The early lives of both Thomas J. Jackson and James Longstreet were marred by tragedy. When Jackson was only two years old, his father was felled by typhoid. As a result, the already poor Virginia family was left in dire economic straits. Five years later in 1831, Thomas’s close relationship with his mother was broken when she had to send her seven-year-old son and his sibling to live with relatives because she was unable to provide for them. While Longstreet’s childhood was not as stark, it was still marked by unfortunate events. James lost his father to cholera in 1833, and the twelve-year-old lost contact with mother soon after when she moved hundreds of miles away from the Longstreet home in Georgia. By contrast, the tenures of Jackson (1842-1846) and Longstreet (1838-1842) in the U.S. Military Academy at West Point could hardly have been more different. Cadet Jackson was a diligent and serious student with good grades and few friends. Meanwhile, Cadet Longstreet’s predilection for outdoor pursuits, practical jokes, and disregard of authority earned him popularity with his fellow cadets and bad marks in the classroom. Jackson graduated 17th in a class of 59, but Longstreet ranked near the bottom at 54th out of 56.
Both future generals received their commissions in time to serve in the war with Mexico that began in 1846. The actions of both men revealed the strong leadership abilities that would become evident during the Civil War. Leading two companies of infantry, Longstreet threw back a concerted Mexican assault and seized high ground around Monterrey in September 1846. In August of the following year, Longstreet led his regiment in a charge up Chapultepec hill. Though he was injured in the thigh, the attack was successful, and Mexico City fell. In the siege of Veracruz, artillery officer Jackson was noted for being calm and collected while under fire for the first time in his life. He was similarly praised for his actions at the Pedegral in August 1847 when he moved his artillery battery forward with a beleaguered infantry advance. Like Longstreet, Jackson’s valor was evident at Chapultepec.
Their military reputations serving them well, Jackson and Longstreet were both given the rank of brigadier general in the new Confederate Army, and they were both in command of an infantry brigade when the First Battle of Bull Run came in July 1861. Longstreet’s most important contribution actually took place on July 18, three days before the main battle. His brigade was charged with defending Blackburn’s Ford on the Confederate right. When Union forces attempted to cross Bull Run, Longstreet’s men were protected by fieldworks constructed in the preceding days, and the Union advance was halted. Furthermore, Longstreet had placed his reserves in excellent position to quickly respond to any part of the line. Such use of the tactical defensive would become the hallmark of the general called affectionately by his men “Old Pete.”
By contrast, Jackson’s brigade had far less time to prepare for combat. Part of General Joseph E. Johnston’s force in the Shenandoah Valley, it was rushed to Bull Run by railroad just prior to the battle on July 21. Hearing the sounds of battle, Jackson moved his soldiers from their position guarding a bridge over Bull Run to Henry House Hill without hesitation and without orders. As would become standard, Jackson’s independent streak helped save the day for the South. When the Confederate left flank was collapsing under Union pressure and defeat was nigh, Jackson and his unit made a stand that stemmed the Yankee advance. As retreating Confederate forces reformed on either side of Jackson’s brigade, Southern General Barnard Bee exclaimed his legendary statement: “Look, men, there is Jackson standing like a stone wall!” 2 As Union troops fell back, the newly anointed Stonewall Brigade and the surrounding Confederates charged with a nascent Rebel yell on their lips, turning the Northern withdrawal into a rout.
Both Jackson and Longstreet were promoted to major general and divisional command for their heroics at First Bull Run. However, Jackson’s assignment to command miniscule Southern forces in the Shenandoah Valley of western Virginia in the winter of 1861-1862 was not exactly a plum job. Harsh conditions nearly precipitated a mutiny among Stonewall’s soldiers. Misfortune seemed to follow Jackson to Kernstown in March 1862. Faulty reconnaissance vastly underestimated the strength of Union General James Shields in the Valley. Jackson’s strike at the enemy on March 23 was doomed from the start by overwhelming Northern numerical superiority. With over 700 casualties, fully one quarter of Jackson’s command had been lost. However, this crushing tactical defeat became a strategic victory due to the fact that Union leadership was convinced that Jackson would not have attacked had he not been much stronger than he actually was. As a result, the transfer of an entire Federal corps from the Valley to the Army of the Potomac situated around Bull Run was cancelled. It was this turn of events that convinced Robert E. Lee, military adviser of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, that Jackson could hold down Union armies in the Shenandoah. If so, Johnston would have much better odds of halting the advance of George B. McClellan’s army towards Richmond up the Peninsula.
