late, and we had enjoyed quite a number of potations of hot Irish whiskey punch, we decided to go to our lodgings long before the end of the revel, which appeared likely to last until daybreak. When we descended to the street we were unable to find a carriage, but Longstreet proposed to be my guide; and, although the streets were dark and the walk a long one, we reached my hotel in fairly good form. Not wishing to be outdone in courtesy, I said,​—​

“Longstreet, the streets of Atlanta are very dark and it is very late, and you are somewhat deaf and rather infirm; now I must escort you to your head-quarters.”

“All right,” said Longstreet; “come on and we’ll have another handshake over the bloody chasm.”

When we arrived at his stopping-place and were about to separate, as I supposed, he turned to me and said,​—​

“Sickles, the streets of Atlanta are very dark and you are lame, and a stranger here, and do not know the way back to your hotel; I must escort you home.”

“Come along, Longstreet,” was my answer.

On our way to the hotel, I said to him,​—​

“Old fellow, I hope you are sorry for shooting off my leg at Gettysburg. I suppose I will have to forgive you for it some day.”

“Forgive me?” Longstreet exclaimed. “You ought to thank me for leaving you one leg to stand on, after the mean way you behaved to me at Gettysburg.”

How often we performed escort duty for each other on that eventful night I have never been able to recall with precision; but I am quite sure that I shall never forget St. Patrick’s Day in 1892, at Atlanta, Georgia, when Longstreet and I enjoyed the good Irish whiskey punch at the banquet of the Knights of St. Patrick.

Afterwards Longstreet and I met again, at Gettysburg, this time as the guests of John Russell Young, who had invited a number of his literary and journalistic friends to join us on the old battle-field. We rode in the same carriage. When I assisted the General in climbing up the rocky face of Round Top, he turned to me and said,​—​

“Sickles, you can well afford to help me up here now, for if you had not kept me away so long from Round Top on the 2d of July, 1863, the war would have lasted longer than it did, and might have had a different ending.”

As he said this, his stern, leonine face softened with a smile as sweet as a brother’s.

We met in March, 1901, at the reception given to President McKinley on his second inauguration. In the midst of the great throng assembled on that occasion Longstreet and I had quite a reception of our own. He was accompanied on this occasion by Mrs. Longstreet. Every one admired the blended courtliness and gallantry of the veteran hero towards the ladies who were presented to him and his charming wife.

At the West Point Centennial Longstreet and I sat together on the dais, near President Roosevelt, the Secretary of War, Mr. Root, and the commander of the army, Lieutenant-General Miles. Here among his fellow-graduates of the Military Academy, he received a great ovation from the vast audience that filled Cullum Hall. Again and again he was cheered, when he turned to me, exclaiming,​—​

“Sickles, what are they all cheering about?”

“They are cheering you, General,” was my reply.

Joy lighted up his countenance, the war was forgotten, and Longstreet was at home once more at West Point.

Again we stood upon the same platform, in Washington, on May 30,​—​Memorial Day,​—​1902. Together we reviewed, with President Roosevelt, the magnificent column of Union veterans that marched past the President’s reviewing-stand. That evening Longstreet joined me in a visit to a thousand or more soldiers of the Third Army Corps, assembled in a tent near the White House. These veterans, with a multitude of their comrades, had come to Washington to commemorate another Memorial Day in the Capitol of the Nation. The welcome given him by this crowd of old soldiers, who had fought him with all their might again and again, on many battle-fields, could hardly have been more cordial if he had found himself in the midst of an equal number of his own command. His speech to the men was felicitous, and enthusiastically cheered. In an eloquent peroration he said, “I hope to live long enough to see my surviving comrades march side by side with the Union veterans along Pennsylvania Avenue, and then I will die happy.” This was the last time I met Longstreet.

