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God and General Longstreet: The Lost Cause and the Southern Mind

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If you want to know how the Lost Cause syndrome got its start and how Longstreet to his shock became the designated failure of the Confederacy, this is a revealing book. Old Pete survived his crippling wounds incurred by bullets during his great counter attack in the Wilderness but the ink from "Old Jube's" (Jubal Early's) pen created greater harm and anguish to Longstreet as Early effectively destroys his reputation. Early holds a tight grasp of southern history and the Southern Historical Society making sure that no one dared write anything about the War of the Rebellion without his approval. How ironic that the man that moved Alexander's auxiliary guns away during Pickett's charge, the former and inefficient Pendleton, makes up a bogus story about Longstreet disobeying a sunrise attack order on the second day of Gettysburg in a speech shortly after Lee died and blames Longstreet solely for the lost battle and in turn the "cause". Early picks up the ridiculous story to exaggerate Pendleton's story to gross proportions while coloring his own role that is very suspect in not supporting an attack on Culp's Hill on the first day of Gettysburg and he also pushed Ewell in not moving his corps to the right as Lee wished failing to contract Lee's over extended lines. Old Jube was a tough fighter but had a hard time with cavalry particularly in the Valley where Lee finally has Early relieved. Unlike Longstreet and Lee, Early left the country after the war and upon his return made a career out of rewriting history to suit his slant. Jubal Early could have been the Roy Cohn of the post Civil War era.

Connelly also explains how Lee becomes a greater hero after death and a rallying point for statues and dedications while the south understandably searches for an answer to the defeat of what many in the south tried to remember as a noble cause. Jackson's role is diminished as Lee's appreciative role becomes magnified almost to diety. As the reasons for the "Lost Cause" become justified, Davis and Stephens even write retrospective histories that contrast conveniently with the changing times, States Rights and Rights under the Constitution rise to greater reasons of separation than does slavery for example.

A devastating loss with so much death, maiming of young men and destruction needed a nobleness that was overwhelmed only by large numbers of Union soldiers and errors of judgement of those other thsn the leaders of the armies. "Lest we Forget" is defined in Connelly's fascinating book.

A most enjoyable short book in which the authors, in a set of well-orchestrated essays, ponder on the development and meaning of the idea of the "Lost Cause". Soon after Appomattox, the phrase became a by-word for the perpetuation of the Confederate ideal, which itself was based on an (imperfect) analogy with the lost cause that was medieval Scotland's struggle for independence as related in Sir Walter Scott's novels. (Earnest southern writers attempted to prove that Robert E. Lee was a descendent of Robert the Bruce).

From 1865 through the present days, the Lost Cause has had a variety of meanings. Those men who were involved in Confederate military and political circles attempted to justify secession, and to find reasons for the ultimate military catastrophe. Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens, among others, wrote lengthy and turgid volumes essentially stating that the South went to war to protect its "rights". The fact that underlying these rights was the demand of the slave states to extend their "peculiar institution" i.e., slavery, into new territories, if not into free states, was of course, downplayed. Slavery, they said, had nothing to do with the matter. The military men, when not whining about the North's numerical and material advantages, looked for scapegoats within their own ranks.

The most maligned of these was James Longstreet, who was Lee's "right arm" and "old war horse". Had it not been for his "disobedience to Lee's orders" at Gettysburg--to attack at sunrise on the 2nd of July, the battle would have been won and the Confederate cause gained. William Nelson Pendleton, the ineffective and inefficient overseer of the artillery of the Army of Northern Virginia, was the source of this accusation. Although members of Lee's staff, themselves later Lost Cause writers, denied that such an order was ever given, Pendleton's canard was taken up and spread widely by Jubal Early and others. Even now Longstreet's "slowness" at Gettysburg is believed by many Civil War buffs and some historians to be the reason the South lost the war.

Lee's defeat at Gettysburg threatened the Lost Cause myth of Lee the incomparable and invincible which was one of the cornerstones of the Lost Cause. So a scapegoat was found. It need not have been Longstreet; indeed there was glory enough for all beginning with Heth's rash opening of hostilities without benefit of reconnaissance, Ewell's failure hours later to seize Culp's Hill, and, of course J.E.B. Stuart's failure to do his job, perhaps a fatal failure to Confederate success.

But Longstreet, after the war, "committed three cardinal sins". He joined the Republicans during Reconstruction and advised southerners to accept the existing political situation.. Second, Pendleton's canard stuck like flypaper, thanks to the vigorous pamphleteering of Jubal Early. And finally, Longstreet, when interviewed by a historian of the Army of the Potomac, admitted that he had often disagreed with Lee and tabulated errors committed by Lee in the Gettysburg campaign. In the 1870's Longstreet became the object of virulent attack for his apostasy to the now-deified Lee. Longstreet's polemic skills were weak, so he was never able to refute his detractors and reestablish his reputation. His statements that Lee erred at Gettysburg became the unforgivable sin against him whom southerners already looked upon as almost an equal to Jesus Christ. Try to find a statue of Longstreet south of the Mason-Dixon line.

