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]

CHAPTER I

THE WINNING OF OUR WESTERN EMPIRE

Mexico will always be a land of romance. Her ruins are yet

fragrant with memories of the mighty plans of Louis Napoleon.

After an absence of fifty years, General Longstreet revisited Mexico

in the eventful summer of 1898, leisurely passing over some of the

scenes of his early military experiences. Half a century had stolen

away, yet architecturally he found Mexico but little changed. Few of

the old landmarks were effaced. Modern ideas and inventions have been

encouraged and do prevail in our sister republic, but the dream-like

strangeness of its civilization is still all-pervading. Mexico is not

unlike Egypt in some respects. Everywhere is the poetry of a past age.

Egypt has its sphinx and the pyramids to illustrate a mysterious past;

in Mexico we find the temples of the Aztecs and the monuments of their

cruel conquerors. The Montezumas have left the impress of their race

and civilization on every hand. To the northern visitor Mexico will

always be the land of the Aztecs, worshippers of the sun.

To me the battle-fields of 1846-47 were of supreme interest. They

are to most Americans doubtless the chief magnet of attraction. But

the eye of an active participant in those glorious achievements of

American arms sees more as it sweeps over the valley of Mexico than

is comprehensible to the unprofessional casual observer. It was my

great privilege--to-day a cherished memory--to go over the fields that

stretch away from Chapultepec with a war-worn soldier who fifty years

earlier had there learned his first lessons in real warfare.

Mexico will always be a land of romance. Her civilization stands apart.

Her ruins are yet fragrant with memories of the mighty plans of Louis

Napoleon. From the ill-fated Maximilian empire to our own war with

Mexico seems but a step back, and yet between the steps great history

has been written.

Excepting Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo, the scene of all the leading

events of General Scott’s campaign lie almost within cannon-shot of the

Mexican capital.

The four battles of Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and

Chapultepec, which decided the fate of the war, occurred within a

period of four weeks and within a radius of a dozen miles. The Mexican

General Valencia was disastrously routed at Contreras August 19, 1847,

and Churubusco was fought and won by the Americans next day. Then

there was a short truce between the two belligerents, and terms of

peace were proposed by an American plenipotentiary. These not proving

satisfactory, hostilities were resumed. Scott moved with energy. On

September 8 the battle of Molino del Rey occurred, the Americans

winning, but at heavy sacrifice in killed and wounded. The successful

assault on Chapultepec hill was made on the 13th, five days later,

and on the morning of the 14th Scott’s splendid little army entered

the Mexican capital and hoisted its flag over the public buildings.

The belligerents engaged in these affairs were comparatively small

and the losses on both sides very severe. The Mexicans fought well,

but were execrably led. With the fall of Mexico Scott had conquered a

nation with an army fewer in numbers than the single corps Longstreet

commanded at Gettysburg.

Scott’s army, for the most part, was composed of veteran

troops,--regulars, with a considerable contingent of fine and

well-officered volunteers. Most of them were already battle-seasoned,

having participated in General Taylor’s initiatory campaign of 1846 on

the Rio Grande, where they had signally defeated the Mexicans at Palo

Alto, Resaca de la Palma, and Monterey. Taylor’s crowning victory at

Buena Vista, February 23, 1847, did not occur until after Scott had

drafted away the best part of his regulars for the march on Mexico.

Among them were the Fourth and Eighth Infantry regiments. Lieutenant

Longstreet had served in both,--in the Fourth as brevet second

lieutenant after graduating from the Military Academy in 1842, up to

1845, when he was promoted and transferred to the Eighth, and he was

lucky enough to be with the latter in the action at Palo Alto, May 8,

1846, at Resaca de la Palma next day, and in the siege and capture of

Monterey, September 21 to 23, of the same year. It was on these fields

that most of the young fellows who afterwards became conspicuous in the

Union and Confederate armies flashed their maiden swords.

In the Fourth, among Longstreet’s earlier official and social intimates

at Jefferson Barracks and Camp Salubrity, were Captain George A.

McCall, Lieutenants Augur, Grant, Alex. Hays, and David A. Russell,

all afterwards distinguished Union generals. Captain McCall was then

forty-three years old, and was graduated from West Point in 1822, just

twenty years ahead of Longstreet’s class.

The subsequent Civil War produced some singular anticlimaxes to these

old Mexican War friendships. It so happened, for instance, that

sixteen years afterwards, at the battle of Glendale before Richmond,

Longstreet’s Confederate division was pitted against McCall’s smaller

Union division, and the Confederates had the best of it. About dusk,

after the heavy fighting was over, McCall and his staff accidentally

rode into the Forty-seventh Virginia. Curiously enough, the Union

general alone was captured and brought to Longstreet’s head-quarters.

Having for a time been a brevet second lieutenant under McCall in the

old Fourth Infantry, and really commiserating his personal mishap,

General Longstreet cordially advanced, offering his hand and proffering

such hospitality as was permissible in the untoward circumstances. But,

deeply chagrined by his defeat and capture, McCall sullenly repelled

Longstreet’s friendly advances. It only remained for the Union general

to be sent back to Richmond in charge of a staff-officer and guard. It

was the last meeting between the old captain and his former lieutenant,

and, strangely, was McCall’s last appearance in battle, though he

was exchanged in a few weeks. He somehow fell into disfavor with the

Washington authorities, resigned in March, 1863, and died on a farm

near Westchester, Pennsylvania, in 1868. McCall was a fine soldier of

the old school. Grant was also a second lieutenant with McCall in the

Fourth, and liked him very much.

