Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 39.djvu/117

 Review of " From Manassas to Appomattox," 105

Longstreet, the next in seniority to himself, to communicate his ideas on the conduct of the campaign then in progress ; and from first to last he appears to have initiated few important movements without taking the opinion of his subordinates. It was expected, then, when General Longstreet first announced his intention of committing his experiences to paper, that much would be revealed as to the working of the higher staff, the handling of the Confederate armies, the difficulties with which General Lee had to contend, and the reasons which dictated his maneuvers. These expectations have certainly been fulfilled. The general is by no means reticent as to what occurred at the Confederate headquarters ; and he takes care to inform us that the crude strategical conceptions of the Confederate Presi- dent were always a dead-weight on the genius of the great sol- dier who served the South with such patient loyalty to con- stituted authority.

But it is not only as regards the conduct of the govern- ment that General Longstreet brings us behind the scenes. His descriptions of the various battles in which the First Army Corp5 played so distinguished a part are full and spirited. They do full justice to the fiery courage of the Confederate private ; to the stubborn endurance of the Northerner, and to the high soldierly qualities displayed by so many of the gen- erals. But their chief interest lies in the fact that we are ad- mitted to the councils, which preceded the great engagements, that we learn on what information, on what estimate of the enemy, each important maneuver was based ; that we stand side by side with the generals in action, and see the great game played from the first card to the last. General Longstreet hardly writes with a facile pen. But, despite a certain awkwardness of style, his battle pictures are well drawn. Nor can it be im- puted as a fault that he makes no attempt to gloss over the blunders inherent in all military operations, that he gives his enemies due credit for skill and valor, and that his criticism is impartially distributed. l^nfortunately, however, whenever he deals with incidents of which he was not an eve-witness, his