Military Background, The 14th at Gettysburg

A Sampler of Civil War Literature

»Battles

back to the Civil War Sampler Home Page
back to the intro to this section

General Longstreet
Harper's Weekly, July 9, 1864

In our last Weekly was engraved a portrait of General Lee, and in this we give that of General Longstreet, who is perhaps, since the death of Stonewall Jackson, second only to Lee in the military reputation he has achieved by the campaigns between Washington and Richmond during the last three years. General James Longstreet, who is a native of Alabama, was regularly educated for the profession of arms.

Potrait of General Longstreet
July 9, 1864, page 445 (1-4)

He entered the United States army in 1838. He was attached first to the Fourth and then to the Eighth infantry regiments. He served in all the battles of the Mexican war, and, like General Lee, was wounded at Chapultepec. He was twice brevetted for distinguished services in that war. In 1858 he obtained a post in the Paymaster’s department, to which he belonged, with the rank of Major. When the civil war broke out, in 1861, he at once joined the army of the Confederate States. The brigade which he commanded at the fight of Bull Run, in July of that year, was one of the first bodies of southern troops that came into actual collision with the Federals; and in the sanguinary battle of Manassas, which soon afterward ensued, General Longstreet led the main attack, though General Beauregard was in chief command. As a General of Division, Longstreet acted under General Lee throughout the Virginia campaigns of 1862 and 1863. Longstreet is forty-three years of age—a thick-set, determined – looking man. His corps, who are devotedly attached to him, often complain that he is always with General Lee. He is in the habit of exposing himself in a careless manner, and it was perhaps in this way that he got his wound in one of the battles in the Wilderness. At Gettysburg he is said to have led a Georgian regiment in a charge against a batter, hat in hand, and in front of every body. A few hours later a Colonel found him seated on the top of a snake fence at the edge of the wood, and looking perfectly calm and unperturbed, while some of his troops passed by. The gallant Colonel, who scarcely knew what had been the result of the battle, observed to General Longstreet, "I wouldn’t have missed this for any thing." Longstreet replied, laughing, "The devil you wouldn’t! I should liked to have missed it very much; we’ve attacked, and been repulsed; look there!"

Harper's Weekly, July 9, 1864