Alex. Hays and Longstreet had been associated in both regiments. Like

Longstreet, Hays was promoted and transferred from the Fourth to

the Eighth, though upward of a year subsequently. Grant never left

the Fourth until he resigned as captain, about seven years after the

Mexican War. Hays and Grant had been friends at West Point, though not

classmates, and very chummy afterwards while subs. in the old Fourth

Infantry. The official personnel of General Taylor’s army, scant

three thousand men, was so small that they were almost like a family.

Everybody knew everybody else.

Hays was detached from the Eighth when Scott advanced into the

valley of Mexico, but was engaged in several severe affairs in

defence of convoys of supplies to the front, and also at Heamantle

and Sequaltiplan. After that war was over he resigned, but in 1861

immediately sought service again, and soon rose to the command of a

Union division. His division contributed materially to the repulse of

Longstreet’s attack at Gettysburg on July 3. But poor Hays was killed

in front of Longstreet’s lines at the Wilderness in 1864, the first

battle in Virginia after his old comrade, Grant, had assumed command of

the Union armies. Such was the fortune of war of the civil struggle.

The Eighth Infantry furnished from its Mexican War contingent few

conspicuous leaders to either side in the subsequent Civil War. The

regiment was compelled to surrender to the local authorities of Texas

early in 1861, and were detained at the South many months. Only a few

of its old officers then remained. All those of Southern proclivities

had already withdrawn. Longstreet left the Eighth in 1858, ten years

after peace with Mexico, having been promoted to major and paymaster.

By detention as prisoners of war the Union soldiers of the Eighth were

deprived of the early promotion which fell to the lot of most regulars.

Out of all the officers of the two regiments engaged in Mexico,

only seven, it appears, espoused the Southern cause, and of these

but three attained to any considerable rank in the Confederate

armies,--Longstreet, Pickett, and Cadmus E. Wilcox. Pickett was a

magnificent soldier, one of the most daring in the Confederate army.

In the two campaigns of Taylor and Scott the Fourth and Eighth lost no

fewer than twelve officers killed and fatally wounded, and eighteen

others seriously wounded, a very heavy percentage. This alone proves

that the Americans had no walkover. Every foot of the ground was

bravely contested by the Mexicans.

To continue this digression a little farther, it may be said that the

genesis of the two Mexican campaigns is not well understood. Winfield

Scott was and had long been the commanding general of the United

States army, and entitled as such, aside from his military renown, to

the Mexican command. But Scott, a Southern Whig, was ambitious to be

President. The Democratic administration of Polk was quite naturally

chary of giving Scott an opportunity to win public applause through

a victorious military campaign. Scott had early submitted a plan of

operations, with request for permission to lead an American army into

Mexico. But Zachary Taylor, then only a colonel and brevet brigadier,

was chosen for the purpose, to the discomfiture of Scott and his

coterie. Of course, the general-in-chief chafed because he had thus

designedly been over-slaughed by a junior.

The administration overreached itself. Taylor’s small victories in

northern Mexico in the Spring of 1846 were so greatly magnified by the

press of the States that he at once became the hero of the hour. Soon

he was the open candidate of the Whig party for the Presidency; for

Taylor, like Scott, was a Southern Whig. Polk and his advisers were

now between the devil and the deep sea. To beat back and neutralize the

rising Taylor tide they precipitately turned to Scott. His original

plan for bringing Mexico to terms _via_ Vera Cruz was adopted, and he

assigned to the command, with fulsome assurances of ample and continued

support, which were never fulfilled.

Scott was thereupon given _carte blanche_ to withdraw such force

of regulars from Taylor as he deemed necessary to the successful

prosecution of his proposed invasion, and meanwhile Taylor, with some

five thousand volunteers and a slight leaven of regular troops, was to

remain on the defensive. Then something happened. Taylor did not choose

to remain stock still, but advanced. A few weeks after the depletion of

his army, which began in January, 1847, and before Scott had landed at

Vera Cruz with his raw volunteers, Taylor worsted Santa Anna at Buena

Vista. He not only signally defeated the foreign enemy, but completed

the rout of the Democratic administration at Washington, and the next

year was nominated by the Whigs and elected President hands down,

wholly on the strength of his military achievements. Scott, nominated

in 1852, was disastrously beaten by the Democratic candidate, Franklin

Pierce, one of his inconspicuous civilian brigadiers in Mexico. It must

have been a galling blow to the old General’s pride. His defeat was the

death-blow of the Whig party.

CHAPTER II

PECULIARITIES OF SCOTT AND TAYLOR

As we gazed down from Chapultepec’s heights, on that fragrant day

of 1898, across the beautiful valley of Mexico, the war of fifty

years agone seemed but yesterday to him who on those fields had

added a new star of the first magnitude to the galaxy of American

valor.

