(New Orleans Picayune, Special.)

“After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well.”

Jas. M. Kennard,

Ex-Colonel and Chief Ordnance Officer, Army of Tennessee, C. S. A.

*****

“The Confederates had no better fighter than Longstreet.”

New York, January 4.—“Longstreet fought hard enough to suit me—he gave me all I wanted. I was perfectly satisfied when the second day’s fight was over.” This was General Sickles’s comment to-day at the city hall with reference to criticism by General John B. Gordon, who seems to think that the defeat of the Confederates at Gettysburg was due to General Longstreet.

“Gordon is a gallant gentleman, and he was a gallant soldier,” continued General Sickles, “but he commanded abrigade, while Longstreet commanded a corps. Lee told Longstreet afterwards that he had done as well as he could. He had no criticism to make. Gordon was in no position to judge the merits of the case. Longstreet was on my front. I led the Third Corps on the second day. The fighting was on Hancock’s front on the third day. He was in the centre. I guess every one who was there knew that Longstreet fought brilliantly. Longstreet was practically in command of the Confederate fighting on both the second and third days. If Lee had been dissatisfied on the second day, he would not have let Longstreet command on the third day. As a matter of fact the Confederates had no better fighter than Longstreet.”

*****

“His record needs no defence.”

ToThe Editor of the Telegraph:

The able editorial in your issue of several days ago touching the Savannah incident in which the Daughters of the Confederacy refused to send flowers to the funeral of General Longstreet, assigning as the reason “that General Longstreet refused to obey the order of General Lee at Gettysburg,” met a responsive chord in the hearts of many old veterans of the Confederate army.

Longstreet’s war record, like that of Stonewall Jackson’s, needs no defence. History is replete with his grand deeds of chivalry, and places his name high in the ranks of the great commanders of the Civil War. The rank and file who fought under this great and intrepid commander know that he was incapable of such conduct, and the only tongue that could convince them otherwise was forever stilled when our peerless Lee passed over the river.

In the first battle of Manassas, at Seven Pines, when he lead the main attack, at Gaines Mill, Frazier’s Farm, Malvern Hill, and at second Manassas, when the illustrious Stonewall Jackson was being sorely pressed by the entire army of General Pope, he hurried to Jackson’s relief, and together gained one of the greatest victories of the war. He commanded the right wing of our army on the bloody field of Sharpsburg, and was in thethickest of the fight during the entire battle. At the battle of Fredericksburg he commanded the left wing of the army, where the assault proved most fatal to the enemy. In all of these battles, and others I do not now recall, General Longstreet participated, winning fresh laurels in each fight.

At Gettysburg during the second and third days of the battle he commanded the right wing of the army, and I never saw an officer more conspicuous and daring upon the battle-field. One of the most lasting pictures made upon my mind during the war, and which still lingers in my memory, was in connection with this officer. While in line of battle during the terrible cannon duel between the two armies, when at a signal our cannons ceased firing, I saw General Longstreet as he motioned his staff back, sitting superbly in his saddle, gallop far out in our front in full view and range of more than one hundred of the enemy’s cannon, stop his horse, and, standing up in his stirrups, place his field glasses to his eyes and deliberately and for some time view the enemy’s line of battle, while shells were bursting above and around him so thick that at intervals he was hidden from sight by the smoke from exploding shells. His object having been accomplished, he turned his horse and slowly galloped back to his line of battle. No officer upon the battle-field of Gettysburg displayed greater courage than Longstreet, and his presence upon the battle-field, like that of Lee and Jackson, was always worth a thousand men.

General Lee trusted Longstreet implicitly, and every act of his from the time he assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia to Appomattox Court-House sustains this assertion. When President Davis requested General Lee to send to the relief of General Bragg, who was hard pressed by Sherman, he sent his old “war-horse,” and, true to his mission, Longstreet reached Chickamauga in time to turn the tide of battle in favor of the South. Afterwards he was ordered to drive the Federal army under General Burnside from East Tennessee, which he ably accomplished, driving him behind his entrenchment at Knoxville, Tennessee.

When General Grant attacked General Lee at the Wilderness—the second battle in magnitude of the war—and by overwhelming numbers was driving our army back, Longstreet byforced marches reached the field in time to snatch from Grant a victory almost won. Here he received a wound which nearly cost him his life, and which, perhaps, saved Grant’s army from being driven into the Rappahannock.