Longstreet was unjustly blamed for not attacking earlier in the day, on July 2, 1863, at Gettysburg. I can answer that criticism, as I know more about the matter than the critics. If he had attacked in the morning, as it is said he should have done, he would have encountered Buford’s division of cavalry, five thousand sabres, on his flank, and my corps would have been in his front, as it was in the afternoon. In a word, all the troops that opposed Longstreet in the afternoon, including the Fifth Army Corps and Caldwell’s division of the Second Corps, would have been available on the left flank of the Union army in the morning. Every regiment and every battery that fired a shot in the afternoon was on the field in the morning, and would have resisted an assault in the morning as stubbornly as in the afternoon. Moreover, if the assault had been made in the morning, Law’s strong brigade of Alabamians could not have assisted in the attack, as they did not arrive on the field until noon. On the other hand, if Lee had waited an hour later, I would have been on Cemetery Ridge, in compliance with General Meade’s orders, and Longstreet could have marched, unresisted, from Seminary Ridge to the foot of Round Top, and might, perhaps, have unlimbered his guns on the summit.

General Meade’s telegram to Halleck, dated 3 P.M., July 2, does not indicate that Lee was then about to attack him. At the time that despatch was sent, a council of corps commanders was assembled at General Meade’s head-quarters. It was broken up by the sound of Longstreet’s artillery. The probability is that Longstreet’s attack held the Union army at Gettysburg. If Longstreet had waited until a later hour, the Union army might have been moving towards Pipe Creek, the position chosen by General Meade on June 30.

The best proof that Lee was not dissatisfied with Longstreet’s movements on July 2 is the fact that Longstreet was intrusted with the command of the column of attack on July 3,​—​Lee’s last hope at Gettysburg. Of the eleven brigades that assaulted the Union left centre on July 3, only three of them​—​Pickett’s division​—​belonged to Longstreet’s corps, the other eight brigades belonged to Hill’s corps. If Longstreet had disappointed Lee on July 2, why would Lee, on the next day, give Longstreet a command of supreme importance, of which more than two-thirds of the troops were taken from another corps commander?

Longstreet did not look for success on July 3. He told General Lee that “the fifteen thousand men who could make a successful assault over that field had never been arrayed for battle,” and yet the command was given to Longstreet. Why? Because the confidence of Lee in Longstreet was unshaken; because he regarded Longstreet as his most capable lieutenant.

Longstreet was never censured for the failure of the assault on July 3, although General Lee intimates, in his official report, that it was not made as early in the day as was expected. Why, then, is Longstreet blamed by them for the failure on July 2, when no fault was found by General Lee with Longstreet’s dispositions on that day? The failure of both assaults must be attributed to insurmountable obstacles, which no commander could have overcome with the force at Longstreet’s disposal,​—​seventeen thousand men on July 2, and fifteen thousand men on July 3, against thirty thousand adversaries!

In General Lee’s official report not a word appears about any delay in Longstreet’s movements on July 2, although, referring to the assault of July 3, General Lee says, “General Longstreet’s dispositions were not completed as early as was expected.” If General Lee did not hesitate to point out unlooked for delay on July 3, why was he silent about delay on July 2? His silence about delay on July 2 implies that there was none on July 2. Expresio unius exclusio alterius.

General Lee says, in his report, referring to July 3,​—​

“General Longstreet was delayed by a force occupying the high, rocky hills on the enemy’s extreme left, from which his troops could be attacked in reverse as they advanced. His operations had been embarrassed the day previous by the same cause, and he now deemed it necessary to defend his flank and rear with the divisions of Hood and McLaws.”

Another embarrassment prevented an earlier attack on July 2. It was the plan of General Lee to surprise the left flank of the Union army. General Lee ordered Captain Johnson, the engineer officer of his staff, to conduct Longstreet’s column by a route concealed from the enemy. But the formation and movements of the attacking column had been discovered by my reconnoisance; this exposure put an end to any chance of surprise. Other dispositions became necessary; fresh orders from head-quarters were asked for; another line of advance had to be found, less exposed to view. All this took time. These circumstances were, of course, known to General Lee; hence he saw no reason to reproach Longstreet for delay.

