It was in early January -100 years ago - that Confederate General James Longstreet died and was buried in Alta Vista Cemetery in Gainesville, Georgia. During the Civil War he had been one of the top three officers of the Confederate Army fighting in the East. There was the general, Robert E. Lee, and two Lieutenant Generals: James Longstreet and "Stonewall" Jackson. The Civil War had long been ended and a new century had turned when Longstreet finally died ... one of the last of the rankingConfederate generals to pass on. He had been seriously wounded during the war, and had not been expected to live more than a decade ... but here he was, 40 years later, finally being put to rest.
But why in Gainesville? And why was Longstreet widely disliked in the South where Robert E. Lee was revered? 4r in Georgia where John B. Gordon was so popular politically?
I'm finishing a new book that will be out this year - this 100"' anniversary of his death - to be called James Longstreet: Before Manassas and After Appomattox. It's the story of a rollercoaster life that includes Longstreet's before-the-war friendship with a young West Pointer named Sam Grant ... and his after-the-war political relationship with a notorious Union General named Dan Sickles. And yes, it tells how he lost favor in the South. He ended up owning the Piedmont Hotel near the railroad station, and a farm and vinyard adjacent to City Park at the end of historic Green Street in Gainesville. And there were some local folks who refused to sit on the same pew with him in church, while others stood by him at his late-life wedding at the governor's mansion in Atlanta.
James Longstreet was possibly the South's best field general, the one man Lee called his "Old War Horse", but in the 40 years following the Civil War he became one of America's most controversial characters. He died in January, 1904 ... one hundred years ago this month.
This is Gordon Sawyer, from a window on historic Green Street.
Monday
December 2nd, 2024
6:03AM