At Appomattox Court-House, “where ceased forever the Southern soldiers’ hope,” General Lee asked his old war-horse, if the necessity should arise, to lead the remnant of the army out, and he was ready to do so, and would have done so had not General Grant granted honorable terms of surrender. Would General Lee have trusted General Longstreet after the battle of Gettysburg had he been in the least disloyal to his commands? Impartial history will ever link the names of Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet upon the brightest page of the history of the incomparable Army of Northern Virginia. One word more about Gettysburg. I happened to be there (but at the time would have liked to have been elsewhere), and I decided then and am still of the opinion that the Yankees are to blame for our defeat.

Respectfully,J. W. Matthews.

*****

“The idol of the Army of Northern Virginia.”

If the conduct of some of our people towards General Longstreet, the great soldier, just dead, was not pitiful, it would be brutal.

He, the stubborn fighter of all our armies, the trusted arm of General Lee, the idol of the Army of Northern Virginia, dead, forty years after his many battles and the establishment of his undying fame, is refused by some of the daughters and granddaughters of the men who fought and fell under his banners, a wreath of flowers for his grave—a grave that makes hallowed the land that holds it; is refused a resolution of praise, by the sons and grandsons of the men who cheered his plume, as it waved them to victory. Why is this? A silly story attributed to General Lee, published after Lee’s death, by General Gordon upon the authority of Fitz. Lee. The story contained the charge that the faithful “Old War-Horse,” as General Leeaffectionately dubbed him, failed, wilfully, or from other cause, to obey orders at Gettysburg.

Can this story be true? That depends upon two contingencies, neither of which the wildest of General Longstreet’s defamers have dared to formulate: first, that General Lee was lacking in candor, or, secondly, he did not know his best soldiers. Can either of these propositions be true? A thousand times no.

We all, or at least those of us who had the honor of serving in the Army of Northern Virginia, recall that in September, 1863, it became necessary to detach a portion of that army to send west to relieve Bragg, then being driven south by Rosecrans from Chattanooga; we also remember that, with all of his general officers to select from, including Gordon and Fitz. Lee, General Lee selected General Longstreet to lead his immortal battalion, and the fame of how well he performed that proud duty is still ringing in the ears of all who love honor and glory.

Would General Lee have selected General Longstreet, miscalled by malice and envy “the slow,” “the disobeyer of orders,” “the loser of the battle of Gettysburg,” and so of the Southern cause, if he could have found in all his army one general braver or more competent? Surely not. This fact established, and established it is (and it also establishes General Lee’s unshaken confidence in his “Old War-Horse”), what becomes of the improbable story of Fitz. Lee? It is a matter of common history that the fighting soldiers of 1861–65 have been silent since. This at least is true of the Southern soldiers, and pity ’tis true, because our own General R. F. Hoke, fighting then, silent since, could add rich chapters to the history of those Titanic days, if he would only speak.

With this conclusive evidence of General Lee’s faith in General Longstreet, how pitiful is the unearned slander that has made the reputation of so many babblers. Longstreet a traitor or imbecile! Out upon it!

One other equally conclusive refutation of this miserable story is: In 1866 General Lee, it seems, determined to write the story of his campaigns,—“his object to disseminate the truth” (would his example had been contagious),—at the close of an affectionate letter to General Longstreet uses these words—words which General Longstreet might have claimed as acharter of nobility, had he not already had his glorious war record to ennoble him:

“I had while in Richmond a great many inquiries after you, and learned you intended commencing business in New Orleans. If you make as good a merchant as you were a soldier, I shall be content. No one will excel you, and no one can wish you more success or more happiness than I. My interest and affection for you will never cease, and my prayers are always offered for your prosperity.“I am most truly yours,“R. E. Lee.”

“I am most truly yours,“R. E. Lee.”

*****

Does any sane man, or silly woman either, believe the noble heart that inspired these words could have asked its tongue to utter the things of General Longstreet that have been falsely attributed to it. Can argument be more cogent or conclusion more conclusive?

General Gordon is, I hope, with General Longstreet. Both are at rest, and I know the “Old War-Horse” of the Army of Northern Virginia, in the presence of his grand old chief, has forgiven his comrade the wrongs done him here. Peace to the ashes of both, the wronged and the wrong-doer.