Since those old days General Longstreet often speculated on the result

if Taylor and Scott had been required to handle the armies of Lee and

Grant and meet the conditions which confronted the great Union and

Confederate leaders at the crucial periods of their campaigns. He

concluded that both would have maintained their high reputations at the

head of much larger bodies of troops than they marshalled in Mexico,

even though confronted by abler opponents than Santa Anna, supported

by stronger and better-disciplined armies than the half-starved,

ill-appointed levies he brought against them at Buena Vista and Cerro

Gordo. At all events, the young fellows of 1846-47 to a man believed

Taylor and Scott adequately equipped to successfully meet any military

emergency.

They were extraordinary characters. Both were practised officers dating

back to the war of 1812, though neither was a West Point graduate.

Scott on the Canadian frontier had commanded against considerable

bodies of disciplined British troops in pitched battle, and came off

with increased reputation. He had then visited Europe and observed the

continental armies. He was well educated; had studied for the bar,

but by preference took up the military profession, of which he was a

diligent student. Scott was thoroughly up in the literature of war. To

a cultivated mind he added a colossal person and a fine presence.

General Scott’s chief fault was an overweening personal vanity

which often took the form of mere pedantry, not unseldom bringing

him into personal ridicule. Insufferably pompous, he invariably

maintained a vast, unbending dignity, both of manner and speech,

whether oral or written. The subalterns of the army looked upon him

with absolute awe. Many a brevetted cadet would readily have chosen

to go against a Mexican intrenchment rather than into the commanding

general’s presence. He brooked no familiarity from high or low. While

he sometimes indulged in a sort of elephantine affability, he was

naturally dictatorial towards all subordinates, though always within

the limits of decency. Scott’s was not at all the overbearing insolence

of the coward. He always rode in full uniform, with all the insignia of

his rank visible to the naked eye.

Such a queer combination of bigness and littleness, learning, practical

ability, and whimsicality formed a character sure to create enemies,

and it must be said that Scott had plenty of them, both in and out of

the army. By them he was derisively dubbed “Old Fuss and Feathers.”

Notwithstanding his weakness, the General was physically and morally

a very brave man. He was cool and deliberate in forming his military

plans, and once determined upon they were prosecuted with unhesitating

energy and precision. Above all he was an honest man. Undoubtedly

General Scott possessed a comprehensive military mind.

Equally cool and careful in planning, equally energetic in execution,

and equally brave, honest, and true, in other respects Taylor was an

entirely different type of man. Personally he was the antipodes of the

handsome giant, Scott, being only of middle stature. His complexion was

swarthy and his face rugged and homely, but with a kindly expression.

Unlike Scott again, Taylor’s schooling had been limited, yet without

any affectation of style he wrote clearly and vigorously. From the age

of one year he had lived the life of a Kentucky frontier farmer boy up

to his entry into the army as a lieutenant in 1808.

Taylor’s military experience, confined wholly to the Western border in

1812, was limited to outpost affairs with Indians and the few squads

of British soldiers and borderers who supported them. As an officer he

had never met so much as a full company of disciplined soldiers until

Palo Alto. Taylor never wore his uniform, or almost never. He dressed

in rough clothes no better than those worn by the common soldier. He

was often seen riding without his staff or other attendant, seeing

things with his own eyes. He was frank and somewhat rough, but kindly

in speech. While he was not without proper dignity, he talked and acted

straight to the mark without much consideration for appearances. He

treated his subordinates with easy consideration, and was often seen

joking and laughing with mere subalterns. He was given the sobriquet

of “Old Rough and Ready” by the army, in which he was dearly loved by

all. It was a title which rang through the country in the political

campaign of 1848. He not only inspired universal good will, rough and

uncultivated as he was, but confidence. Such were the two Mexican

commanders.

As we gazed down from Chapultepec’s heights, on that fragrant day of

1898, across the beautiful valley of Mexico, the war of fifty years

agone seemed but yesterday to him who on those fields had added a new

star of the first magnitude to the galaxy of American valor. Memories

of the glorious past rushed through his mind. Here Grant and Lee had

taken their first lessons in practical warfare on a considerable

scale. Here had been won not only Texas, but the vast domain away

to the Pacific. Since then what social, industrial, and political

revolutions had he not witnessed. From the Mississippi had spread out a

great republic, reaching from ocean to ocean. He had seen the Southern

Confederacy rise and fall, and colossal history, along the way from

Chapultepec to Manila, written in the blood of the nation’s strong

men. And Mexico has not been behind in the mighty changes that have

swept over the continent since her bitter humiliation in 1847. She has

advanced by heroic strides, especially under the wise leadership of

Diaz.

But after all it was not wholly the great events of half a century

that crowded upon General Longstreet’s memory at this interesting

juncture. Curiously enough, his mind persisted in fixing itself upon

minor incidents,--social and personal relations,--on the comrades who

had here and elsewhere laid down their lives in the service, on others

who had risen to distinction or dropped out of the running. The “boys”

of ’46 and ’47 again crowded upon him. It could hardly be otherwise,

for they were a band of brothers then. When General Taylor’s little

Army of Observation was collected in western Louisiana, the whole

regular establishment of the United States consisted of no more than

12,139 officers and men. The Army of Occupation which was concentrated

at Corpus Christi, Texas, in the fall of 1845, numbered only three

thousand men.

The days of Corpus Christi still formed a vivid picture in General

Longstreet’s mind. The oldest officers present--even General Taylor

himself--had never seen so large a body of the regular army together.

