Book Review: “Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South”

UVA’s Varon expertly navigates the life and times of the enigmatic general, raising questions that tie into Washington and Lee’s history.

Robert E. Lee’s image continues to permeate throughout America, with dozens of monuments, markers, roads, buildings, counties, and more still referencing the general. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson has received much the same treatment, adorning a central statue in Lexington’s Oak Grove Cemetery. 

What of James Longstreet, the man who survived his own friendly fire incident to stay by Lee’s side for the rest of the war? Longstreet has two monuments in his honor standing in all of the United States. The University of Virginia Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History, Elizabeth R. Varon, explains why this is the case in her 2023 book Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South.

Why study Longstreet? Varon does a good job of giving several reasons why more research into the life of the “Old War Horse” is necessary. 

First, Longstreet’s importance to the Civil War is nearly unmatched. Future President Johnson considered him one of the three most important men to the Confederacy for a reason: he was present at many of the war’s largest battles and led tens of thousands of men, both under Lee and independently  (pages 50-55, 135). 

His post-war service was similarly distinguished, and he held several important state and federal postings. Yet, his move to the Republican Party after the war truly made him one of a kind among former top Confederates, and, as Varon illustrates well, it has had an undue impact on his legacy (page 148). 

Varon’s book is divided into three sections: one covers Longstreet’s upbringing and military career, the second his post-war career, and the third covers his final years and the debate over his legacy. This biography is as much a historiography of the Lost Cause and Longstreet’s place in it as it is a step-by-step coverage of his life, which has its benefits and drawbacks. 

Varon’s coverage of Longstreet’s upbringing sets the stage for his shocking political transformation. Varon depicts how Longstreet grew up in the slaveholding regions of South Carolina and Georgia, in a family that included his Fire-Eater uncle-turned-adoptive father, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (pages 4-6).

Varon also deftly demonstrates how many of his actions in the leadup to and during the war contradicted his later turn. Varon shows how a faithful interpretation of Longstreet is that he was a true believer in the Confederate cause, demonstrated by his eagerness to serve the Confederacy, many of his speeches to the men under his command, and more (pages 23-26, 37, 126).

Varon’s coverage of the Battle of Gettysburg (pages 65-85) is slightly lacking in detail. Keeping with the theme of the book’s coverage of his military career, it was a broader overview than one would expect from a normal biography. Yet, given how Longstreet’s performance at the Battle of Gettysburg was used to smear him by his opponents later in his life, I thought a minute-by-minute account of the battle could have given readers better context for understanding the later battle of his performance.

In contrast, Varon’s coverage of Longstreet’s postwar career and political realignment was rich with detail (pages 131-343). He voiced support for Republicans and black suffrage just over two years after holding his body servant Daniel in slavery, and supported full black equality a few years later (pages 25, 145, 175-76). Varon convincingly argues that this transformation stemmed from a mixture of his duty to the South, Longstreet’s close relationship with Ulysses S. Grant and other Republicans, and New Orleans’ unique racial and social circumstances (pages 123–56).

As adjutant general of Louisiana, Longstreet assembled a biracial Louisiana State Militia (pages 170-79). His efforts empowered the militia to help save the state’s Republican government from the Custom House Coup of 1872 (pages 182-84). Two years later, he and his multiracial force faced the white supremacist Canal Street Coup of 1874, where they were overwhelmed by thousands of armed Louisianans (pages 189-205).

Varon may undersell the futility of Longstreet’s battle to make most white Louisianans swallow the pill of Radical Reconstruction when saying that “he struggled to project power on the government’s behalf… in the American South” (page 248). She spares no detail covering the supposedly Republican state of Louisiana’s thousand white supremacist murders, multiple massacres, and rampant voter suppression and intimidation in 1868 (pages 161-96).

An area of history relevant today is Varon’s discussion of the debate over Longstreet’s legacy. Former Confederates Jubal Early and William Nelson Pendleton drove a narrative that propped Robert E. Lee up as nearly infallible, laying much of the blame on the Confederate defeat on Longstreet (pages 223-25). 

Washington and Lee served as the venue for many of the opening salvos for the Lost Cause’s blaming of Longstreet. Early delivered an address at Lee Chapel on the second anniversary of Lee’s death in 1872 that largely pioneered the argument blaming Longstreet for the Confederate loss at Gettysburg.

Varon’s book is insightful in its discussion of how historical narratives can form and harden. Varon examines how Longstreet found himself on the historical defensive, a position from which his legacy has yet to recover. Much of the book’s ending covers how Longstreet’s second wife, Helen Longstreet, spent decades after his death trying to defend her husband’s legacy, often to no avail (pages 347-358). 

Washington and Lee also connects to the story in the historical defense of Longstreet, as one of his few Confederate defenders was former Washington College Professor-turned-General Daniel Harvey Hill (pages 241-42). 

Finally, of interest to members of the Washington and Lee community is the role General and President Lee plays in the story. Varon contrasts Lee’s view of the war and his conception of the war as Northern “might” over Southern “right” with Longstreet’s later contentment with the Southern loss (pages 123-24 and 340). Varon’s interpretation of Lee is a man who did not completely reject Reconstruction nor was willing to adopt many of Longstreet's progressive policies (pages 153-54). 

In totality, Longstreet is a well-written and desperately needed biography of one of the most misunderstood men of the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. I heartily recommend giving it a read.