W. H. Day,Formerly of First N. C. Infantry.

*****

“Longstreet came out of the war with a record for courage and loyalty second to none.”

General Thomas L. Rosser, of Virginia, who commanded a regiment at Gettysburg, and who was with the Army of Northern Virginia from the first battle to the surrender, bitterly resents the criticism of General Longstreet’s course at Gettysburg. General Rosser was appointed an officer in the Spanish War by President McKinley, and in recent years has been acting with the Republican party. Reviewing the work of some of the great Confederate generals, General Rosser said to a reporter for theStar:

“With the death of General Longstreet passes the last ofthe great soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia. He fought alone the battle of the 18th of July, 1861, and won the first victory of that splendid army. He shared in the glory of the great battles that army fought.

“Longstreet and Lee, as soldiers, were similar in many respects. Both were great defensive generals, but neither can be classed among the successful offensive generals of history.

“Take Jackson, for instance. His campaign from Kernstown to Port Republic, in the Valley of Virginia, in 1862, was as brilliant as the first Italian campaign of the great Napoleon. He drew McDowell from Fredericksburg. He left Shields, Fremont, and Banks confused as to his whereabouts, dashed across the mountains, joined Lee on the 26th of June, striking McClellan the surprise blow, forced him to the James, and raised the siege of Richmond. With the despatch of lightning he wheeled around, met Pope at Cedar Mountain, stopped his advance upon Lee’s rear and flank, held him until Lee could arrive with reinforcements, passed to his rear, and fought the battle of the 28th of September at Groveton Heights; opened the way for Lee to press on with his army, and crowned the campaign with the successful battle of the second Bull Run. He crossed the Potomac with Lee, was detached, sent back, captured Harper’s Ferry, and joined Lee at Sharpsburg in time to stop McClellan and save Lee’s army. In May, 1863, when Lee was hesitating in the Wilderness, believing that Hooker’s movement below Fredericksburg was a serious one, with the foresight of genius Jackson pronounced it a feint, urged Lee to allow him to move around Hooker’s right, which, in audacity, boldness, and brilliancy seemed to paralyze Lee, and while on this wonderful march Sickles got between him and Lee with an army nearly equal his own. Jackson pressed on, turned Hooker’s right, as he contemplated, dissipated the Eleventh Corps and all its support, and was within a half-mile of his goal, the Bullock house, had he gained possession of which Hooker’s retreat would have been impossible and he would have been at the mercy of the Confederate army, when he was shot and mortally wounded by his own men.

“Lee, then in command of an army that knew no defeat, and not realizing that his great offensive general had been takenfrom the army, committed the fatal blunder of attempting an invasion of the North. At no time during that campaign did he move with celerity, manœuvre to the surprise of the enemy, or do anything of a brilliant character marking him with the genius of war. The battle of Gettysburg was lost the first day, although the Confederates claimed a victory, and it might have been turned into a victory had Lee been a master of the art of aggressive warfare. But he followed up the first day with a stubborn attack of the enemy in an intrenched position, and, failing to dislodge him, seemed to hesitate and his plans seemed to be confused. Finally he committed a great error in attacking a superior enemy in an intrenched position at the strongest point.

“In the history of battles very few generals have ever made an attack of the centre of the enemy’s position, and history gives only one example of where such an attack has been successful. That was the battle of Wagram, where the great Napoleon deceived the Archduke Charles by so threatening his flank as to cause him to weaken his centre, when, quick as a flash, Napoleon struck the centre of the enemy with MacDonald and his reserves. But then the world has only given us one Napoleon, and the Western hemisphere has given us only one Jackson.

“When Lee’s army was beaten from the fatal attack which he ordered on the 3d of July, he rode among his fleeing soldiers, begging them to rally and reform on Seminary Ridge, telling them that it was his fault that they had failed and not their own. No criticism was made of Longstreet at that time. Longstreet was retained in the most important corps of Lee’s army and served honorably and faithfully under Lee to the end.

“At Appomattox Longstreet, with Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, at the close of a most glorious achievement, honestly surrendered. The Southern Confederacy was eliminated from the map of the world, its flag was forever furled, and all soldiers who surrendered there had either to return to the Union and become loyal to the flag of their country or remain hypocrites and traitors, which they could not do if they had honestly surrendered and accepted the terms that Grant had given them.

