Book Review #2: Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South by Elizabeth R. Varon
Any reader interested in a detailed military analysis of James Longstreet's years as a Confederate general would be advised to read Longstreet’s own book (From Manassas to Appomattox), or one of the more recent biographies written by Jeffrey Wert (General James Longstreet: The Confederacy’s Most Controversial General) or William G. Piston (Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant). Elizabeth Varon provides a quick 126-page overview of Longstreet’s military actions before focusing on his long and, at times, enigmatic post-war career. In essence, Varon is trying to explain how Robert E. Lee's 'old warhorse' came to be an ally of Ulysses S. Grant and one of the fiercest defenders of his Reconstruction policies.
Longstreet’s decision to embrace the Republican Party in 1867 cost him dearly. Not only was he forced to withdraw from his private business interests in New Orleans (president of the Southern and Western Life and Accident Insurance Company and partner in the Longstreet, Owen & Company Cotton Brokerage), his military legacy was attacked by Jubal Early and his fellow Lost Cause acolytes. (Longstreet derided the Lost Cause as “totally and irrevocably lost.”) After the death of Robert E. Lee in 1870, Longstreet became public enemy No. 1 in the South for his perceived failures at Gettysburg. In earlier biographies, Longstreet's actions were described as "politically inept and misunderstood," and his effort to defend his military reputation was characterized as “bitter.” Varon has a different theory. She writes: “Longstreet saw his stance on Reconstruction as an extension of his Southern identity, not a repudiation of it…. The war had illustrated the power of the North’s free-labor society; only an acceptance of defeat and of change—including Northern aid--could bring the South peace and prosperity."
Longsteet’s crimes were twofold. First, by joining the Republican Party and taking on roles such as the military commander of integrated militia in Louisiana, he was seen as a traitor to his race and it was often noted that it would have been “better if he had died in battle.” And second, he dared to criticize the military actions of Robert E Lee, the ultimate ‘Marble Man’ of the Confederacy. Although the price he paid for his iconoclasm was strong, Longstreet was fortunate to live long enough to see a resurgence in popularity during what Varon refers to as the “cult of reconciliation” at the end of the 19th Century. Longstreet's postwar career was long and varied, featuring Federal appointments from four different Presidents, and various high ranking state and local positions. However, his most difficult battle, to save his military reputation, remained out of his grasp. Statues of other Confederate military commanders popped up like mushrooms in the South, many sponsored by the Daughters of the Confederacy, but Longstreet was not among them until 1988, when a statue in his honor was finally erected at Gettysburg. (And even then, he didn’t get a pedestal.)
In 1897, the seventy-six year old Longstreet got married for a second time to thirty-four year old Helen Dortch. (His first wife Louise died in 1889.) This remarkable woman met Longstreet when he was writing his memoir and she was the Assistant State Librarian for Georgia. (She was the first woman to hold a state office in Georgia.) Prior to that she had been a newspaper editor and served as the private secretary to Georgia Governor William Atkinson. Of this union, the Chicago Daily Tribune wrote, “His love affair seems to have renewed his youth.” It also rejuvenated his political career as President McKinley appointed him as the U.S. Railroad Commissioner and Helen became a close confidant of First Lady Ida McKinley. Helen lived until 1962, and spent much of her later years relentlessly defending Longstreet’s military reputation, with little success.
When Longstreet died in 1904, “tributes poured forth from the press and from veterans.” To Northern eyes, he was a “prophetic patriot,” but in the South, as the Vicksburg Herald noted, his “sad error of judgment” that “grew to a dark cloud between Longstreet and his people.” About his struggle to reconcile his Confederate and Republican identities, the author concludes that “it was not possible.” The ultimate failure of Reconstruction to create a more equitable society doomed Longsteet’s reputation and he was left far behind during the lionization of Confederate heroes during the Jim Crow years. As a result, his remarkable career diminished into endless debates about his actions at Gettysburg and his criticism of Robert E. Lee. Varon concludes: “Longstreet never fit the profile of a marble man, whose life story could be set in stone. His political evolution and public image were too complex and contradictory for that.”