Birmingham state herald., 1896-02-18

our part. The position was mot inviting. and so reported to General Lee. General Lee was quite dis appointed by my report against imnaedi- ate attack along the turnpike. General Lee urged me to go in, and Of course l was anxious to meet his wishes. At the same time 1 wanted more than anything else to know that my troops had chance to accomplish what they might undertake;
 And so it was at the fatal battle of Gettysburg. To use the language of Col onel Allen:
 General Longstreet. though knowing fully the condition of things on the night or the 1st, knowing that Lee had decided to attack that part or the federal army In his front, knowing that every hour strengthened Meade and diminished the chances of Confederate success, and Knowing that his corps was to open the battle and deliver the main assault, con sumed the time from daylight to nearly ?. m. on July in moving his troops about four miles over no serious obstacle aud in getting them into battle"
 The evidence goes to show that on the third day of that battle. if Plckett's at- tack had been supported by Long streets whole force. that attack would have succeeded. The failure to support Pickett forced from General Lee that heart-rending cry. "Too bad! Too bad! Oh, too badn' He said to General Inn boden:
 'I never saw troops behave more mag nifcently than Pickett's division of Vir- ginia did today in that grand charge upon the enemy. And If they had been supported 8s they were to have been but fer some reason not yet fully ex- plained to me were not--we would have held the position and the day would have been ours" t.z
 At Chickamauga he was ordered by General Bragg to begin at daybreak. but did not advance until noon. Fortunately by that time the action of the other wing had caused a gap in the federal lines, through which Longstreet. brilliantly taking advantage of the error advanced and caused the federal defeat He had been ordered by Bragg to wheel to the left, but he disobeyed the order, wheeled to the right and won the battle In this case his tardiness and neglect of orders resulted to the advantage of the army
 General Wolseley, the present com mander-in-chief of the British army, was with Lee for time and was well .ac- quainted with the qualities of our great military leaders. His opinion of Long, street is precisely that which the dispas- sionate reader must gather from the reading of this memoir. It is as follows:
 That Longstreet was a brilliant leader of division or wing in action there can be no doubt, but he seems never to have been able-perhaps from some peculiarity of temperament-to subordinate his own views heartily to the views and orders of his great chief. The impartial military critic must admit that at Seven Pines, the second Bull Run and Gettysburg the Confederates paid dearly for that de- feet in his character" .4--f
 And yet. with so much to his discredit, the people of the south should at this late day before the grand old fighter is gath cred to his fathers. forgive the past, even if they cannot forget it. and remember only the glorious history of the first corps with Longstreet at it's head When we recall his brave and brilliant deeds, and picture him drenched in his own blood and returning to duty when un- able to sit on his horse, it is impossible not to warm towards him as we see his venerable form at our Confederate re- unions. It is time to wipe out the bitter ness which followed the war through the criticism of men and ba tiles and the errors of political strife. and to begin a new era in which we may cherish the memory of brave and true men, no mat ter what were, their defects of judgment. To err is human; to forgive is divine. In the case of General Longstreet that which the south has to forgive is small in comparison with the services he rem dered to his people,