“Longstreet came out of the war with a record for courage, devotion to the cause he had espoused, and loyalty to the Stars and Bars second to none. Disabled by wounds, his right arm hanging lifeless and helpless at his side, his profession, that of a soldier, gone, he turned his attention to civil pursuits, and was struggling for a living when his old friend Grant, the President of the United States, offered him service in the government. Lee was dead. Southern politicians had expected Longstreet to keep the fires of Southern antipathy to the North alive, and as they were seeking to inflame the passions of the people as a basis upon which to unite the South and to fuse with the copperhead party in the North, as a means for repossessing themselves of a government they had lost by the results of the war, this action of Longstreet in accepting the offer of Grant tended to break their influence with the old soldiers of the South.

“To counteract that they brought up the charge of disloyalty and disobedience to Lee at Gettysburg, never having thought of it before, and never, in fact, having had a foundation for it. This, in a measure, served their purpose, because the old soldiers and their sons in the South are always ready to resent anything said or done unfavorable to Lee. Now, I am mortified to see that even the ladies have taken this matter up, and the Daughters of the Confederacy at Savannah refused to lay a wreath of laurels on the tomb of the great hero. I was surprised that Fitzhugh Lee should have charged Longstreet with disobedience, for I don’t believe that General Lee ever made such a charge himself. After the war I went to Lexington and studied law and saw Lee every day and every night. Our comrades and enemies were often discussed, but I never heard him speak of Longstreet but in the most affectionate manner. Colonel Venable was professor of mathematics when I moved back to Charlottesville eighteen years ago, and my relations with him up to his death were close and intimate. I never heard him suggest the idea that Longstreet disobeyed orders or failed to do his duty at Gettysburg or anywhere else. General Lee relieved General Ewell, one of his corps commanders at Gettysburg, from duty with his army. He criticised A. P. Hill severely for his failure and mismanagement at Bristow station, but no man ever heard him say one word against Longstreet.

“Now that Longstreet is laid away to rest, all old and true soldiers of the Southern Confederacy will kneel around his tomb and pray that they may stand at the great reveille with Lee, Jackson, and Longstreet.”

*****

“On the historic page is blazoned his glory.”

From the lips of Lee no word of censure ever fell upon the military renown of his great corps commander, the intrepid and immovable Longstreet. However men may differ as to that last fateful day at Gettysburg, on the historic page there is blazoned the military glory of James Longstreet. No earthly power can blot it out. Longstreet’s corps is as inseparable from the glory of the veterans of Lee as the Old Guard from the army of Napoleon. And when a week ago with the last expiring sigh of its aged commander the blood of his fearless heart broke from the wound which laid him prone on the first day at the Wilderness, at the moment when he had restored the shattered lines and saved the Army of Northern Virginia, each ruddy drop, a protest against the censure of his comrades, was like the blood ofCæsar,—

“As rushing out of doors to be resolved,If Brutus so unkindly knocked or no.”Judge Emory Speer.

“As rushing out of doors to be resolved,If Brutus so unkindly knocked or no.”

Judge Emory Speer.

*****

“Only necessary to refer his critics to the official reports.”

It is rather significant in the life of General Longstreet that under the storm of anathemas which have been hurled upon him, both by private tongue and public pen, he always observed that silence commensurate with his dignity of character and magnanimity of soul. It is furthermore significant, that whenever an attack was made upon his official conduct at any time, it was only necessary that he point to the official report of the matter as made of it at the time. In every case where unfair criticism was indulged in, where there was no foundation for such, and, of course, no official data to which recourse could be had, the kind offices of some distinguished friend was invariably volunteered.

It is also rather a singular fact, that although he took aprominent part in numberless engagements, among which could be mentioned some of the most sanguinary of the ’60’s, he never suffered serious defeat, and almost invariably bore off the laurels. This statement applies to Longstreet more truthfully than to any other general of either side. It was characteristic of him, and at the same time evincing his great military skill and genius, that he very often manipulated his forces as emergencies suggested in the absence of orders from his superior. In no instance where this was done does it appear that he ever received a reprimand, but the approval, rather, of the commanding officer.

After the war, his course seems to have met with some disapprobation on the part of some of his admirers South. This is a matter which seems rather best decided by an appeal from the arena of individual judgment to the forum of justice and right.—Old Veteran.

*****

“Punished for his Americanism.”

