Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History [Paperback]

William Garrett Piston (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1990

In the South, one can find any number of bronze monuments to the Confederacy featuring heroic images of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, J. E. B. Stuart, and many lesser commanders. But while the tarnish on such statues has done nothing to color the reputation of those great leaders, there remains one Confederate commander whose tarnished image has nothing to do with bronze monuments. Nowhere in the South does a memorial stand to Lee's intimate friend and second-in-command James Longstreet.

In Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant, William Garrett Piston examines the life of James Longstreet and explains how a man so revered during the course of the war could fall from grace so swiftly and completely. Unlike other generals in gray whose deeds are familiar to southerners and northerners alike, Longstreet has the image not of a hero but of an incompetent who lost the Battle of Gettysburg and, by extension, the war itself. Piston's reappraisal of the general's military record establishes Longstreet as an energetic corps commander with an unsurpassed ability to direct troops in combat, as a trustworthy subordinate willing to place the war effort above personal ambition. He made mistakes, but Piston shows that he did not commit the grave errors at Gettysburg and elsewhere of which he was so often accused after the war.

In discussing Longstreet's postwar fate, Piston analyzes the literature and public events of the time to show how the southern people, in reaction to defeat, evolved an image of themselves which bore little resemblance to reality. As a product of the Georgia backwoods, Longstreet failed to meet the popular cavalier image embodied by Lee, Stuart, and other Confederate heroes. When he joined the Republican party during Reconstruction, Longstreet forfeited his wartime reputation and quickly became a convenient target for those anxious to explain how a "superior people" could have lost the war. His new role as the villain of the Lost Cause was solidified by his own postwar writings. Embittered by years of social ostracism resulting from his Republican affiliation, resentful of the orchestrated deification of Lee and Stonewall Jackson, Longstreet exaggerated his own accomplishments and displayed a vanity that further alienated an already offended southern populace.

Beneath the layers of invective and vilification remains a general whose military record has been badly maligned. Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant explains how this reputation developed--how James Longstreet became, in the years after Appomattox, the scapegoat for the South's defeat, a Judas for the new religion of the Lost Cause.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A welcome account of the military career of General James P. Longstreet, one of the Civil War's most competent corps commanders, but also one of its most vilified. After some brief biographical data, the text plunges headlong into the events of the great conflict, which saw Longstreet participating in many of its most important battles (Manassas, Antietam, Chickamauga, etc.). Piston's major focus, however, is Gettysburg, at which Longstreet has historically been accused of malfeasance in not complying efficiently with the orders of Confederate General Robert E. Lee . . . Piston effectively sets the record straight on Longstreet's behalf; the facts are that Lee blew it at Gettysburg (though there will always be those who disagree). An excellent piece of American military biography.”--Booklist

About the Author

William Garrett Piston received his Ph.D. in history from the University of South Carolina. He has taught at the University of South Carolina and the Louise S. McGehee School in New Orleans.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press (March 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0820312290
• ISBN-13: 978-0820312293
• Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #232,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #45 in Books > History > Military > Life & Institutions

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The War Horse as "Scalawag": debunking Lost Cause mythology, September 7, 2003

By 

Scott Grau "avid reader" (Iowa City, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History (Paperback)

William Piston has written a fine, highly readable, and fair-minded but sympathetic biography of one of the most controversial leaders of the Civil War. While Lee himself held Longstreet in the highest regard and made the dependable Longstreet his senior subordinate and commander of his First Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia, the stubborn South Carolinian found his reputation tarnished after the war by jealous military rivals who disliked Longstreet's politics and resented his criticisms of some of Lee's command decisions.

As a military biography, this work offers a fairly comprehensive and balanced treatment of Longstreet's career that effectively demolishes some of the more unfair criticisms of Longstreet as a commander, and in particular takes apart the myth (that emerged in post-war controversy) that Jackson, not Longstreet, had been the senior commander in whom Lee had placed his most reliance and trust (although for a more critical, but still balanced and highly useful analysis of Longstreet's military record, see Jeffrey Wert's biography of Longstreet).