That some southerners went to the extreme of almost deifying Lee should not be surprising. North and South both claimed that God was on their respective sides throughout the war. Both sides experienced outbursts of evangelical fervor during the war. The more enthusiastic ones were south of the Mason-Dixon line. The war was an occasion for many Confederate exercises in theodicy. Confederate victories were hailed as reflecting God's will. Confederate defeats, especially after the disasters at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, were seen as Jehovah's punishment of the South because of her iniquities, whatever they might be. (Except for the institution of slavery which was, after all, ordained by God). The authors do a very credible job of sorting through the labyrinth of theological spins of this kind. But the short-term view that God used the Yankee Philistines to whack a transgressing Confederacy did not carry the freight. Hence a reversion to a kind of dualism. In a nutshell, since southerners were in a sense God's chosen people, evil befalling them had to come from the devil. How convenient. Here was Longstreet. The circle is closed.

The other three essays (or chapters) of this book carry through other themes relating to the Lost Cause. One examines the role of Virginia in fomenting the Lost Cause. (The provocative chapter title is "How Virginia won the Civil War"). The second is an appreciation of Robert E. Lee and the southern mind. This chapter/essay was probably drawn from Connolly's 1977 book, The Marble Man. The last essay/chapter dwells on the persistence of memory. The authors argue somewhat torturously that the essence of the Lost Cause is the memory of defeat that remains central to the white southern mind. And it is the memory of the war, not the war itself that has been at the center of the Lost Cause mentality. Those Lost Cause chroniclers--Jubal Early, D.H. Hill, J.W. Jones and others, "were not preoccupied with writing traditional battle accounts. The focus was upon ...the `Everlasting If ` the metahistorical might-have-been-situations where Rebel defeat might have been averted." The somewhat lengthy chapter is also a review of the media and the Lost Cause--past and present scholarship, writings, music, cinema, television, etc. For example, country music, argue the authors, is he great modern expression of the Lost Cause mentality.

Although short (less than 150 pages) this is an extremely meaty book that is not easily digested. The style is often echt akademisch. Viz, "The Lost Cause was a realization of mortality existing in an America that reached for the gnostic immortal; it was an admission of failure juxtaposed against national faith in success and achievement." Yes, indeedy. Book offers no citations; does havea short, but thorough note on the sources, both primary and secondary.

I've long been a student of the Civil War Era and the Lost Cause is one of the facets of the Civil War that I have long been interested in. This is a short book by Connelly (one of my favorite CW historians, by the way) and Bellows, but it is still one of the better ones on the Lost Cause. This work is more about the Southern mind and how Southern writers built up the Lost Cause and how it has evolved up until this book was originally published in the early 1980s. It also gives an excellent look at how Robert E. Lee became the symbol of the South, which Connelly wrote an entire book about as well. What emerges is the Lost Cause evolved from petty in-fighting about who was to blame for Confederate defeat (hence the Longstreet part of the title) to the creation of an image of the South that was both romantic and tragic. Connelly and Bellows argue that by World War I, the entire nation embraced this image and the dual image of the South has remained. This is a very interesting book and one that should be read by all students of the South, not just people interested in the Civil War. I give it 4 stars instead of 5, however, because there are not endnotes or footnotes so we have no idea where the authors are getting their source material, a big no-no for two academic historians. Besides that, though, no real complaints about this work.

I consider myself an avid Civil War history reader and James Longstreet admirer. I was anticipating reading more on how General Longstreet's reputation became tarnished and 'trashed' by Jubal Early and his compatriots in an effort to place blame on Dutch Longstreet for the loss at Gettysburg, and elevating Lee to 'Saint" status after the war. In my opinion, Gen. Longstreet was Lee's most capable and dependable Corps commander - Lee's "Old War Horse."

This book is about the 'Lost Cause' myth and how it came about, and only mentions James Longstreet in a 'few' lines. The book is very interesting and factual, but I believe the title is misleading.

Buy it to read about the Lost Cause origins, but not to read about James Longstreet.

PS: If you are in North Georgia, a visit to his grave site in Alta Vista Cemetery,Gainesville, GA, is well worth it. Don't forget to leave a cigar for Ole Dutch!

God and General Longstreet is a study of the Lost Cause mentality, its
origins, its icons and how religion was central to many aspects of the Lost
Cause Movement. The book's primary theme is really a fairly good explanation
of how Robert E. Lee was deified and cast as the "principle standard bearer"
of the Confederacy. Also how he was made out to be the perfect Christian
warrior to fit the mythology. The book's title is somewhat misleading
though. A 150 page book, there are a scant 10 pages that mentions
Longstreet. These 10 pages do basically explain how some in the South
created lies about Longstreet's war record, and why they hated him for
becoming a Republican, but this section is not at all in proportion to the
rest of the book enough that warrants his name in the title of the book. It
is not an in-depth explanation of the casting of how and where Longstreet
was spun into the Lost Cause legends.

One of the most interesting sections is about R. E. Lee's own writings about
his feelings as a career soldier before the Civil War. The author's bring up
his ironically unsure self-image as a career soldier to contrast what
the Lost Cause movement made him out to be. This work points out that during his US Army career, Lee felt it would destine him to a restless life separated from his roots. Lee described Army life as an existence that "debars all hope of domestic enjoyment," and he viewed family separation as "a just punishment for my sins." The books better sections bring out some fascinating and little known research on Lee.

Connelly and Bellows offer a fine selection of short essays that deal with the "mentality" of the Southern mind amid the squalor of a defeated nation. I would think those more versed in their Civil War studies would appreciate this more than the casual reader. An appetizing psychological look at the only section of our country that has been a "defeated nation"