Adjoining the camp were extensive level prairies, admirably adapted to

military manœuvres. Many of the officers had not taken part in even

a battalion drill since leaving West Point, and with most of them

evolutions of the line had only been read in tactics. So widely had

the troops been scattered, and in such small detachments, to meet the

requirements of the country’s extensive frontiers, that there were

colonels who had never seen their entire regiments.

This concentration afforded opportunity for practical professional

instruction and discipline which was appreciated and availed of.

But with this preparatory work there were amusements, and lasting

friendships were formed; perhaps a few equally lasting enmities.

Game and fish abounded. There were no settlements; the country was

absolutely wild. Within a few hours’ ride of the camps were wild

turkeys in flocks of twenty to forty; deer and antelope were numerous,

and not far afield were vast droves of wild mustangs. Wolves and

coyotes were everywhere, and occasionally a Mexican lion (cougar) was

found. Many of the young officers became expert hunters. Muzzle-loading

shot-guns were used mainly; there were no breech-loaders in those

days. The camp tables fairly groaned with game dishes; wild turkey

and venison finally so palled upon many of the soldiers as actually

to become distasteful, and the old reliable beef and pork of the

commissariat was resorted to in preference.

Wild horses were lassoed and brought into camp by Mexicans and tame

Indians, and sold to the Americans for two or three dollars a head.

An extra good animal would sometimes bring twelve dollars, which was

the tip-top price. A good many were purchased by the quartermaster for

the use of the army, and proved very serviceable. These animals looked

something like the Norman breed; they had heavy manes and tails, and

were much more powerful than the plains ponies farther north of a later

date. They foraged for themselves and flourished where the American

horse would deteriorate and soon die.

CHAPTER III

UNPRETENTIOUS LIEUTENANT GRANT

It was not until Grant came East during the Civil War that

Longstreet began fully to appreciate his military ability.

Grant’s successes at Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicksburg were but

vaguely understood in the Army of Northern Virginia, where they

were mainly ascribed to bad generalship on the Confederate side,

and some blundering good luck on Grant’s part.

Lieutenant Grant, of the Fourth, had acquired great reputation at the

Military Academy as an expert horseman. He was always the show rider

upon great occasions. He greatly added to this reputation at Corpus

Christi. He was regimental quartermaster, and had much to do with these

horses. He bought several of the better class for his own use. While

riding one and leading the others to water one day, just before the

army moved to the Rio Grande, his colored servant lost the whole bunch,

or perhaps sold them for his own account. He claimed that, throwing him

off, they jerked loose and stampeded away. There was a joke among the

boys that, upon being told of the incident, General Taylor humorously

remarked, “Yes, I understand Mr. Grant lost five or six dollars’ worth

of horses recently,” satirically referring to their extraordinary

cheapness. Grant declined to buy more horses for his private use. Soon

after, the army advanced to the Rio Grande, and foot officers had no

use for horses.

The unpretentious Grant was soon famous throughout the army as a

“bronco buster,” in the sense the term is now familiarly used. He would

unhesitatingly mount and soon bring to terms the most vicious of wild

horses. On horseback he was a very centaur. In no other manner could an

animal unhorse Grant than by lying down and rolling over. A large group

of interested officers one day had opportunity to observe his success

in dealing with an unbroken horse. An Indian had brought to camp a

splendid specimen which had struck Grant’s fancy, and for which he paid

the record price of twelve dollars. It seemed to prance on springs

of steel; its beautiful head was carried on high, and the noble eyes

shot sparks of fire. While two grooms held it by lariats from either

side, Grant blindfolded the stallion. Then the regulation accoutrements

of Spanish saddle and heavy-bitted bridle were adjusted, and Grant

mounted, his heels armed with an enormous pair of Mexican spurs.

Thus blindfolded, the beautiful animal had stood stock still, trembling

like an aspen. The instant his eyes were uncovered he sprang forward

like a shot. Grant held his seat firmly. Then the horse began to

“buck,”--that is, to jump high into the air, at the same moment

suddenly crooking his back upward with intent to throw off his burden.

This was repeated time after time, of course without dislodging

Grant, who was up to that sort of thing. The proceeding was greeted

by the by-standers with shouts of laughter and yells of “Hang on,

Grant,” “Don’t let him down you, old boy,” etc. The animal presently

tired of this work, and at the proper juncture the cool-headed rider

vigorously applied the spurs, at the same time loosening the rein,

when the stallion plunged straight forward at a breakneck pace through

the chaparral and cacti of the plain. The soldiers watched them until

they disappeared, and the uninitiated wondered if they should ever see

Grant alive again. Two hours later they returned at a slow walk, both

exhausted, the horse’s head down and his sides wet with sweat and foam.

He was conquered, and was thereafter as docile as any well-trained

American horse.