Huntsville, Alabama, January 8.—General Samuel H. Moore, a brave ex-Confederate soldier of this city, claims to know inside history concerning the career of General Longstreet after the close of the Civil War, and in a communication written for the public he calls upon General Joseph Wheeler and Colonel W. W. Garth to tell what they know in justice to the departed chieftain. General Moore writes:

“It is due General Lee’s old war-horse, who was familiarly known to the Army of Northern Virginia as ‘Old Pete’ Longstreet, that a statement should be made which will vindicate his actions soon after the surrender and reinstate him in the hearts of those who always felt safe in battle when he was at their head, and who would have been proud to shed their last drop of blood to shield his fair name if they had only been cognizant of the facts which impelled him to pursue the course he did—as he believed for the benefit of his Southern people.

“In 1866, when reconstruction hung over the South like a sword of Damocles, five lieutenant-generals of the Confederate army held a meeting in New Orleans, in General Hood’s room,to discuss the situation and publish to the South the easiest way to bear the yoke sad fate had placed upon their necks.

“After discussing all the pros and cons, they unanimously decided to accept the situation as it was, return to the Union like good and loyal citizens, and be the recipients of the offices of trust which were being given to carpet-baggers because the government could not find in the Southern States men willing to accept the offices that would have gladly been given them.

“In this caucus of generals, Longstreet was selected to write and publish a letter. He did it. There was a howl of protest from the ill-informed people. The men who advised Longstreet to do this did not face this opposition, avoided this martyr, let him bear the odium alone. I ask General Joseph Wheeler to say what he personally knows of this. I call upon Colonel W. W. Garth to say what he knows and the source of his information.

“Let the South beg pardon for the wrong it has done our greater soldier, General James Longstreet.”

*****

“Did he do his duty as a soldier? Let Williamsburg, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and the Wilderness make reply.”

We are here to-day to pay our tribute to James Longstreet, the soldier who faithfully and ably served, the fighter who fiercely fought, the leader who bravely led, the sleepless, watchful, persistent, valorous captain of a glorious host, whom his great chief implicitly trusted in every hour of supreme and dangerous service, and who on many a bloody field hurled his bold and devoted followers like an avalanche on the serried ranks of his country’s foes, and who, when valor could avail no more, bore with him from the field of strife the passionate love of the legions he had led, and the unstinted praise and tearful benediction of his great commander, who knew him best, and had trusted him in many an “imminent and deadly breach.”

Every man capable by reason of environment, character, or ability of exerting an influence upon affairs in any important field of human endeavor, is called upon at some time to act under such circumstances that his decision must infallibly indicate the character of the man and forever fix his place in the estimation of his contemporaries and of posterity.

That time came to James Longstreet in 1861. He was then an officer in the army of the greatest and most powerful republic on all the earth, and had won high and deserved honor in battle beneath its flag.

High commission in that army awaited him if he but adhered to that flag, and the future held in store for him exalted rank which his reputation and ability easily assured him.

On the other hand was a young nation, scarcely emerged from its chrysalis stage and without moral or physical support among the nations of the earth. His training and education as a soldier, and his knowledge of the power and resources of that great government in whose service he had been so long enlisted, enabled him to appreciate and realize the odds in its favor in the rapidly approaching struggle.

The conditions which confronted him required the exertion of all the virtues of courage, honor, consistency, and fidelity to conviction. He was called upon to illustrate the loftiest qualities of human character, and immolate self on the shrine of duty, or give heed to the siren voice of ambition, and, lured by the selfish hope of high reward, turn his sword against the land of his birth in the hour of her sorest need.

As Daniel, Virginia’s great orator, has so fitly said of Robert E. Lee: “Since the Son of Man stood upon the Mount and saw ‘all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory thereof’ stretched before him and turned away from them to the agony and bloody sweat of Gethsemane, and to the Cross of Calvary beyond, no follower of the meek and lowly Saviour can have undergone a more trying ordeal or met it in a higher spirit of heroic sacrifice.”

In that hour of supreme test, trial, and temptation, James Longstreet did not hesitate. He dallied not with dishonor. He was deaf to every call save that of duty. Obedient to the conviction that his first, highest, and holiest obligation was to the land of his birth, he responded to her call, and for four long years “feasted glory till pity cried no more.” His gleaming sword flashed in the forefront of the fighting, till when stricken and scarred with many a wound and with honor unstained he bowed to the stern arbitrament of battle.

