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.