Quotes from James Longstreet

You can't lead from behind

The heavy fumes of gunpowder hanging about our ranks, as stimulating as sparkling wine, charged the atmosphere with the light and splendor of battle. Time was culminating under a flowing tide.

His game of hide-and-seek about Bull Bun, Centreville, and Manassas Plains was grand, but marred in completeness by the failure of General A. P. Hill to meet his orders for the afternoon of the 28th. As a leader he was fine; as a wheel-horse, he was not always just to himself. He was fond of the picturesque.

Bad as was being shot by some of our own troops in the battle of the Wilderness,—that was an honest mistake, one of the accidents of war,—being shot at, since the war, by many officers, was worse.

Opinion was then expressed that the fifteen thousand men who could make successful assault over that field had never been arrayed for battle; but he was impatient of listening, and tired of talking, and nothing was left but to proceed.

He reported sick on the 2d and left the army. When ready for duty he was assigned about Richmond and the seaboard of North Carolina. He applied to be restored to command of his division in the field, but the authorities thought his services could be used better elsewhere. He resigned his commission in the Confederate service, went to Georgia, and joined Joe Brown's militia, where he found congenial service, better suited to his ideas of vigorous warfare.

A cursory review of the campaign reveals the pleasure ride of General Fitzhugh Lee by Louisa Court-House as most unseasonable. He lost the fruits of our summer's work, and lost the Southern cause. Proud Troy was laid in ashes.

General Lee said that the attack of his right was not made as early as expected,—which he should not have said. He knew that I did not believe that success was possible; that care and time should be taken to give the troops the benefit of positions and the grounds; and he should have put an officer in charge who had more confidence in his plan. Two-thirds of the troops were of other commands, and there was no reason for putting the assaulting forces under my charge.

When oppressed by severe study, he sometimes sent for me to say that he had applied himself so closely to a matter that he found his ideas running around in a circle, and was in need of help to find a tangent. Our personal relations remained as sincere after the war until politics came between us in 1867.

The bitter freeze of two weeks had made the rough angles of mud as firm and sharp as so many freshly-quarried rocks, and the poorly protected feet of our soldiers sometimes left bloody marks along the roads.

That man will fight us every day and every hour till the end of the war.

I fancy that no good ideas upon that campaign will be mentioned at any time that did not receive their share of consideration by General Lee.

In the case of the armies at Fredericksburg it would have been, to say the least, very hazardous to give counter-attack, the Federal position being about as strong as ours from which we had driven them back.

If the blame (if there is any) can be shifted from him to me, I shall help him and our cause by taking it. I desire, therefore, that all the responsibility that can be put upon me shall go there and shall remain there.

As full lines of battle could not be handled through the thick wood, I ordered the advance of the six brigades by heavy skirmish lines, to be followed by stronger supporting lines.

Bad as was being shot by some of our own troops in the battle of the Wilderness, - that was an honest mistake, one of the accidents of war, - being shot at, since the war, by many officers, was worse.

The town caught fire in several places, shells crashed and burst, and solid shot rained like hail.

General Pickett, finding the battle broken while the enemy was still reinforcing, called the troops off.

A little before noon I sent orders to all my batteries to open fire through the streets or at any points where the troops were seen about the city, as a diversion in favor of Jackson.

Before my troops reached the little city, and before the people of Fredericksburg knew that any part of the Confederate army was near, there was great excitement over the demand for surrender.

Time sets all things right. Error lives but a day. Truth is eternal.

This is a hard fight and we had better all die than lose it.

Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?

I do not want to make this charge. I do not see how it can succeed. I would not make it now but that General Lee has ordered it and expects it.