Beginning in May 1862, Jackson implemented Lee’s plan magnificently. Even reinforced by Richard S. Ewell’s division, Jackson’s army of 17,000 was outnumbered two-to-one by combined Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley. Nevertheless, the speed with which Stonewall maneuvered his troops throughout the Valley campaign guaranteed him a numerical advantage at almost every encounter with his Federal opponents. As an opening ploy, Jackson faked a move toward Richmond that deceived the Union commanders as well as his own soldiers. Utilizing rail transport for most of the journey, Jackson brought 9,000 men to the town of McDowell on May 8 and defeated a portion of John C. Fremont’s army that was much smaller. Fremont’s planned invasion of Tennessee was handicapped even before it set out, but Jackson did not rest on his laurels. A division under Nathaniel Banks dug in at Strasburg to meet the oncoming Confederates, but Jackson swerved to the east at New Market and linked up with Ewell’s division. The small Federal garrison at Front Royal was a sitting duck. Jackson’s exhausted but proud infantry captured the outpost on May 23. With Southern forces now threatening his flank, Banks had to withdraw north to Winchester with Jackson hot on his tail. The two forces clashed on May 25, and the outnumbered Yankees fled in disorder across the Potomac River.
This victory accomplished exactly what Lee desired, for Irvin McDowell’s corps was ordered to march on the Valley rather than Richmond, and Fremont’s invasion was similarly halted to combat Stonewall. However, this meant that combined Union forces under Banks, Fremont, and McDowell had an opportunity to cut off Jackson’s escape. Luckily for the Confederates, Banks, Fremont, and McDowell lacked either the will or the ability to maneuver their commands with anything approaching the alacrity of Jackson. Stonewall pushed his men nearly to the breaking point to outrun the pursuing Federals. He stopped to fight at Cross Keys on June 8, the only battle during the Valley campaign in which the Union had superior numbers. However, Fremont’s inept assault accomplished nothing except to convince Jackson to make a typically brazen move. He marched most of his troops to nearby Port Republic in at attempt to crush Shields’s isolated division before doing the same to Fremont. Jackson defeated Shields’s division on June 9, but the outnumbered Yankees held out long enough to prevent a rout. Jackson took this opportunity to evacuate the Valley and head for Richmond. In both North and South, Stonewall’s achievements were becoming legendary.
The same could not be said for James Longstreet, who lost three of his children to scarlet fever in January 1862. Starting in February, McClellan drove methodically up the Peninsula and was near Richmond by late May. As much as he loathed the idea, Johnston stopped his retreat to offer battle at Fair Oaks on May 31. The Confederate attack was poorly managed, especially by Longstreet in his biggest blunder of the war. Misunderstanding verbal orders from Johnston, Longstreet marched his division down the wrong road on the morning of the 31st, creating tangled confusion on Williamsburg Road. Furthermore, Old Pete weakened his force by scattering his brigades over a large area. 3 The indecisive battle ended on June 1 when the new Southern commander, Robert E. Lee, pulled back his army as fighting sputtered out. Fortunately for the Army of Northern Virginia, Longstreet would soon redeem himself and become one of Lee’s most reliable subordinates.
It was Jackson’s turn for spotty leadership during the Seven Days campaign whilst Longstreet displayed great leadership. Lee planned to bring Stonewall clandestinely from the Shenandoah Valley to assail the Union right flank at Mechanicsville along with the division of A. P. Hill. Through the morning of June 26, Hill waited for Jackson to arrive, to no avail. It is uncertain as to why Jackson moved at a snail’s pace; however, it is perfectly clear that Hill’s solitary assault against the enemy flank possessed insufficient strength. Hill’s Confederates suffered heavy casualties while Jackson moped about nearby. Undeterred, Lee ordered attacks on Federal positions at Gaines’s Mill the following day. Once again Jackson was slow to respond, but Longstreet led an effective attack on the left of the Union position. Fitz-John Porter’s Union corps was forced to retreat across the Chickahominy River to rejoin the rest of McClellan’s army. Confederate attacks on June 29 and June 30 were hampered by Jackson’s preoccupation with rebuilding bridges. Longstreet, commanding his and Hill’s divisions, pushed back four Yankee divisions on the 30th at Glendale, but without Jackson’s troops he could not pursue the Northern retreat. 4 Although Lee was ultimately successful in driving McClellan away from Richmond—due in large part to Longstreet’s contributions—Jackson’s lethargy prevented Lee from destroying the Union army as he hoped. Thus, when Lee divided his Army of Northern Virginia between Jackson and Longstreet in July, Longstreet was given command of the larger corps.