When not on duty, Grant’s chief amusement at Corpus Christi was

horseback riding. He was no sportsman, and only occasionally played

“brag” for small stakes. Longstreet’s classmate, Lieutenant Benjamin,

of the Fourth Artillery, came in one day with a story about Grant’s

one attempt at gunning for turkeys. The two, on a short leave with

other officers, had made a journey on horseback to Austin late in

the fall of 1845, accompanying a train of supplies. Returning, the

party was reduced to three,--Benjamin, Grant, and Lieutenant Augur,

afterwards major-general in the Union army. Augur fell sick and was

left at Goliad, to be picked up by a train following. At Goliad Grant

and Benjamin went out to shoot turkeys. Benjamin was a good shot and

soon returned to camp with several fine birds. He found Grant already

in, but without any game. The latter said that a large flock of turkeys

had taken flight in twos and threes from branches of the pecan-trees

overhead, some of them calmly looking at him several moments before

taking wing. He had watched them with much interest until the last

turkey had disappeared. Then it suddenly occurred to him that he

had come out to shoot turkeys. “I concluded, Benjamin, from this

circumstance,” explained Grant, with much chagrin, “that I was not

cut out for a sportsman, so I returned to the house, confident you

would bring in plenty of birds.” This explanation was offered with the

utmost simplicity, and Benjamin repeated it with much unction. Poor

Benjamin did not live to see the heights of fame reached by the little

lieutenant who did not know enough to shoot wild turkeys in 1845. He

was killed at the storming of the city of Mexico, September 13, 1847.

These anecdotes of a distinguished man naturally find place in a

potpourri paper of this kind, but their special purpose is to show

Grant’s personal characteristics, and in some sort the estimate

placed upon him by his comrades of sixty years ago. But in those

days the young fellows of the army fooled away no time in estimating

upon the intellectual capacity of even the most promising associate.

Grant was just simply an unobtrusive, every-day second lieutenant,

without special promise or remarkable traits. It must be said that

no one looked upon him then as the coming great man of the greatest

war of civilized times. Rather quiet, seldom seeking crowds, Grant

nevertheless enjoyed his friends, and among them was both a voluble

and interesting talker. The alleged taciturnity of the later time was

assumed to shut off busybodies--it was only judicious reticence. He

was quickly known as a very brave and enterprising soldier in action,

and, in fact, distinguished himself under both Taylor and Scott. He

and Longstreet were intimate friends from 1839 through the seven years

ending with the Mexican War, and often met in friendliest relations

after the Civil War. Grant never forgot a friend in need.

It was not until Grant came East during the Civil War that Longstreet

began to fully appreciate his military ability. Grant’s successes at

Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicksburg were but vaguely understood in the

Army of Northern Virginia, where they were mainly ascribed to bad

generalship on the Confederate side, and some blundering good luck on

Grant’s part. But after the war was over and access was had to the

inside history of those events, Longstreet soon perceived that the

Vicksburg campaign was one of the greatest in military history, and

that Pemberton’s destruction was almost wholly due to Grant’s bold

conception of the military requirements to fulfil the expectations of

his government.

Longstreet had been near by when Grant attacked and defeated Bragg

at Chattanooga, and also thought that victory was largely due to

overwhelming numbers and Bragg’s incapacity to perceive the impending

storm. Longstreet wrote to General Lee from East Tennessee, some

time in the winter of 1863-64, that he need have no fear of Grant,

then presumptively booked for the Army of the Potomac; that he was

overestimated, largely from his prestige acquired against inferior

commanders, etc. But in the very beginning of the Wilderness campaign

in 1864 the commander of the First Corps of the Army of Northern

Virginia saw a power displayed in manœuvring the Army of the Potomac

which the Confederates had never met before. There is no doubt that

General Lee himself appreciated that he had a new and puzzling force to

deal with. At the Wilderness Lee assumed the offensive the moment Grant

crossed the Rapidan, essaying the same tactics that had been practised

upon Hooker at Chancellorsville, but he failed. The Confederates

withstood Grant in the Wilderness, but it was the last time General Lee

attempted a general offensive. This was somewhat due to his inferior

numbers and waning morale, but it was mainly because of Grant’s

presence. The year before, after what was practically a drawn battle at

Chancellorsville, Hooker, with double Lee’s force, withdrew across the

river. He had between twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand men who

had scarcely fired a gun in battle. Grant, with fewer men than Hooker,

fought a larger Confederate army at the Wilderness. It, too, was no

more than a drawn battle, yet Grant had no thought of recrossing the

river to recuperate. He moved forward and immediately put General Lee

on the defensive.

General Lee at last realized that the Confederacy’s only hope was

defensive battle, and his fame as a General will rest wholly on that

campaign. If he had persisted in the tactics employed against Hooker

and Pope and McClellan, his army would have been destroyed in ten days

after the Wilderness. Grant really had the Army of Northern Virginia

on the go on the morning of the 6th of May; it was saved from utter

rout only by the timely arrival of the First Corps, which rolled back

Hancock’s victorious lines upon the Brock road and beyond.

CHAPTER IV

PLEASANT INCIDENTS OF CAMP LIFE AT CORPUS CHRISTI

The reunion at Corpus Christi made a deep impression upon the

fledglings of the service. The long encampment there formed a

green spot in the memory of the little army that bore our colors

in triumph to the city of Mexico.

