TRIBUTES FROM THE PRESS (continued 2)

It seems clearly by the testimony of these eminent officers and soldiers who were at that time members of General Lee’s official family and were active participants in that supreme struggle of Gettysburg, that this charge by General Pendleton was only a discharge of hot air. I think the general view taken by the best authority upon the history of the fighting at Gettysburg on July the 2d, which was the second day of these battles, that up to 11 A.M. General Lee was undecided as to whether he would attack on the right or left. No matter in what eloquent words we may clothe our admiration for him as a soldier, the soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia would regard all these eloquent words of praise as inadequate to express the admiration we feel for the brave deeds in war, and the unselfish and gallant service rendered the Confederate army by this grand old hero, General James Longstreet. General Lee told General Pickett and the Army of Northern Virginia that the lack of their success at Gettysburg was his fault. This man of glorious and immortal fame, as the greatest military leader of modern times, realized that he himself had overrated the ability of his army, and underrated the army of his enemy, who had the advantage of numbers and of far better position. General Lee realized then, as the world has since, that he made a mistake in attacking the Union army at Gettysburg after General Meade had secured and to some extent had fortified an almost impregnable position. Grant made the same mistake when Lee caught him on the fly in the Wilderness, at Spottsylvania, and at Cold Harbor, with this difference, Grant was depending upon his superior numbers and equipment, while Lee was depending upon the morale and fighting qualities of his army. And while the morale and fighting qualities of Lee’s army were never equalled in the history of modern warfare, even they could not accomplish the impossible. And the traducers of General Longstreet’s fidelity are strangely oblivious of the fact that General Longstreet at the battle of the Wilderness made a forced march that taxed his soldiers to their utmost capacity to get there in time, and when he arrived on the field he found the Southern line was being driven back by superior numbers, and throwing his troops into line and with his accustomed impetuosity drove the Federal line rapidly back and saved the day and gave the Southern army the victory at the Wilderness. In this fight he was severely wounded, and the gallant Jenkins of South Carolina at the same time was killed. Pendleton said that General Lee died believing that but for the disobedience of Longstreet at Gettysburg that battle would have been a victory for the Southern army. How did he know that Lee died with that belief? Did General Lee ever tell any one so? If so, whom? It is one thing to make an assertion, but quite a different thing to prove it. I have seen men in my day look pretty cheap in court when called on to prove some things they had said on the streets.

In conclusion, I want to say that while we all regretted and were grieved when General Longstreet joined the Republican party, that fact ought not to have created prejudice sufficient to have caused us to ignore, and belittle, and cast any reproach upon his character, or unjust reflection upon his long and brilliant career as a soldier. He was a soldier by profession, and, according to his own testimony, he never cast a ballot in civil life prior to the Confederate war. He and General Grant were warm personal friends. They were school-mates at West Point, comrades in the Mexican and some Indian wars. General Grant clasped his hand and called him Jim at the surrender at Appomattox. Grant at Appomattox was a Democrat and a slave-holder, and he went over to the Republican party and was elected President of the United States. What influence General Grant brought to bear upon General Longstreet may have been very great, for all the outside world knows. Be that as it may, we do know that up to the close of the war he had taken no active part in politics in any party. We also have every reason to believe that if General Longstreet had espoused the Democratic party, and become a strong partisan in that party, we never would have heard a word of this imaginary default at Gettysburg.

The soldiers of Longstreet’s corps do not believe he disobeyed General Lee’s orders at Gettysburg, or at any other time. We don’t believe it now; we never did believe it, and we never will believe it.​—​W. H. Edwards.