and Longstreet were together at three o’clock, when the attack began. Lieutenant-General Hill, commanding the First Corps of Lee’s army, says in his report,​—​

“The corps of General Longstreet (McLaws’s and Hood’s divisions) was on my right, and in a line very nearly at right angles to mine. General Longstreet was to attack the left flank of the enemy, and sweep down his line, and I was ordered to co-operate with him with such of my brigades from the right as could join in with his troops in the attack. On the extreme right, Hood commenced the attack about two o’clock, McLaws about 5.30 o’clock.”

Longstreet was not long in discovering, by his artillery practice, that my position at the Peach-Orchard was a salient, and that my left flank really rested twelve hundred yards eastward, at Plum Run, in the valley between Little Round Top and the Devil’s Den, concealed from observation by woods; my line extended to the high ground along the Emmitsburg road, from which Lee says, “It was thought our artillery could be used to advantage in assailing the more elevated ground beyond.”

General J. B. Hood’s story of his part in the battle of July 2, taken from a communication addressed to General Longstreet, which appears in Hood’s “Advance and Retreat,” pages 57–59, is a clear narrative of the movements of Longstreet’s assaulting column. It emphasizes the firm adherence of Longstreet to the orders of General Lee. Again and again, as Hood plainly points out, Longstreet refused to listen to Hood’s appeal for leave to turn Round Top and assail the Union rear, always replying, “General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emmitsburg road.”A

These often repeated orders of General Lee to “attack up the Emmitsburg road” could not have been given until near three in the afternoon of July 2, because before that hour there was no Union line of battle on the Emmitsburg road. There had been only a few of my pickets there in the morning, thrown forward by the First Massachusetts Infantry. It distinctly appears that Lee rejected Longstreet’s plan to turn the Federal left on Cemetery Ridge. And Hood makes it plain enough that Longstreet refused to listen to Hood’s appeal for permission to turn Round Top, on the main Federal line, always replying, “No; General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emmitsburg road.” Of course, that plan of battle was not formed until troops had been placed in positions commanding that road. This, we have seen, was not done until towards three in the afternoon.

The only order of battle announced by General Lee on July 2 of which there is any record was to assail my position on the Emmitsburg road, turn my left flank (which he erroneously supposed to rest on the Peach-Orchard), and sweep the attack “up the Emmitsburg road.” This was impossible until I occupied that road, and it was then that Longstreet’s artillery began its practice on my advanced line.

I am unable to see how any just person can charge Longstreet with deviation from the orders of General Lee on July 2. It is true enough that Longstreet had advised different tactics; but he was a soldier,​—​a West Pointer,​—​and once he had indicated his own views, he obeyed the orders of the general commanding,​—​he did not even exercise the discretion allowed to the chief of a corps d’armée, which permits him to modify instructions when an unforeseen emergency imposes fresh responsibilities, or when an unlooked-for opportunity offers tempting advantages.

We have seen that many circumstances required General Lee to modify his plans and orders on July 2 between daybreak, when his first reconnoisance was made, and three o’clock in the afternoon, when my advanced position was defined. We have seen that if a morning attack had been made the column would have encountered Buford’s strong division of cavalry on its flank, and that it would have been weakened by the absence of Law’s brigade of Hood’s division. We have seen that Longstreet, even in the afternoon, when Law had come up and Buford had been sent to Westminster, was still too weak to contend against the reinforcements sent against him. We have seen that Lee was present all day on July 2, and that his own staff-officer led the column of attack. We have seen that General Lee, in his official report, gives no hint of dissatisfaction with Longstreet’s conduct of the battle of July 2, nor does it appear that Longstreet was ever afterwards criticised by Lee. On the contrary, Lee points out that the same danger to Longstreet’s flank, which required the protection of two divisions on July 3, existed on July 2, when his flank was unsupported. We have seen that again and again, when Hood appealed to Longstreet for leave to swing his column to the right and turn the Round Tops, Longstreet as often refused, always saying, “No; General Lee’s orders are to attack up the Emmitsburg road.” The conclusion is irrefutable, that whilst the operations were directed with signal ability and sustained by heroic courage, the failure of both assaults, that of July 2 and the other of July 3, must be attributed to the lack of strength in the columns of attack on both days, for which the commanding general alone was responsible.

It was Longstreet’s good fortune to live until he saw his country hold a high place among the great powers of the world. He saw the new South advancing in prosperity, hand in hand with the North, East, and West. He saw his people in the ranks of our army, in Cuba, Porto Rico, the Philippines, China, and Panama; he saw the Union stars and the blue uniform worn by Fitzhugh Lee, and Butler, and Wheeler. He witnessed the fulfilment of his prediction,​—​that the hearty reunion of the North and South would advance the welfare of both. He lived long enough to rejoice with all of us in a reunited nation, and to know that his name was honored wherever the old flag was unfurled. His fame as a soldier belongs to all Americans.

Farewell, Longstreet! I shall follow you very soon. May we meet in the happy realm where strife is unknown and friendship is eternal!

LEE AND LONGSTREET
AT HIGH TIDE

CHAPTER I
THE STORY OF GETTYSBURG

Back of the day that opened so auspiciously for the Confederate cause at the first Manassas, and of the four years that followed, lies Longstreet’s record of a quarter of a century in the Union army, completing one of the most lustrous pages in the world’s war history. That page cannot be dimmed or darkened; it rests secure in its own white splendor, above the touch of detractors.

The detractors of General Longstreet’s military integrity assert that, being opposed to fighting an offensive battle at Gettysburg, he was “balky and stubborn” in executing Lee’s orders; that he disobeyed the commanding general’s orders to attack at sunrise on the morning of July 2; that, again ordered to attack with half the army on the morning of July 3, his culpably slow attack with only Pickett’s division, supported by some of Hill’s troops, caused the fatal Confederate defeat in that encounter.

General Gordon has seen fit, in a recent publication, to revive this cruel aspersion.

When General Longstreet surrendered his sword at Appomattox his war record