Among General Longstreet’s pleasant memories of camp life at Corpus

Christi was a rude theatre erected by a joint stock company of the

young officers, who acted in the plays produced on its boards, taking

both male and female parts. Many roaring comedies were billed, and

cheered the garrison from time to time. The enlisted men were of

course permitted to pay the entrance fee and see the best that was

going. General Worth was always a delighted auditor, General Taylor

occasionally honored the entertainments with his presence, and General

Twiggs rarely. After exhausting the field of comedy and having already

reimbursed themselves for all outlays, the officers concluded to enter

the more expensive and difficult field of tragedy. The first play

chosen was the Moor of Venice. Lieutenant Porter, brother of Admiral

Porter, was assigned the part of Othello, whilst Lieutenant Longstreet

was nominated for Desdemona; but upon inspection the manager protested

that six feet dignified in crinoline would not answer even for a tragic

heroine. So Longstreet was discarded and Grant substituted. Finally,

after a rehearsal or two, Grant, too, had to give way under protests

of Porter that male tragediennes could not give the proper sentiment

to the play. Then the officers “chipped in” and sent to New Orleans

for a real actress, and thereafter all went well. The play was pulled

off eventually with as much _éclat_ as followed General Taylor’s first

victory a few months later on the Rio Grande.

A volume could be filled with incidents of those sunny days on the

Mexican Gulf, the incipient stage of the first campaign in real war

for the young officers. They gave little heed of the morrow. Their pay

was small, but their requirements were on even a less scale. There

was a good deal of drilling, but otherwise their duties were far from

onerous. A large proportion of the cadets Longstreet had known at West

Point from 1838 to 1842 were there congregated, and old associations

were renewed. Of course, all these officers were not intimates, but

nearly all were personal acquaintances on the most friendly footing.

Every one brought his share to the common aggregate of interest and

pleasure.

Among the officers there collected who afterwards became prominent

in the Union and Confederate armies, in addition to those already

mentioned, were William J. Hardee, Thomas Jordan, John C. Pemberton,

Braxton Bragg, Earl Van Dorn, Samuel G. French, Richard H. Anderson,

Robert S. Garnett, Barnard E. Bee, Bushrod R. Johnson, Abram C. Myers,

Lafayette McLaws, and E. Kirby Smith, of the Confederate service;

and J. K. F. Mansfield, George G. Meade, Don Carlos Buell, George H.

Thomas, N. J. T. Dana, Charles F. Smith, Joseph J. Reynolds, John

F. Reynolds, Abner Doubleday, Alfred Pleasanton, Thomas J. Wood,

Seth Williams, and George Sykes, distinguished Union generals in the

Civil War. There were many others too numerous to mention. Longstreet

afterwards met many of these officers as mortal foes on the field of

battle. He served with others in the Confederate armies, and others

served under him. McLaws and Pickett were long fighting division

commanders in his corps.

Robert E. Lee, George B. McClellan, G. T. Beauregard, and Joseph E.

Johnston were not with Taylor, and they and others, notably E. R. S.

Canby, Isaac I. Stevens, and John G. Foster, did not join the army

until Scott’s campaign opened in 1847, though it appears that Lee was

with General Wool’s column in the movement towards Chihuahua. They

were among the great names of the subsequent Civil War. Jefferson

Davis, colonel of the Mississippi Rifles, joined Taylor after Scott had

withdrawn the regulars, but in time to turn the tide of battle at Buena

Vista. Altogether it was a brilliant roster. They were all graduates of

the Military Academy. Of all the officers collected at Corpus Christi,

it is doubtful if there is to-day a score of survivors. A large number

were killed in action. A far greater number died of disease in the

Mexican or Civil War campaigns.

Besides the long list of West Pointers, there were at Corpus Christi

many regulars appointed from civil life, meritorious officers who

afterwards made their mark. One of these was Lawrence P. Graham, a

Virginian, already a captain in the Second Dragoons. He was some six

years Longstreet’s senior. After Mexico Graham stuck to the old army,

rose to the colonelcy of the Fourth Cavalry in 1864, and was a Union

brigadier of volunteers. He had been in the army nearly ten years when

the Mexican War broke out. He still survives at the green old age of

eighty-eight, a retired colonel since 1870, thirty-three years. He has

been carried on the rolls of the United States army nearly sixty-seven

years. That is one of the rewards for having been lucky enough to

espouse the winning side in 1861. But self-interest had little to do

with the choice of sides; conscience pointed the way in that hour of

passion.

The reunion at Corpus Christi made a deep impression upon the

fledglings of the service. The long encampment there formed a green

spot in the memory of the little army that bore our colors in triumph

to the city of Mexico. Those who have left memoirs of their military

careers have to a man dwelt largely upon the various interesting,

though generally unimportant, incidents of this delightful episode.

March, 1846, brought the hour of their ending; on the 9th the bugles

of the line sounded the assembly, and in obedience to instructions

from Washington General Taylor put his army in motion by easy stages

for the line of the Rio Grande River. That movement immediately

produced a result which the government had long secretly desired,--war.

Negotiations for the amicable possession of Texas and the territory to

the Pacific had failed.

It is not the purpose of this paper to write the history of the Mexican

War, but a few of its salient features may be recounted perhaps with

profit.

Under the Texas treaty of annexation and the act admitting Texas into

the American Union the United States claimed all the territory down

to the Rio Grande and westward to the border of New Mexico. Mexico,

on her part, denied that Texas was a free agent, although President

Santa Anna, captured by the Texans the next day after the battle of

San Jacinto in 1836, while in durance had consented to a treaty which

acknowledged Texan independence. Texas had adopted a constitution

and set up an independent government. Mexico repudiated Santa Anna’s

agreement, but nevertheless had subsequently never been able to conquer

the lost territory. The entrance of the American troops into Texas was

therefore by Mexico considered a _casus belli_, and her troops, under

General Arista, crossed the river and began aggressive war upon the

United States detachments as soon as they reached the vicinity.