When he made his choice and upon bended knee offered hissword as a loving and loyal son to his native South, he thereby avouched himself unto all the ages as one who in every hour of trial and in every sphere of duty would keep his “robes and his integrity stainless unto heaven.”

He then and there gave to the world perpetual and irrefutable proof that his every act since that day, whether as soldier or civilian, was prompted by an exalted sense of duty, performed in obedience to the convictions of an intelligent and deliberate judgment, and approved by a clear conscience, and standing on that high vantage ground he courted truth and defied malice.

No man who rises superior to temptation, and offers his life as an offering upon the altar of duty, and freely sheds his blood in testimony to the sincerity of his convictions, is called upon to explain his conduct “in any sphere of life in which it may please God to place him.”

The exercises of this occasion take color and purpose from that tragic era in which James Longstreet was so conspicuous and honorable a figure; and his record as a soldier is absolutely beyond impeachment. Did he do his duty as a soldier brave and true? Did he bear himself as became a man in the hour of battle? Let history unroll her proud annals and say! Let Williamsburg, Sharpsburg, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, and the Wilderness make reply.

Ask those who met him and his dauntless legion on many a bloody field, and they will tell how often he swept down upon them like an avenging whirlwind. Ask his “boys,” who for four years followed him with unquestioning devotion and with ever-increasing love and admiration, and they will with one accord and with voices tremulous with emotion answer that he never lagged, failed, or faltered.

Hear the testimony of Robert E. Lee, his great commander, who, though dead, yet speaketh: “General Longstreet (at Gaines Mill) perceived that to render the diversion effectual the feint must be converted into an attack. He resolved with characteristic promptness to carry the heights by assault.” After Chickamauga, he says, “My whole heart and soul have been with you and your brave corps in your late battle. Finish your work, my dear General, and return to me. I want you badly, and you cannot get back too soon.”

Let Joseph E. Johnston bear witness to the world of his great subordinate at Williamsburg: “I was compelled to be a mere spectator, for General Longstreet’s clear head and brave heart left no apology for interference. The skill, vigor, and decision of General Longstreet (at Seven Pines) was worthy of the highest praise.”

We have yet further testimony, which in pathos and convincing power excels all speech or written language. It is an historic truth that when the end had come at Appomattox, and those who had so long shared the hardships of the camp and the peril and the glory of the battle-field were about to separate, General Longstreet and his staff proceeded to where General Lee and his staff had gathered for the last time before their final parting, and General Lee grasped the hand and spoke a few kindly words to each member of the group until he reached General Longstreet, when each threw his arms about the other, and as they thus stood clasped together both sobbed like children. When General Lee had recovered his composure, turning to a member of the party who is now in this presence, he said, “Captain, into your care I commend my old war-horse.”

Robert E. Lee, standing on the fateful and historic field of Appomattox, amid the gathering gloom of that awful hour of defeat and disaster, with his arms about James Longstreet, while his majestic frame shook with uncontrollable grief, was a scene worthy to have been limned by genius on immortal canvas.

The tears of Robert E. Lee falling upon the symbol and insignia of Longstreet’s rank converted it then and there into a badge of honor, grander than the guerdon of a king.

It is known to countless thousands that only a few years before he passed away Jefferson Davis moved out from the midst of a mighty throng, which was acclaiming him with every manifestation of earthly honor, to greet with open arms General Longstreet. Turning aside for a time from the thousands who pressed about him in a very frenzy of love and enthusiasm, he advanced and folded the great soldier to his bosom, thus testifying before God and a multitude of witnesses to his faith in the fidelity to conviction and to duty of the old hero.

Davis! Lee! Johnston! Immortal triumvirate of heroes! Glorious sons of a glorious land! Fortunate indeed is thatman who by such as they is avouched unto posterity. When Lee and Davis laid their hands in blessing and benediction upon James Longstreet, he was then and there given passport unto immortality.

The brevity of the time properly allotted me wherein to perform my part in the exercises of this occasion makes impossible any discussion or analysis of the campaigns of General Longstreet, even if such discussion were necessary, which it is not. His fame is securely fixed, and the faithful historian of the future will assign him to his due and fitting place in the annals of his age. The history of that great struggle, in which he was so majestic and forceful a figure, which does not bear tribute to his fidelity, skill, and valor will be manifestly and unjustly incomplete; and if any page thereof be not lighted with the lines of glory reflected by his heroic deeds, it will be because the truth has not been thereon written.