The situation on the left flank of the Union army was entirely changed by my advance to the Emmitsburg road. Fitzhugh Lee says, “Lee was deceived by it and gave orders to attack up the Emmitsburg road, partially enveloping the enemy’s left; there was much behind Sickles.” The obvious purpose of my advance was to hold Lee’s force in check until General Meade could bring his reserves from his right flank, at Rock Creek, to the Round Tops, on the left. Fortunately for me, General Lee believed that my line from the Peach-Orchard north​—​about a division front​—​was all Longstreet would have to deal with. Longstreet soon discovered that my left rested beyond Devil’s Den, about twelve hundred yards easterly from the Emmitsburg road, and at a right angle to it. Of course, Longstreet could not push forward to Lee’s objective,​—​the Emmitsburg road ridge,​—​leaving this force on his flank and rear, to take him in reverse. An obstinate conflict followed, which detained Longstreet until the Fifth Corps, which had been in reserve on the Union right, moved to the left and got into position on the Round Tops. Thus it happened that my salient at the Peach-Orchard, on the Emmitsburg road, was not attacked until six o’clock, the troops on my line, from the Emmitsburg road to the Devil’s Den, having held their positions until that hour. The surprise Lee had planned was turned upon himself. The same thing would have happened if Longstreet had attacked in the morning; all the troops that resisted Longstreet in the afternoon​—​say thirty thousand​—​would have opposed him in the forenoon.

The alignment of the Union forces on the left flank at 11 A.M., when Lee gave his preliminary orders to Longstreet for the attack, was altogether different from the dispositions made by me at 3 P.M., when the attack was begun. At eleven in the morning my command was on Cemetery Ridge, to the left of Hancock. At two o’clock in the afternoon, anticipating General Lee’s attack, I changed front, deploying my left division (Birney’s) from Plum Run, near the base of Little Round Top, to the Peach-Orchard, at the intersection of Millerstown and Emmitsburg roads. My right division (Humphrey’s) was moved forward to the Emmitsburg road, its left connecting with Birney at the Orchard, and its right en echelon with Hancock, parallel with the Codori House.

Longstreet was ordered to conceal his column of attack, for which the ground on Lee’s right afforded excellent opportunities. Lee’s plan was a repetition of Jackson’s attack on the right flank of the Union army at Chancellorsville. In the afternoon, however, in view of the advance of my corps, General Lee was obliged to form a new plan of battle. As he believed that both of my flanks rested on the Emmitsburg road, Lee directed Longstreet to envelop my left at the Peach-Orchard, and press the attack northward “up the Emmitsburg road.”

Colonel Fairfax, of Longstreet’s staff, says that Lee and Longstreet were together at three o’clock, when the attack began. Lieutenant-General Hill, commanding the First Corps of Lee’s army, says in his report,​—​

“The corps of General Longstreet (McLaws’s and Hood’s divisions) was on my right, and in a line very nearly at right angles to mine. General Longstreet was to attack the left flank of the enemy, and sweep down his line, and I was ordered to co-operate with him with such of my brigades from the right as could join in with his troops in the attack. On the extreme right, Hood commenced the attack about two o’clock, McLaws about 5.30 o’clock.”

Longstreet was not long in discovering, by his artillery practice, that my position at the Peach-Orchard was a salient, and that my left flank really rested twelve hundred yards eastward, at Plum Run, in the valley between Little Round Top and the Devil’s Den, concealed from observation by woods; my line extended to the high ground along the Emmitsburg road, from which Lee says, “It was thought our artillery could be used to advantage in assailing the more elevated ground beyond.”

