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General James Longstreet in the West : a monumental failure (1995)

by Judith Lee Hallock

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It is September 1863. Gen. James Longstreet and his Corps ride the rails westward to join Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee in its efforts to halt the advance of the Union Army. Longstreet, a favorite of Gen. Robert E. Lee, fully expects to replace Bragg as commander of the Western Army. Despite assurances to Longstreet from prominent Confederates, President Davis does not remove Bragg to make way for Longstreet. Longstreet's keen disappointment and unsoldierly behavior lead to disaster for the Army itself. Upon separation from Bragg's Army he fails spectacularly at Knoxville, proving to all his inability to function in an independent command. An objective and realistic look at a Confederate commander by a respected historian.… (more)
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General James Longstreet in the West: A Monumental Failure
Judith Lee Hallock

This very short (84 pages of text, 134 pages with Organizational Charts, Indices) book, which would have been much more honestly presented as a monograph, purports to recount Longstreet’s performance at Chickamauga, the Battle of Lookout Mountain (or part of it) and the engagements in the Knoxville campaign.

I say “purports”, because it is clear that Hallock has her long knives sharpened and out for Longstreet. If we believe her version of the story, Longstreet was simply lucky at Chickamauga (partly true) and was bumbling, incompetent, lazy, careless, add your own denigrating adjective. Her insistence that Longstreet was a failure in the Tennessee theater and that this was representative of his lack of talent and imagination as a commander is disturbing, because she makes statements in the course of the text tyhat are not backed up. I don’t know for whom this series (because this book is part of a series on Civil War commanders) is meant but if this book is an example it is an odd one. There are no reference notes, none--no citations to some of her more startling statements. The most bizarre is that Longstreet, just before Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg, took himself off for a nap and left the order to start the charge up to Porter Alexander, his chief of artillery!

I have checked three reference sources that I have, including Alexander’s own memoirs; nowhere does this story of Longstreet taking a nap come up. Alexander and another source both state that Longstreet was sitting on a fence rail just before the attack and that Longstreet himself agreed to the start of the charge. It is well known that before the charge, Longstreet did try to put the responsibility on Alexander, but the latter, no fool, saw the trap and deftly returned the ball to Longstreet’s court. Longstreet himself gave the order.

The statement occurs on p. 23; after that, I reserved judgment on anything derogatory that Hallock had to say. It does seem to be true that Longstreet failed in his one and only experience at independent command, but that in itself does not stamp him as incompetent. it just simply is a fact that there are plenty of people who serve very well as second-in-command--whether in the military or a business or in a department--who simply are not capable of overall leadership. That doesn’t negate their usefulness as subordinates.

Longstreet’s corps was the finest in the Confederate Army--hard-hitting. Longstreet was not without fault--he was one of an innumerable horde of Confederate commanders who were ambitious, quarrelsome, and not easy to get along with. From Gettysburg on, Longstreet found himself at the center of the controversy as to who lost that battle, since no one would ever dream of blaming Lee. After the war, Longstreet was hated because he became a Republican and accepted a position from his good friend, President Ulysses Grant. He was considered a traitor and vilified. His reputation underwent a rebirth with the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Killer Angels; the movie “Gettysburg” did a great deal for Longstreet due to the incredibly sympathetic portrayal by Tom Beringer. It’s well to remember not to confuse the two.

This book is too one-sided, caught out in who knows what petty, spiteful and apparently untrue anecdote about Longstreet at Gettysburg to generate much faith in an account that cites no sources. Hallock is practically venomous; it feels very much like a personal attack.

In addition, the maps are puzzling--they are almost relevant but not quite. It’s as if the cartographer never saw the text that he was illustrating. Plus, there is no distance scale on the maps--you’re left wondering just how distant important places were from each other.

This is a bad book. Period. ( )
  Joycepa | Feb 18, 2009 |
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It is September 1863. Gen. James Longstreet and his Corps ride the rails westward to join Gen. Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee in its efforts to halt the advance of the Union Army. Longstreet, a favorite of Gen. Robert E. Lee, fully expects to replace Bragg as commander of the Western Army. Despite assurances to Longstreet from prominent Confederates, President Davis does not remove Bragg to make way for Longstreet. Longstreet's keen disappointment and unsoldierly behavior lead to disaster for the Army itself. Upon separation from Bragg's Army he fails spectacularly at Knoxville, proving to all his inability to function in an independent command. An objective and realistic look at a Confederate commander by a respected historian.

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