The Mexican General Torrejon captured a detachment of United States

dragoons April 25, including Captains Thornton and Hardee and

Lieutenant Kane, besides killing Lieutenant George J. Mason and sixteen

men. Mason was a classmate of Longstreet. Thornton, Hardee, and Kane

were well treated, and soon after exchanged. Small bands of Mexicans

committed other depredations. Shortly after the unfortunate incident

above recited, Lieutenant Theodoric Porter and a small party were fired

upon from an ambuscade in the chaparral, and Porter and one soldier

killed. Porter had been one of the theatrical stars at Corpus Christi.

The march to Point Isabel, the siege of Fort Brown by General Ampudia,

and the stirring affairs at Palo Alto and Resaca soon followed. The

spirit of _camaraderie_ and patriotic zeal which animated the Army

of Occupation was vividly illustrated when Captain Charles May was

ordered by Taylor, at Resaca de la Palma, to charge a Mexican battery.

As May drew up his own and Graham’s squadrons for the work, Lieutenant

Randolph Ridgely, of Ringgold’s artillery, called out, “Hold on,

Charlie, till I draw their fire,” and he “turned loose” with his six

guns upon the enemy. The return fire was prompt, but Ridgely’s wise

purpose was accomplished. Then the invincible heroism with which

May rushed forward at the head of a handful of the Second Dragoons

signalized the qualities which unerringly foreshadowed the result of

that war. The opposing battery was secured in the twinkling of an eye,

and the Mexican General La Vega captured amid his guns. May’s gallant

exploit was the theme of the army. May, Ridgely, and Longstreet were

close friends, of the trio Longstreet being youngest in years and

service. Ridgely was killed at Monterey that fall. May lived until

1864, having resigned in 1861. He took no part in the Civil War.

The first successes of the Mexican War were easy and decisive. The

real hardships began with the march over the sterile wastes towards

Monterey. Monterey was equally as decisive, but it was found to be a

much harder nut to crack, and here the American losses were very heavy.

The general effect of Taylor’s operations, in conjunction with Wolf’s

campaign and the overland march of General Kearny to California, was

demoralizing to the Mexicans.

CHAPTER V

INTO THE INTERIOR OF MEXICO

In after-years Lee’s admirers claimed that much of Scott’s glory

on the fields of Mexico was due to Lee’s military ability. Scott

gave him great praise.

When it was learned that two divisions of Taylor’s army had been

ordered to the coast, there was much speculation at the front as to the

meaning of the movement. The younger contingent immediately jumped to

the conclusion that the war was over, and that Twiggs’s and Patterson’s

troops were ordered home. This proved not to be the case, but the army

was not much disappointed to learn that another campaign farther south

was projected. There was some friction between Taylor and Scott over

the withdrawal of the regulars. Some of Scott’s letters to Taylor

miscarried, and Scott, pressed for time, was compelled to order the

troops he wanted down to the coast without Taylor’s knowledge, the

latter at times being far in the interior. When Taylor learned that his

best troops had been ordered away without an hour’s previous notice,

the old general was naturally very much incensed. He was afterwards

somewhat mollified when he received Scott’s delayed correspondence, and

saw that his chief had endeavored to reach him in the proper spirit.

Scott was the senior, and of course it was for him to order; besides,

Scott himself had orders from the President to withdraw the troops.

Taylor, however, made, both to Scott and the Secretary of War, a sharp

protest against the manner of carrying out the design. Doubtless Taylor

felt sore upon learning that the administration intended leaving him

upon the defensive, without means to continue his victorious advance.

Buena Vista, a few weeks later, probably melted the old fellow’s rancor

into sardonic satisfaction.

Once started, the troops rapidly retrograded to the Rio Grande.

The weather was fairly cool, and the marches made from twenty to

twenty-eight miles per day. One rather warm day, while the troops were

on this move, a burnt district was passed over, and the heat and flying

smoke and ashes choked the tired men and officers. When the column

camped, it was upon a beautiful mountain stream, into which all rushed

for a bath. First Lieutenant Sydney Smith, of the Fourth, one of the

first to start for the water, while passing through the timber which

fringed the stream, was attacked by peccaries, a species of wild pig

common in Mexico. They are not very large, but travel in droves, and

are very fierce. They treed Smith upon a low-hanging limb barely out

of reach of his excited pursuers. The limb was very slender for his

weight, and as he swung to the ground, the maddened peccaries reared

upon their hind feet and snapped savagely at Smith’s pendent feet and

legs. The woods were now full of the officers and men going to the

stream, and a party soon relieved Smith from his precarious perch.

Smith was a brave fellow. He was the next year wounded at Molino del

Rey, and within a week after killed at the attack on Belen Gate.

There was a considerable delay at the mouth of the river, awaiting

transports. The point of assemblage of the troops from New Orleans,

Mobile, and Taylor’s army was Lobos Island, some three hundred miles

south of the Rio Grande’s mouth. The march began January 9, 1847, but

it was not until about February 12 that the first of the regulars

sailed from the Rio Grande to Lobos Island. Scott had expected the

concentration at Lobos to have been completed three weeks earlier. The

fault was in the transport service.

