James Longstreet's Unfiltered Opinions about Battles and Generals in 1862

James Longstreet was a prolific chronicler of his experience in the American Civil War. He wrote on the topic extensively, from articles in Century Magazine to his own well-known memoir, From Manassas to Appomattox. Thus, many of Longstreet’s postwar thoughts on the events he participated in and the soldiers he led and fought alongside are well-known.

During my research, I stumbled upon an article from the Washington Post in 1893. Newspaper correspondent Leslie J. Perry accompanied Longstreet and other Civil War veterans to the Antietam battlefield, where the old soldiers traveled “to definitely settle the positions of some of the general’s troops during the battle of September 17, 1862.” Perry claimed Longstreet’s mind was still strong in his 73rd year, but his right arm hung limply and useless from the general’s shoulder due to his wound at the Battle of the Wilderness and he had to use a “speaking tube” to hear the conversations around him.

Perry had the privilege to hear Longstreet talk “unreservedly” about many topics related to the war. Perry recognized the value of Longstreet’s words and thankfully for posterity wrote them down. Fortunately, too, Longstreet did not mind them being printed.

The article is quite long, and Perry queried Longstreet’s opinion on topics ranging from battles to leaders to the Confederate prosecution of the war. Since most of my interest is in 1862, I have edited out sections not relevant to that topic. Below are the excerpts of Perry’s conversation with Longstreet related to Antietam, Robert E. Lee, George B. McClellan, Jefferson Davis, Second Manassas, “Stonewall” Jackson, and more.

Note: I have used ellipses to indicate where I skipped transcribing sections of the article to keep the post relevant to 1862 topics.

A postwar image of James Longstreet.

“I do not think much can be expected of them": John Reynolds and the Pennsylvania Militia in the Maryland Campaign

On the morning of September 17, 1862, two brigades of the Pennsylvania Reserve division anxiously gripped their muskets and rifles behind the northern fence of D. R. Miller’s cornfield. Hordes of panicked Union soldiers passed through their ranks. Confederate flags bobbed above the battle smoke, heading their way. The Rebel yell amplified. Suddenly, these Pennsylvanians, with their backs to their home state, found themselves in the middle of America’s bloodiest single day. 

“I tell you the old cannon balls flew around my head worse than the devil and the musket balls went zip zip around my ears,” wrote Private Sylvester Hower. “I thought they would take me, but they all missed me.”(1) Many Confederate shots found their marks in the Pennsylvanians. By the campaign’s end, the division lost 965 between South Mountain and Antietam.

Even before those battles, the division suffered one of its greatest losses during the campaign: its commander, Brigadier General John Reynolds. The Confederate movement into Pennsylvania in early September 1862 sparked widespread fear among Pennsylvanians that their state would be the next to “welcome” the heels of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. “Our homes were threatened—the horrors of desolating war seemed likely to be brought to our very doors,” said Lewis Richards.(2) To protect his state and its people, Governor Andrew Curtin called for the state’s men to enroll in local militia outfits and to rendezvous at Harrisburg before being sent to the Maryland-Pennsylvania border to repel the invader.

Curtin continually alerted the authorities in Washington about the information his ring of spies and scouts gathered. He hoped to get something in exchange for his state’s dedication to the Federal war effort: veteran soldiers from the Army of the Potomac to come to the state’s aid. President Abraham Lincoln refused. Curtin and other prominent Pennsylvanians settled for a consolation prize: a competent officer–a Pennsylvanian–to lead the Keystone State’s defense. On September 12, 1862, Curtin got his wish. General-in-Chief Henry Halleck ordered Reynolds to report to Harrisburg. Despite objections from army commander George B. McClellan and Reynolds’ corps commander Joseph Hooker, they did not defy Halleck’s decision and Curtin’s panic. Reynolds would go.

John F. Reynolds

History Lessons from Live Artillery Firing

The more I study the Civil War, the more apparent it becomes that no matter how many contemporary accounts I read, I will never truly know—nor come close to knowing—what a battle was actually like. The noise, the smell, the death and destruction—none of it is fully comprehensible.

Every so often, though, we get brief, vivid moments that offer the faintest glimpse into that world: a powerful first-hand account, a walk across a battlefield where the terrain still matches what soldiers saw, or a living-history experience. I recently had one of the latter.

I won’t pretend that wearing a wool uniform for a few days a year mirrors what Union and Confederate soldiers endured from 1861 to 1865. But I have worn enough Civil War clothing and fired enough reproduction firearms to have caught a handful of these fleeting impressions. At the briefest instant, you can sense a single aspect of what a Civil War battle may have been like. Years ago at a Gettysburg reenactment, for example, so many muskets fired on a damp evening that thick smoke hugged the ground, hiding the opposing line except for the occasional flash revealing their position.

More recently, I attended artillery safety training in North Carolina. Learning each position on the gun was informative, but the multiday session culminated in a morning of live firing reproduction Civil War artillery at Camp Lejeune. It was there that I witnessed several battlefield phenomena I had only ever read about—and, fortunately, was able to capture some of them on video.