People Come From Everywhere To Study General Longstreet

Richard Pilcher took a local group on a Longstreet tour of Gainesville the other day, the kind of tour he has done a number of times for people who do not live here. It was interesting, not only because it was about Confederate General James Longstreet, who lived his last years in Gainesville, but also because friend Pilcher gave us a glimpse of how outsiders view Gainesville when they come here to study Longstreet.

We started at Longstreet Cafe, near where his original Gainesville home was located, and went from there to the old Clark House, across from the Olympic Rowing venue. It was here that Longstreet entered our area immediately after the Civil War, leading one to speculate he came from Appamatox down the Great Wagon Road, then into Georgia on the Unicoi Turnpike, and down from the Sautee-Nacoochee area to Hall County.

We spent some time at the site of the original Longstreet home, at the top of the hill adjacent to the City Swimming pool at City Park. It is there you will find the statue of the General. We rode by his house on Green Street, the one where his second wife started the local Catholic Church, and probably the one from which General Longstreet rode his mule to town to serve as the local Postmaster.
And a surprise: we stopped where a relative's house was once located, now a parking lot. It was here that General Longstreet died. And, of course, we went to the American flag at Alta Vista Cemetery, where he is buried and where most of the visitors come to shoot their pictures.

There is a growing interest in the American Civil War, both in the United States and especially in Europe, and for those students Lt. General James Longstreet, General Robert E. Lee's second in command and the one Lee called his "Old War Horse" is of great interest.