Civil war longstreet biography books
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The Conquered General
It’s hard to see Elizabeth Varon’s new biography of James Longstreet becoming a runaway bestseller, and that’s a shame, because her study of the Confederate general—one of Robert E. Lee’s closest confidants, yet an outcast in the post–Civil War South for his embrace of Black emancipation and civil rights—is insightful, well-executed, and sorely needed. Part of the problem, perhaps, lies with its dry subtitle. The addition of a single word, though admittedly anachronistic, might have livened things up and drawn in a whole new cohort of readers. Varon describes her famously mercurial subject as “gloomy” and “in a funk,” struggling to “fight his way out of his slough of despond,” harboring “a fatalistic despair.” Tell me, who wouldn’t read Longstreet: The Emo Confederate General Who Defied the South? Just as the work of rappers Eminem and Mos Def inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda’s approach to composing Hamilton, it’s easy to imagine a musical based on Longstreet
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Longstreet: The Confederate General Who Defied the South
It was the most remarkable political about-face in American history. During the Civil War, General James Longstreet fought tenaciously for the Confederacy. He was alongside Lee at Gettysburg (and counseled him not to order the ill-fated attacks on entrenched Union forces there). He won a major Confederate victory at Chickamauga and was seriously wounded during a later battle.
After the war Longstreet moved to New Orleans, where he dramatically changed course. He supported Black voting and joined the newly elected, integrated postwar government in Louisiana. When white supremacists took up arms to oust that government, Longstreet, leading the interracial state militia, did battle against former Confederates. His defiance ignited a firestorm of controversy, as white Southerners branded him a race traitor and blamed him retroactively for the South’s defeat in the Civil War.
Although he was one of the highest-ranking Confederat
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Welcome to The Longstreet Society
Biographies
Bedwell, Randall, ed. May I Quote You General Longstreet? Nashville, TN: Cumberland House, 1999.
DiNardo, R. L. and Albert A. Nofi, eds. James Longstreet: The Man, the Soldier, the Controversy. Conshohocken, PA:
Combined Publishing, 1998.
Knudsen, Harold M. General James Longstreet: The Confederacy's Most Modern General. [REVISED] USA Publishing, 2010.
Martin, David G. General Longstreet and his New Jersey Relations. Hightstown, NJ: Longstreet House, 1998.
Pfarr, Cory. Longstreet at Gettysburg: A Critical Reassessment. McFarland, 2019.
Piston, William Garrett. Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History.
Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1987.
Reardon, Carol. I Have Been a Soldier All My Life. Gettysburg, PA: Farnsworth Military Impressions, 1997.
Sanger, Don