In the galaxy of the glorious and the great, James Longstreet will stand through all the ages enshrined with his great companions in arms in the pantheon of the immortals.

Over such a life as his, bravely, nobly lived on lofty levels, death has no dominion. More than fourscore years were upon him, and his kingly form was somewhat bowed, but the dauntless and indomitable spirit which had never quailed before danger, however imminent or dire, shrank not before the coming of that conqueror to whom the lofty and the lowly alike must yield, but, soothed and sustained by the holy faith of the mother church, he passed to his eternalrest—

“While Christ, his Lord, wide open held the door.”

To those who loved and honored him the thought is comforting that after all the battles and trials and hardships of his arduous and eventful life he has found that rest reserved for the faithful in the realm of eternal reunion.

We can believe that when, clothed with the added dignity and majesty of immortality, he drew near to that eternal bivouac where are pitched the tents of the comrades who preceded him to rest eternal, two, conspicuous for kingly grace, even in that immortal throng, advanced to meet him and clasp him onceagain to their bosoms, and that as he stood in their arms enfolded there fell upon his ears the voice of the Mastersaying,—

“Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of thy Lord.”—Judge Norman G. Kittrell, Houston, Texas.

*****

“No soldier of Longstreet’s corps ever doubted his loyalty.”

No soldier of Longstreet’s corps during the war, whether he was one of the boys in the trenches, or wore the stars upon his collar, ever doubted either the courage, or the capacity, or the loyalty of James Longstreet. No man ever heard an insinuation of that kind. No, he was entitled to the splendid name the immortal Lee gave him of “old war-horse,” and he held in the very highest degree the implicit confidence of the men he commanded and who loved him.

I love to think of Lee and Jackson and Longstreet and Hill as the “Big Four” of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Many years have passed since that bloody conflict; we are now one people, with one common flag and one country and one destiny. But we ought not to forget, how can we forget! the glorious names which became as familiar as household words to us during that trying time. Among all the other great names, that of James Longstreet, the ranking lieutenant-general of the Confederate army, who earned that title in the field and worthily wore it to the end, must shine forever in that noble galaxy.—Captain John H. Leathen,Second Regiment Virginia Infantry, Stonewall Brigade.

*****

“Always a plumed knight without reproach.”

Nothing but sickness and a cold drive of twenty-five miles could have prevented me from attending the funeral obsequies of my old friend and great military chieftain and placing my humble tribute of flowers upon his grave.

And now, in the quiet of a sick-chamber, I undertake to weave a little garland to his memory. I know that nothing I may write will add any lustre or greatness to a name that has become immortal in the annals of a people who more than a third of acentury ago, and for four long years, performed deeds of heroic valor that would have shed glory upon the military renown of any country or people that have ever lived or had a place in history.

I have never permitted any criticism or detraction that has been written or uttered against General Longstreet, no matter by whom or for what purpose the same may have been written or uttered, to have a feather’s weight in varying my love and veneration for this almost incomparable commander.

I watched him in his course from Bull Run to Appomattox, and to me he was always a plumed knight, without reproach. I have seen him on the field of battle, and I have seen him at his quiet tent. The very first order I heard given to “fire,” was delivered by Longstreet at Bull Run on the 18th day of July, 1861. It was the prelude to the great victory on the bloody field of Manassas, three days after.

Bull Run may have been the beginning of battles in Northern Virginia—introductory to greater performances, but it was nevertheless a finished battle. A flag of truce came in and asked for a suspension of hostilities, and that the Federal dead be buried. The Union forces had fallen back to Centreville, three miles. Detachments from Bonham’s South Carolinians and Early’s Louisianians were called for to bury the dead. Longstreet’s brigade had done the principal fighting, and Longstreet’s brigade rested.

The dead were buried by those who had been fighting them only a few hours before. The day’s battle was over, and the sun went down with the victors in possession of the field and its dead.

The battle of Bull Run (18th of July, 1861) will always remain in my memory a separate picture, and, like a diamond, however small it may be when compared with greater jewels, will retain its own halo and its own setting of gems. Longstreet was the hero of that historic field. Beauregard was higher in command, but Longstreet began and ended the fight.