The fleet did not leave Lobos Island until March 2. A week later a

landing was effected near Vera Cruz, and on the 10th the first guns

of the new campaign were heard,--shots from the castle of San Juan de

Ulloa at Worth’s troops encamped upon the sand-hills. The investment of

the city was speedily completed and siege operations begun. The army

heard of Taylor’s remarkable victory at Buena Vista on the 15th of

March. It took away their breath to learn that Santa Anna had marched a

great army against Taylor after they had left, and had been defeated.

It explained why there had been so little opposition to the landing of

the American forces. Vera Cruz surrendered on the 29th.

Then the march into the interior of Mexico began, led by Twiggs’s

division. The first objective point was Jalapa. Scott’s design was to

get upon the mountain plateau before the yellow-fever season approached

on the coast. It was deadly in that region. The precision with which

Scott’s plans were carried forward, and their uniform success, made

a profound impression upon the army. His reputation was very high

before he had struck the first blow, but after Vera Cruz no one of that

army doubted that he would soon enter the Mexican capital. The army’s

morale was high from the outset; it was small, consequently but little

bothered with the impedimenta which make the movements of a large army

so slow and oftentimes tortuous. It marched rapidly, and Scott sent it

square at the mark every time occasion offered.

Nevertheless there was great delay in the advance to the valley of

Mexico. Operations were very energetic in the beginning. The battle

of Cerro Gordo occurred on the 18th of April, where a complete and

technically brilliant victory was won. It was here Santa Anna, already

returned from his ill-fated movement against Taylor, undertook to

defend the passage of the mountains against Scott’s advance. After

careful reconnoissances, the American general turned his position,

attacked his flank, and after a short fight broke up his army in utter

rout, very nearly cutting off and capturing the whole. As it was, the

Americans captured about four thousand prisoners, forty-three cannon,

and three thousand five hundred small-arms. All this was done with a

force of less than nine thousand Americans against some twelve thousand

Mexicans strongly fortified.

This extraordinary victory opened the road to the valley. Thus within

twenty days Scott had effected a landing, captured Vera Cruz, signally

defeated the enemy in pitched battle, and taken the road into the heart

of Mexico. Jalapa was entered on the 20th. At Jalapa seven regiments

of volunteers were discharged, and the American force was too greatly

reduced to attack the capital. The enforcements promised did not

arrive. The advance, however, was pushed on to Puebla, a city then

of some seventy thousand inhabitants, which was occupied by Worth on

the 15th of May; Lieutenant Longstreet was with the division occupying

Puebla. Here there was a long wait of weeks for the required forces

to attack the capital, now less than three marches away. From Jalapa

Scott set out for the front on May 23, arriving at Puebla on the 28th.

Many of the higher officers rode out to meet and give the General a

proper reception, and he entered the city in considerable state. “El

Generalissimo! El Generalissimo!” was shouted by the citizens as the

general-in-chief rode through the streets to his head-quarters. The

army welcomed him with enthusiasm.

It was at the siege of Vera Cruz and the operations at Cerro Gordo that

the engineer officers, R. E. Lee, G. B. McClellan, I. I. Stevens, G.

T. Beauregard, and others, began to attract the notice of the line.

Taylor had made little use of engineers in northern Mexico. He largely

depended upon his own practised military eye to determine positions,

either for the offensive or defensive. Scott’s methods were entirely

different. He depended more upon reconnoissances led by his staff

engineers, and their reports of situations, approaches, etc. He saw

largely through the eyes of these officers, and his fine strategy was

based on their information. Hence under Scott the engineer officers

soon began to fill a large space in the eyes of the army. They became

familiar figures.

Longstreet’s personal acquaintanceship with Lee began in this campaign.

He was graduated from the Academy, No. 2 of the class of 1829, nine

years before Longstreet entered it. Lee was already a captain of

engineers when Longstreet entered as a cadet in 1838. He was past

forty when the American forces landed before Vera Cruz. So in years

he was much older, as in rank and prestige he was away above the line

subalterns of that campaign, many of whom subsequently served under

him and against him in 1861-65. He evinced great admiration, even

reverence, for Scott’s generalship. In after-years his admirers claimed

that much of Scott’s glory was due to Lee’s military ability. Scott

gave him great praise. But while Lee was much respected in the army,

it is due to say that nobody then ascribed the victories of American

arms to him. Besides which, Colonel Joseph G. Totten was Scott’s

chief-engineer, and Lee had another superior present in the person of

Major J. L. Smith. The army thought General Scott entitled to the full

credit of leadership in the campaign of 1847.

About August 14 sufficient reinforcements had arrived to warrant

another forward movement. Scott had now about ten thousand men, with

more coming on from the coast. His army was composed of four divisions,

commanded by Generals Twiggs, Worth, Pillow, and Quitman, the two

latter volunteer major-generals. The army began its final advance on

the 8th of August, 1847. It had been idle nearly three months, awaiting

the action of the government. It was General Longstreet’s opinion

that with five thousand more men Scott could have followed Santa Anna

straight into Mexico from Cerro Gordo. Owing to dilatoriness in raising

troops at home, his active force at Puebla was at one time reduced to

five thousand men. The three months’ halt gave the demoralized enemy

time to recover courage and recruit their numbers.