Soon, the old battlefield at Bull Run would become the site of another important clash. As McClellan’s army was removed from the Peninsula in August 1862, Lee transferred most of his command to western Virginia to counter the threat posed by John Pope’s newly organized army. On August 25, Jackson’s corps was dispatched by Lee on a march around Pope’s weak right flank to strike at a supply base located far in the rear of the Union army at Bull Run. Shedding his recent slowness, Jackson speedily moved his 24,000-man command around the enemy force and captured the Bull Run supply base without a fight on the next day. Upon learning this, Pope endeavored to concentrate his scattered units on August 28-29 and defeat Jackson before he could be joined by the advancing Longstreet. However, Jackson held off all of Pope’s piecemeal assaults on the 29th. Even though Longstreet’s corps was in position on the Confederate right by the afternoon, it did not participate in the day’s fighting. It typical Longstreet fashion, Old Pete convinced Lee to postpone an attack by his corps until the following day. That way, Longstreet could scout the unknown Federal force in front of him and perhaps induce it to attack him. Thus, the Second Battle of Bull Run is a perfect example of the opposite command styles of Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet. Jackson took the offensive in swinging around behind Pope. Meanwhile, Longstreet was cautious, built up his defenses, and waited for the opportune moment to make his presence known on the battlefield. This moment came on the 30th, when the Yankees came close to breaking through Jackson’s lines. Instead of simply sending reinforcements, Longstreet launched his entire corps at the Union left flank, causing it to collapse. Later that night, Pope had to retreat towards Washington.
Emboldened by this victory, Lee planned an invasion of the North. In September, Jackson was detached to capture the Federal outpost at Harper’s Ferry while the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia crossed the Potomac River into Maryland. Slow as ever despite lucking into Lee’s plan of attack, McClellan advanced the Army of the Potomac to meet Lee’s army near Antietam Creek. This gave Jackson time to link portions of his corps back with Lee after Harper’s Ferry fell on September 15. After a skirmish on the 16th, the bloodiest day of the Civil War came on September 17. The fighting commenced on the Confederate left, where Joseph Hooker punched through Jackson’s corps and was stopped only by speedy reinforcements from Longstreet and D. H. Hill. When McClellan’s shifted his assault to the center, Longstreet was there to direct the Confederate response. At one point, Longstreet used his staff to fill the void left by slain artillerists until replacements could arrive, helping to hamper a Union advance in the process. Finally McClellan tried to push back Lee’s right flank and almost succeeded, but A. P. Hill’s division—the last of Jackson’s forces rushing from Harper’s Ferry—appeared at a critical moment and repulsed the Federal strike. The Battle of Antietam was a strategic Union success, but the skill of Jackson and particularly Longstreet helped prevent the destruction of the Army of Northern Virginia, which withdrew from Maryland on September 19. Afterwards, Lee dubbed Longstreet “my old war horse.”
In October 1862, Longstreet and Jackson received promotions to lieutenant general and their commands were officially organized into the First and Second Corps, respectively. Their worthiness for such a rank would soon be tested at a small Virginia town named Fredericksburg. As winter approached, new Union commander Ambrose Burnside decided to assail Lee straight ahead across the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg. However, the late arrival of Northern pontoon bridges delayed Burnside’s crossing of the river and gave Lee precious time to fortify the heights to the west of the town, with Longstreet on the left and Jackson on the right. This played right into Old Pete’s strength as a defensive genius but exposed a weakness in Stonewall in the same area. On the morning of December 13, after Burnside finally got some of his troops across the Rappahannock, Jackson predictably argued that the Confederates should strike the Northern forces first. Fortunately for the South, the Confederate commander in this case sided with Longstreet and decided to wait for the Yankees to attack him. Furthermore, there was a gaping hole in Jackson’s line on Prospect Hill. When the Federals advanced on the 13th, George G. Meade poured his division through this hole and nearly rolled Jackson’s flank. However, Meade received no support, and his breakthrough was thrown back by the quick advance of Jackson’s reserves.
Longstreet’s corps on top of Marye’s Heights fared much better. His troops had constructed strong fortifications, and much of his line was protected behind a stone wall. Wave after wave after wave of Union troops stormed up Marye’s Heights only to be decimated before reaching the lines of the old war horse. During the futile Federal attempts to storm the Confederate position, Longstreet turned to his commander and exclaimed, “General, if you put every man now on the other side of the Potomac on that field to approach me over the same line, and give me plenty of ammunition, I will kill them all before they reach my line.” 5 Exaggerated though the claim was, the Union could not contradict it on the bloody afternoon in December. Burnside retreated across the Rappahannock two days later from one of the North’s worst defeats of the war.
