Author: Elizabeth Varon
Genre: History/War/Biographies
Hardcover; Digital Book (Audiobook Available)
ISBN #: 9781982148270
Simon & Schuster
480 Pages
$32.55; $16.99 Amazon
November 21, 2023
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It was the most remarkable 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 Confederate generals, Longstreet has never been commemorated with statues or other memorials in the South because of his postwar actions in rejecting the Lost Cause mythology and urging racial reconciliation. He is being rediscovered in the new age of racial reckoning. This is the first biography in decades and the first to give proper attention to Longstreet's post-Civil War career.
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I have to say that I love anything at all to do with the American Civil War. This is because I married a man who grew up close to Gettysburg, and once I went to the battlefield, I was in awe. Not only because of what I saw there, but because of the history that it tells. Since then, I have collected hundreds of books on the war, and many of them are biographies. However, this is the first one of Longstreet that I have read, and I have always wondered why no one has written anything -- until now.
The author gives us a complete history of this general, and how he came to be who he was in his later years. As a southern gentleman, he went into the war with illusions, but came out with reality. He was seriously wounded during the earlier Mexican-American war. He came out of that with many accolades.
He was both a friend of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. General Lee called him "The Old War Horse." and he was a close confidant. Perhaps if Lee had listened to Longstreet's warnings, the battle at Gettysburg may have gone differently; but we will never know. While he began as a Democrat he later changed to a Republican, and this book details the reasons why. He came to know that slavery was wrong, and tried to do the right thing as he aged.
This biography is detailed and done with great research; although somewhat dry at times, it is still worth the read, and not too hefty of a tome (weighing in at 480 pages); it has given me a new understanding of the man and both his personal and professional life. Indeed, it stands well with other military biographies that I have read. Even those who revile the Confederates should understand that it was a different time with different mores. The writing is done very well, and the author has done herself proud. Highly recommended.
I received an advance copy from the publisher but this in no way influenced my review.
More on Elizabeth Varon's Books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Elizabeth-R.-Varon/author/B001JRYTGE?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref
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