The gold leaf., 1893-07-06
Longstreet and Lee.

IcOiltSJoIlutICC news anu ODotIF FCl.
Gen. LOngstrect', criticisms of Gen.
Lees strategy and tactics, which you
reprint from the New Orleans Times DEM
ocrat, are adroit, but specious and mis-
leading. This is a fact patent enough to
the older men amongst US, but fearing
that some of the younger generation
might be misled by it, the following ex-
planation Of the three battles he criti-
cises will not, hope, be out Of place.
1t might also be promised that Gen.
Longstreet, like Shakespeare's hero, is
"Nothing if not critical" Perhaps, too,
his political affiliatiOn, while they have
dispellcd the glammor which for us en-
wraps the Southern leaders, have sup
piled its place with q haze of prejudice
still more apt to warp the Judgment.
But to return to Gen. Leo and his bat
ties. 1t is fact so well known as hardly
to need repeating that the great military
geniuses Of the world from Hannibal and
Alexander down to Napoleon and later
have won their battles not by adhering
to the established rules OF warfare, but
by departing from them.
Indeed, in most cases in exact proper
tion as they departed from these cast
| iron rules, has been the briliancy OF the
results achieved. Such men gain victO-
| ries by departing from rules because they
| know that it is the last thing that their
| opponents will expect or be prepared to
! take advantage of. Ii they are fOrtu-
nate enough to be aware Of any mental
| bias of the opposing leader they have
eagerly ayailed themselves of it and
shaped their campaigns and battles to
correspond.
1t is admitted, even by our foes, that
| r.,'., -t,.I I,
| both Hooker and Mcclellan was correct
and pregnant with advantage to the
| Southern arms. When at Chancellors-
vile Lee found his 4G, 900 pitted against
| llOOller's 100, 900 or more, entrenched
in his rear, knowing the habitual over
confidence and unWariness Of the man,
after masking his movement in the most
mastery manner by an impenetrable
screen, divided his army and crushed the
Toe rs ii between the upper and neither
miIlstOne
When i'll the Sharpsburg (intietam)
campaign he detached Jackson to cap
| ture Harper $ Ferry, the Oyer-cautOn
and dilatoriness OF Mcclellan were counted
on to give the army time to reunite OF
course Lee could not forcsee and never
knew that the loss of a copy of his orders
| at Fredericksburg was to place his army
almost at the mercy of the foe. But even
then so leadened- paced was Mcclellan, so
SWlft-fOOt Jackson, that he gObbled up
the eleven thousand men at Harper's
Ferry and rejoined Lee in time to make
Sharpsburg a drawn battle. But for
tn" unforeseen accident by which his
| order was lost, the issue OF the campaign
would in all human probability have
been different, and disastrous to the Fed
erals as at other times it always was
when Mcclellan was pitted against Lee
and his immortal lieutenant.
LOngstreet's structures on Lee touch
ing the battle OF Gettysburg are in part
unfOunded, and in the other part highly
over charged. The battle of Gettysburg
was a political necessity. 1t was we'll
known that foreign recognition was then
wavering i'll the balance. Louis Nopoleon
was anxious to recognize US. y move to
that effect had already been planned by
the English Parliamentary leaders The
situation justified that every risk be
taken to gain another Southern victory
In all likelihood even Il partial success
right there meant peace, independence
and all the dazzling train of events to
follow. To decline battle meant to lose
| the prestige which the terrible Southern
infantry had so blOodily won. The man.
date OF the Confederacy was to fight.
Urged on by these manifold reasons,
when Lee by Stuart's error, found him
self so completely in the face of the foe
that fight or downright retreat were the
only alternatives, he fought as the lesser
evil. And as Stuart's romantic raid
around the Federal army and his conse-
quent inability to appriSe his superior of
Its movements rendered faulty the STRAIT
c%y OF the campaign, so were subordi-
mates III IL measure to blame for the tao.
teal errors on that fatal Pennsylvania
wheat field.
Gen. LOngstreet was Il brave and eff.
clent, t,otficerand standing close to Lee as
hcdid his opinions are worthy ofrespectfu
attention. But it is not always those
who stand closest to the great and grand
things OF earth who see them in theil
true proportion.
O. W BLACkN,JJ