Longstreet, James

Life Span
to
    Full name
    James Longstreet
    Place of Birth
    Burial Place
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    South
    Origins
    Slave State
    No. of Spouses
    2
    No. of Children
    10
    Family
    James Longstreet (father), Mary Anne Dent (mother), Maria Louisa Garland (first wife, 1848), Helen Dortch (second wife, 1897)
    Education
    West Point (US Military Academy)
    Occupation
    Military
    Diplomat
    Farmer or Planter
    Businessman
    Political Parties
    Republican
    Government
    Grant Administration (1869-77)
    Other state government
    Military
    US military (Pre-Civil War)
    Confederate Army

    James Longstreet (American National Biography)

    Scholarship
    Longstreet made his greatest contributions serving under Lee, who called him "my Old War Horse" and "the Staff of my right hand." Contrary to myth, Longstreet, not Stonewall Jackson, was Lee's intimate confidant, close friend, and principal military adviser. Contemporaries described their relationship as one of brotherly affection. Their disagreement over military affairs--with Lee stressing the Virginia theater and the tactical offensive--caused friction, but it did not lessen their mutual regard. While Longstreet was dismayed by Lee's costly attacks at Gettysburg, preferring a tactical defensive, he was neither stubborn nor disobedient during the campaign. On the second day of the battle, Longstreet's poor reconnaissance delayed his attack, but by no more than an hour, and his overall movements were not slow. On the final day of the battle, Longstreet did take longer than necessary to implement Lee's orders for an assault on the Federal center, but this was not the reason "Pickett's Charge" failed. As the attack was both flawed in concept and doomed from the start, Longstreet's reluctance was both understandable and sensible.
    William Garrett Piston, "Longstreet, James," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/04/04-01178.html.
    Chicago Style Entry Link
    Tucker, Glenn. Lee and Longstreet at Gettysburg. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968. view record
    How to Cite This Page: "Longstreet, James," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/6116.