Reading Piston's book will demonstrate why Lee described Longstreet as "my Old War Horse," and why Longstreet was widely regarded on both sides as one of the very finest -- if not THE finest -- corps commanders of the war. Piston also does a nice job of disentangling the post-war Gettysburg controversy, which emerged out of polemics over Reconstruction politics and the bickering among former Confederate generals anxious to rescue their own reputations while putting Robert E. Lee above any criticism.

Lee, of course, was a great commander, but he never pretended to be perfect, and Longstreet, in daring to criticize certain aspects of Lee's tactical operations, became a threat to a post-war mythology, the cult of Lee, that became so important in building a post-war, Solid Democratic South and white supremacist post-Confederate Southern identity. As Piston demonstrates, the post-war Lost Cause mythology, in deifying the defeated Lee, required a scapegoat, a "Judas", upon whom the blame for defeat and humiliation could be heaped. As both Jackson and Stuart had been killed during the war, and as most western Confederate commanders lacked the prominence to serve this function, Longstreet emerged for unreconstructed Confederates as the bete noir of Southern military history, both for his post-war Republican politics and his criticisms of Lee, his actual war record and relationship with Lee notwithstanding.

And in this post-war Lost Cause narrative, Gettysburg became the critical key or turning point upon which all else hinged, as though the outcome of a thousand campaigns mobilizing millions of men, fought over five years across a vast continent, could be reduced to one afternoon on one bloody field in Pennsylvania, or as though (even if that had been true) Longstreet alone could be blamed for Lee's failure at Gettysburg. It is the politics of Reconstruction and Longstreet's place in that political struggle, that largely shaped what became the dominant Southern narrative about the battle of Gettysburg, and the meaning of that defeat in the larger destruction and humiliation of the Confederacy. Piston's treatment of this issue, and his discussion of the evolution of Lost Cause historiography, is brilliant, and deserves attention not only from those interested in the Civil War and Reconstruction, but from those interested in the relationship between politics, historical memory, the historical record, and the writing of history.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First Book for the First Corps, December 8, 2001

By 

Glen Thomas Hicks (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History (Paperback)

Piston's book is the first modern account of the first soldier of the Confederacy. Controversial both during and after the war, James Longstreet is one of the most fascinating and forgotten figures in American history. Second in command of the Army of Northern Virginia, Longstreet was the only senior officer who was with that army from the first battle at Manassas to the surrender at Appomattox. He was in command of the most famous attack in American history, Pickett's Charge. His most notable victories included Second Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, and the Wilderness. After the war, he did several things considered unpardonable sins by most Southerners, some of whom still cannot forgive him to this day. First, he dared to criticize Robert E. Lee and his conduct of the battle of Gettysburg. Second, he reconciled with his conquerors, became a Republican, and accepted appointive federal offices from four out of the next six presidents of the United States, including President Grant, to whom he was related by marriage. Even worse, he became a Catholic in a staunchly Protestant South. Most important of all, he promoted a doctrine of racial reconciliation that is as relevant today as it was 135 years ago.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars AN EYE-OPENER TO POST-MILITARY POLITICS, July 11, 2000

By 

Stacy L. Cooke (Diboll, TX USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lee's Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History (Paperback)

Generally, historians write battle engagements of Longstreet as slow-moving, and his preference to defensive strategy. This is particularly alleged for his part at Gettysburg but visiously-so by a few of Longstreet's contemporaries after Lee, who never publicly made such charges, had died. So, the author challenges the reader to consider the effects of politics that followed the war and resulted in Longstreet's "tarnishment." This book prompted me to read "Lee and Longstreet at High Tide" by Helen Longstreet, his second wife. With an obvious love-interest in preserving his reputation, she nevertheless makes very convincing and record-based arguments that basically support this book. I recommend her's as follow-up reading to this.