General J. B. Hood’s story of his part in the battle of July 2, taken from a communication addressed to General Longstreet, which appears in Hood’s “Advance and Retreat,” pages 57–59, is a clear narrative of the movements of Longstreet’s assaulting column. It emphasizes the firm adherence of Longstreet to the orders of General Lee. Again and again, as Hood plainly points out, Longstreet refused to listen to Hood’s appeal for leave to turn Round Top and assail the Union rear, always replying, “General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emmitsburg road.”A

These often repeated orders of General Lee to “attack up the Emmitsburg road” could not have been given until near three in the afternoon of July 2, because before that hour there was no Union line of battle on the Emmitsburg road. There had been only a few of my pickets there in the morning, thrown forward by the First Massachusetts Infantry. It distinctly appears that Lee rejected Longstreet’s plan to turn the Federal left on Cemetery Ridge. And Hood makes it plain enough that Longstreet refused to listen to Hood’s appeal for permission to turn Round Top, on the main Federal line, always replying, “No; General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emmitsburg road.” Of course, that plan of battle was not formed until troops had been placed in positions commanding that road. This, we have seen, was not done until towards three in the afternoon.

The only order of battle announced by General Lee on July 2 of which there is any record was to assail my position on the Emmitsburg road, turn my left flank (which he erroneously supposed to rest on the Peach-Orchard), and sweep the attack “up the Emmitsburg road.” This was impossible until I occupied that road, and it was then that Longstreet’s artillery began its practice on my advanced line.

I am unable to see how any just person can charge Longstreet with deviation from the orders of General Lee on July 2. It is true enough that Longstreet had advised different tactics; but he was a soldier,​—​a West Pointer,​—​and once he had indicated his own views, he obeyed the orders of the general commanding,​—​he did not even exercise the discretion allowed to the chief of a corps d’armée, which permits him to modify instructions when an unforeseen emergency imposes fresh responsibilities, or when an unlooked-for opportunity offers tempting advantages.

We have seen that many circumstances required General Lee to modify his plans and orders on July 2 between daybreak, when his first reconnoisance was made, and three o’clock in the afternoon, when my advanced position was defined. We have seen that if a morning attack had been made the column would have encountered Buford’s strong division of cavalry on its flank, and that it would have been weakened by the absence of Law’s brigade of Hood’s division. We have seen that Longstreet, even in the afternoon, when Law had come up and Buford had been sent to Westminster, was still too weak to contend against the reinforcements sent against him. We have seen that Lee was present all day on July 2, and that his own staff-officer led the column of attack. We have seen that General Lee, in his official report, gives no hint of dissatisfaction with Longstreet’s conduct of the battle of July 2, nor does it appear that Longstreet was ever afterwards criticised by Lee. On the contrary, Lee points out that the same danger to Longstreet’s flank, which required the protection of two divisions on July 3, existed on July 2, when his flank was unsupported. We have seen that again and again, when Hood appealed to Longstreet for leave to swing his column to the right and turn the Round Tops, Longstreet as often refused, always saying, “No; General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emmitsburg road.” The conclusion is irrefutable, that whilst the operations were directed with signal ability and sustained by heroic courage, the failure of both assaults, that of July 2 and the other of July 3, must be attributed to the lack of strength in the columns of attack on both days, for which the commanding general alone was responsible.

It was Longstreet’s good fortune to live until he saw his country hold a high place among the great powers of the world. He saw the new South advancing in prosperity, hand in hand with the North, East, and West. He saw his people in the ranks of our army, in Cuba, Porto Rico, the Philippines, China, and Panama; he saw the Union stars and the blue uniform worn by Fitzhugh Lee, and Butler, and Wheeler. He witnessed the fulfilment of his prediction,​—​that the hearty reunion of the North and South would advance the welfare of both. He lived long enough to rejoice with all of us in a reunited nation, and to know that his name was honored wherever the old flag was unfurled. His fame as a soldier belongs to all Americans.

Farewell, Longstreet! I shall follow you very soon. May we meet in the happy realm where strife is unknown and friendship is eternal!