In early 1863, Lee sent his old war horse with two divisions to counter Union advances from the coast in southern Virginia and North Carolina. As Longstreet lingered to the south to forage supplies for the Army of Northern Virginia, the wily gray fox from Arlington engineered his greatest triumph with some brilliant soldiering from good old Stonewall. In late April, the Army of the Potomac’s new commander, “Fighting Joe” Hooker, seemed to have the Southern army on the ropes when he swung his command through a rugged forest called The Wilderness to threaten the Confederate left flank near Chancellorsville. Inexplicably, when advance forces of both armies skirmished just outside of the Wilderness on May 1, Hooker pulled his units back into the forest, making his numerical advantage less effective. That night, Lee and Jackson devised an audacious plan: the small force facing Hooker would be divided even further as Stonewall executed a masterful, covert march around Hooker’s exposed right flank. Pushing his command at a furious pace, Jackson had his command in place for a sneak attack by late afternoon of May 2. The Union Eleventh Corps holding the flank collapsed under the Confederate strike. As darkness fell, Stonewall, as aggressive as ever, rode out ahead of his lines to evaluate the possibility of pushing the retreating Union troops further. Upon his return, Jackson and his party were mistaken in the dark for Federal cavalry and fired upon by the 18th North Carolina regiment. The general’s resulting wounds proved mortal, and Thomas Jonathan Jackson passed away on May 10. It was a Sunday, just as Stonewall would have wanted it to be.
Despite the loss of one of its best commanders, the Army of Northern Virginia on the following days was victorious and once again forced the Army of the Potomac to retreat northward across the Rappahannock River. The Battle of Chancellorsville was the old gray fox’s greatest achievement, and the Confederate commander hoped to ride his momentum into another invasion of the North—in particular the fertile grounds of Pennsylvania. After conferencing with a recently returned Longstreet, Lee agreed upon a campaign wherein the Southern army would try to avoid major battles unless it was attacked first. The eastern Confederate army—now divided into three corps under Longstreet, Ewell, and A. P. Hill—stormed onto Union territory for the second time in June 1863. On July 1, the Northern and Southern armies came together unexpectedly near the tiny town of Gettysburg. Despite being blinded by the absence of Jeb Stuart’s cavalry, the beginning of a battle Lee did not want went surprisingly well; two Union corps were pushed back. The Northern army, now commanded by George Meade, formed strong defensive positions on Cemetery Ridge. When Old Pete arrived on the evening of July 1, he surveyed the strong Federal positions from Seminary Ridge, turned to Lee, and proposed a plan that was classic Longstreet: the Confederate forces should move past the Union left into a position between the enemy and Washington. That way, argued Longstreet, the Yankees would have to launch an assault on ground of the South’s own choosing. Lee rebuked this plan, forcefully stating his intention to strike Meade the next day if he was still there. Longstreet’s reply: “If he is there, it will be because he is anxious that we should attack him—a good reason, in my judgment, for not doing so.” 6
However, the Southern commander did not take the advice of his old war horse, repeated the following day to no avail, and ordered him to attack on the Union left on the morning of July 2. However, the assault did not go forward until late afternoon because Longstreet had to countermarch the divisions of Lafayette McLaws and John B. Hood to avoid being spotted by Federal units on Little Round Top. The attack was also delayed by the unexpected and unauthorized advance position taken by Union General Dan Sickles’s Third Corps. However, in three hours of fighting, Longstreet’s divisions came close to breaking the Union flank, but were ultimately unsuccessful due in large part to lack of coordination with attacks by Hill and Ewell on other parts of the line. Nevertheless, Lee was determined to defeat Meade and planned another assault on July 3. When morning came, Longstreet tried for the third time to convince his superior to reposition the Southern army in a flanking movement and force Meade to commence the attack. Years later, Longstreet recounted his attempts to dissuade Lee from a frontal assault on the Union center: “It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arranged for battle can take that position.” 7 Undeterred, Lee expressed his faith in Old Pete by placing him in charge of the planning of the Confederate advance. After a massive artillery barrage that failed break up the Union center, fiercely held by Winfield Hancock’s Second Corps, Longstreet’s last fresh division under George E. Pickett and two of Hill’s divisions moved into the wide open ground between Seminary and Cemetery Ridges. Longstreet could only nod when his friend Pickett came for the order to begin the charge. Pickett’s charge was a dismal failure and produced severe Southern casualties. On Independence Day, a demoralized Lee ordered the Army of Northern Virginia to retreat.8
