Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 05.pdf/182

Rh position as long as there was ground to stand upon. These solid characteristics were always displayed by him during the four years of war, and gained for him the soubriquet of "General Lee's old war-horse." But when General Longstreet writes for the public prints a paper which has generally been construed as an attack upon the reputation of General Lee, it will be criticised by a great many; by me, because I find it difficult to reconcile many of his statements with facts in my possession. While there are very few who will deny that General Longstreet was a hard fighter when once engaged, I have never found any one who claimed that he was a brilliant strategist; indeed, upon the only occasions when he exercised an independent command, Suffolk and Knoxville, the results in the public mind were not satisfactory. It is, therefore, with some surprise we learn from his paper that when in Richmond, en route from Suffolk to join General Lee at Fredericksburg, he paused to tell Mr. Seddon (then Secretary of War), how to relieve Pemberton at Vicksburg. Our astonishment is increased when we read further, that before entering upon the campaign of 1863, he exacted a promise from General Lee that the "campaign should be one of offensive strategy, but defensive tactics, and upon this understanding my (his) assent was given," and that therefore General Lee "gave the order of march." Our wonder culminates when finally we are told that he had a plan to fight the battle different from General Lee's, and that General Lee had since said it would have been successful if adopted.

The invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania was undoubtedly undertaken with a view of manœuvering the Federal army, then in front of Fredericksburg, to a safer distance from the Confederate capital; to relieve Virginia of the presence of both armies; to subsist our troops upon new ground, that the old might recuperate, and with the idea a decisive battle fought elsewhere might be more productive of substantial results. These premises admitted, not only is gross injustice done to the memory of General Lee, in believing be crossed the Potomac bound fast by a promise to a subordinate to make the movement "strategically offensive, tactically defensive," as charged by General Longstreet, but such reported promise contains a positive reflection upon General Lee's military sagacity. As well might the Czar of Russia, acting as commander-in-chief of his army, have so committed himself to