Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/352

 346 Southern Historical Society Papers.

street) saw, pointed out, and remonstrated with Lee against at the time. This called forth the scathing rejoinder of General Dick Tay- lor, "That any subject involving the possession and exercise of intellect should be clear to Longstreet and concealed from Lee is a startling proposition to those possessing knowledge of the two men. We have biblical authority for the story that the angel in the path was visible to the ass, though invisible to the seer, his master. But suppose that instead of smiting the honest, stupid animal, Balaam had caressed him and then been kicked by him, how would the story read?"

Especial indignation was excited against General Longstreet be- cause in a letter to the editor of the Philadelphia Times, accompa- nying this paper, he charged that General Lee had altered his original official report, written under the generous spirit in which he had assumed all the blame of the defeat at Gettysburg, and had after- wards ' ' written a detailed and somewhat critical account of the bat- tle," from which Longstreet' s critics had gotten all of their points against him. In other words, he charged General Lee with altering his original report in order to injure him.

In the meantime, I, as secretary of the Southern Historical So- ciety, received a letter from the Count of Paris, propounding a series of questions as to " the causes of Lee's defeat at Gettysburg," and asking that I secure replies from leading Confederate officers, who were in position to know. I sent copies of this letter to promi- nent men in every corps, division, and arm of the service, with a personal letter requesting a reply. The result was a series of papers on Gettysburg from such men as Generals J. A. Early, A. L. Long, Fitz. Lee, E. B. Alexander, Cadmus Wilcox, J. B. Hood, H. Heth, L. McLaws, R. L. Walker, James H. Lane, and B. D. Fry, Colonels William H. Taylor, William Allen, J. B. Walton, J. R. Winston, and W. C. Gates, Major Scheibert, of the Prussian Engineer Corps, Captain R. H. McKim, and the Count of Paris. General Long- street did not send me a paper, as I requested him to do, but pub- lished a second paper in the Philadelphia Times, in which he under- took to reply to his critics, who had handled his first article pretty roughly. It is clear that I was, according to the rule among editors, under not the slightest obligation to copy his papers from the Times, and yet I was so anxious to do him the fullest justice, and to have our " Gettysburg series" as complete as possible, that I republished both of his articles. I also published all of the Confederate official reports of Gettysburg that I could procure, including General Long-