I hope to be pardoned for this reference to an almost forgotten engagement, wherein nearly four thousand South Carolinians and an almost equal number of Virginians and Louisianians received their “first baptism of fire.”

I will relate an incident that occurred after the war, to illustrate the inward character of General Longstreet, and how this great man desired to be on friendly terms with every one, especially old friends whom the accidents of war had estranged. It had come to my knowledge that in some way or other during the war General Longstreet and General Lafayette McLaws, lifelong friends and fellow-officers in the old United States army, had become separated in their friendships. Seventeen years and more had passed, and yet no healing balm had been poured upon these two proud hearts. General Longstreet was a patron of the N. G. A. College. He had two sons, Lee and James, at this military institution. General McLaws was contemplating sending a son to the school. Knowing that there was estrangement between these great military heroes, I induced Governor A. H. Colquitt to place these two men on the Board of Visitors to the College in the hope that they might meet each other in the quietude of my mountain home and become reconciled. They both came, and I arranged that they might be my guests, with others, and in some way I hoped to bring them close together. Their meeting was quite formal, and I thought they were very cold to each other. But after the supper was over, and getting my other guests to seats on the piazza, where they might smoke and talk, I gently asked the two to walk into the parlor with me, and seated them within easy distance of each other. I then began the conversation by alluding to some affair of the war with which they were familiar, for both of them had commanded Kershaw’s brigade, to which I belonged. It was not long before the clouds began to roll away, as these old warriors passed from one scene to another, and their voices became friendlier. I then thought I could be excused and passed from the room, and kept others from disturbing them, and when they came out together, shook hands, and bade each other “good-night,” I thought then that they were friends again. That night I called at General Longstreet’s room and knocked, but heard no response. I pushed the door gently and peered in, and discovered that the General was kneeling and praying. I went away as softly as I could, and the next day General Longstreet thanked me for the quiet way in which I had brought them together. “For,” said he, “we are friends again.” If I ever knew, Ihave long since forgotten the cause of the estrangement. It might have occurred at Gettysburg.

It was my pleasure to have witnessed the meeting between General Longstreet and President Davis, so often alluded to as occurring at the unveiling of the Ben Hill statue in Atlanta. I had been given by Colonel Lowndes Calhoun on that occasion the command of several hundred one-armed and one-legged Confederate veterans. When these two great heroes met and embraced, my command “went wild,” and they never got into line any more. Longstreet was almost a giant in stature and always attracted attention and produced enthusiasm. Whatever his political views were after the war was over, he honestly and fearlessly entertained them, but he never offensively presented them to any one, and it remains yet to be seen whether he was not right in many matters concerning which he was perhaps too harshly judged by some people.

In 1896 General Longstreet’s name was on the McKinley electoral ticket. He came to Dahlonega to address the people on the political issues of the day. Although not a member of his political party, I had the honor of introducing him to the people of my native county in the following words, as published in theEagle, October 29, 1896:

“Fellow-Countrymen and Ladies,—A few of the survivors of that gallant band who rushed to arms in defence of the Sunny South more than a third of a century ago, without regard to past or present affiliation with political parties, have with only a few moments’ notice met to pay an humble tribute to one who, with dauntless and conspicuous bravery, led the Southern cohorts through many bloody battle-fields. Like the plumed knight, Henry of Navarre, his sword always flashed fiercest where the fighting was the hottest. His was the first voice of command to ‘fire’ when the Army of Northern Virginia was receiving its ‘baptism of fire’ at Bull Run on the 18th of July, 1861. And from the following Sunday, the memorable battle of Manassas, to Appomattox our comrades followed him. From Gettysburg to Chickamauga with unfaltering step they went wherever he led them, and from Chickamauga to the Wilderness they unswervingly obeyed his commands. His fame has become the common heritage of us all. No longer the solecynosure of Southern hearts and eyes, he is the beloved citizen of a restored country and a reunited Union. His patriotism, his history, his name, are the common property of all the people, both North and South. He is with us to-day for only a few hours. Possibly our eyes may never look into his again, nor our hands clasp his on earth, nor ever hear that voice once so potent to thousands of his countrymen. That voice is feeble, but he raises it now only for the purpose of guiding his friends into what he deems to be the paths of peace and prosperity. Listen to him with patience. I now have the honor of introducing to you, my fellow-countrymen, that distinguished soldier and statesman, General James Longstreet.”—W. P. Price.

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