Several times in the past, Longstreet had proposed a plan by which he would lead reinforcements to Braxton Bragg’s Army of Tennessee. Perhaps more so than his commander, Longstreet recognized the importance of the Western theater; after Gettysburg, Confederate President Jefferson Davis agreed with him. Over Lee’s objections, Longstreet and two of his divisions were transferred to Bragg’s command just in time to participate in the Battle of Chickamauga in northern Georgia. Commanding the left wing of Bragg’s army on September 20, 1863, Longstreet hurled his forces at the Union lines and by pure chance found a gaping hole opened by the shifting of troops by Union commander William S. Rosecrans, Longstreet’s roommate at West Point. Old Pete’s troops rolled up the Federal right flank, and the Union Army of the Cumberland was only saved from destruction by the heroic rear guard stand by the Rock of Chickamauga, George Thomas. Bragg disappointed Longstreet and his other subordinates by rejecting a rapid pursuit of the fleeing Yankees in favor of a weak siege of Union forces holed up in Chattanooga. In the meantime, Davis convinced Bragg to send Longstreet with 15,000 men to move against the Union stronghold at Knoxville. Federal forces in the area were commanded by Ambrose Burnside. Far from one of the best Union generals, Burnside’s disaster at Fredericksburg had made him very cautious. However, this proved positive in this case for the Union, because Longstreet could not induce Burnside to attack and had to go on the tactical offensive, which was not his strong point. His planning at Knoxville in November was hesitant, and his assaults were poorly planned. With Bragg’s defeat at Chattanooga on November 24, Longstreet had to break off his siege of Knoxville with the Union still holding the city.
Old Pete and his men were glad to return to Virginia in time for the 1864 campaigns that pitted Robert E. Lee against Union hero Ulysses S. Grant. In early May, Grant advanced his army through the same Wilderness that tormented Joseph Hooker a year earlier, hoping to catch the Confederates outside the rugged terrain. Meanwhile, Lee planned to assail the Union flank while it was still in the Wilderness to cut down on Grant’s numerical advantage. Marching at a breakneck pace from Tennessee, Longstreet’s divisions could not reach the front in time to take part on the clashes on May 5, which went back and forth through the woods. On the 6th, Lee was still waiting for his war horse when an onslaught from Hancock’s corps nearly collapsed the Confederate line. However, Longstreet charged in at the perfect moment to push back the Federal advance. Not stopping there, the general sent four brigades through an unfinished railroad cut unknown to the Yankees to strike the enemy flank. When the Confederates stormed out of concealment, the Northern units were caught completely unawares and began to flee. Unfortunately for the Southern cause, tragedy once again struck one of their best generals at the pinnacle of success in the Wilderness. At the spearhead of his advancing troops, Longstreet was taken down by a shoulder wound inflicted by mistaken Confederate fire, just as Stonewall Jackson had been. The Confederate advance faltered without Longstreet. Feisty Old Pete would eventually recover after a six month convalescence, returning to the army just in time for it to enter winter quarters pinned down around Petersburg. James Longstreet served reliably with Lee until Appomattox, but by the time he returned, the fate of the South was sealed.
After Stonewall Jackson went down with mortal wounds at Chancellorsville, the Army of Northern Virginia crushed the Army of the Potomac with cries of “Remember Jackson!” 9 Longstreet’s aide Thomas J. Goree wrote that his general was “one of the kindest, best hearted men I ever knew.” 10 Though very different men, Thomas J. Jackson and James Longstreet had a few things in common: they were both enormously successful in combat and enormously popular with the men they led into victory.
Notes
Documents
Longstreet’s Aide: The Civil War Letters of Major
Thomas J. Goree. Thomas W. Cutrer, ed. Charlottesville, VA, 1995.
Secondary Sources
Articles
Furqueron, James R. “The Bull
of the Woods: Longstreet and the Confederate Left at Chickamauga.” James
Longstreet: The Man, The Soldier, The Controversy. 1998, 99-164.
Wert, Jeffry D. “ ‘No Fifteen Thousand Men Can Take that Hill:’ Longstreet at Gettysburg.” James Longstreet: The Man, The Soldier, The Controversy. 1998, 77-98.
Books
Alexander, Bevin. Lost Victories: The Military Genius of
Stonewall Jackson. New York, 1992.
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom. New York, 1988.
Robertson, James I., Jr. Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend. New York, 1997.
Wert, Jeffry D. General James Longstreet. New York, 1993.
