Ancestral Trails 2016 » James G LONGSTREET (1821-1904)

Personal data James G LONGSTREET 

• He was born on January 8, 1821 in Edgefield County, South Carolina, Verenigde Staten.
• Title: General
• He died on January 2, 1904 in Gainsville, Hall County, Georgia, USA, he was 82 years old.
• A child of James G LONGSTREET and Mary Anne DENT

Household of James G LONGSTREET

(1) He is married to Maria Louisa GARLAND.

They got married on March 8, 1848, he was 27 years old.

(2) He is married to Helen J DORTCH.

They got married on September 8, 1897, he was 76 years old.

Notes about James G LONGSTREET

James Longstreet (January 8, 1821 - January 2, 1904) was one of the foremost Confederate generals of the American Civil War and the principal subordinate to General Robert E. Lee, who called him his "Old War Horse." He served under Lee as a corps commander for many of the famous battles fought by the Army of Northern Virginia in the Eastern Theater, and briefly with Braxton Bragg in the Army of Tennessee in the Western Theater.

After graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point, Longstreet served in the Mexican-American War. He was wounded in the thigh at the Battle of Chapultepec, and afterward married his first wife, Louise Garland. Throughout the 1850s, he served on frontier duty in the American Southwest. In June 1861, Longstreet resigned his U.S. Army commission and joined the Confederate Army. He commanded Confederate troops during an early victory at Blackburn's Ford in July.

Longstreet's talents as a general made significant contributions to several important Confederate victories, mostly in the Eastern Theater as one of Robert E. Lee's chief subordinates in the Army of Northern Virginia. He performed poorly at Seven Pines, but played an important role in the success of the Seven Days Battles in the summer of 1862. Longstreet led a devastating counterattack that routed the Union army at Second Bull Run in August. His men held their ground in defensive roles at Antietam and Fredericksburg. Longstreet's most controversial service was at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, where he openly disagreed with General Lee on the tactics to be employed and reluctantly supervised several attacks on Union forces, including the disastrous Pickett's Charge. Afterwards, Longstreet was, at his own request, sent to the Western Theater to fight under Braxton Bragg, where his troops launched a ferocious assault on the Union lines at Chickamauga, which carried the day. Afterwards, his performance in semiautonomous command during the Knoxville Campaign resulted in a Confederate defeat. Unhappy serving under Bragg, Longstreet and his men were sent back to Lee. He ably commanded troops during the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864, where he was seriously wounded by friendly fire. He later returned to the field, serving under Lee in the Siege of Petersburg and the Appomattox Campaign.

He enjoyed a successful post-war career working for the U.S. government as a diplomat, civil servant, and administrator. His conversion to the Republican Party and his cooperation with his old friend, President Ulysses S. Grant, as well as critical comments he wrote in his memoirs about General Lee's wartime performance, made him anathema to many of his former Confederate colleagues. His reputation in the South further suffered when he led African-American militia against the anti-Reconstruction White League at the Battle of Liberty Place in 1874. Authors of the Lost Cause movement focused on Longstreet's actions at Gettysburg as a primary reason for the Confederacy's loss of the war. Since the late 20th century, his reputation has undergone a slow reassessment. Many Civil War historians now consider him among the war's most gifted tactical commanders.

Early life and career
James Longstreet was born on January 8, 1821 in Edgefield District, South Carolina, an area that is now part of North Augusta, Edgefield County. He was the fifth child and third son of James Longstreet (1783-1833), of Dutch descent, and Mary Ann Dent (1793-1855) of English descent, originally from New Jersey and Maryland respectively, who owned a cotton plantation close to where the village of Gainesville would be founded in northeastern Georgia. James's ancestor Dirck Stoffels Langestraet immigrated to the Dutch colony of New Netherland in 1657, but the name became Anglicized over the generations. James's father was impressed by his son's "rocklike" character on the rural plantation, giving him the nickname Peter, and he was known as Pete or Old Pete for the rest of his life.

Longstreet's father decided on a military career for his son, but felt that the local education available to him would not be adequate preparation. At the age of nine, James was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Augusta, Georgia. His uncle, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, was a newspaper editor, educator, and a Methodist minister. James spent eight years on his uncle's plantation, Westover, just outside the city while he attended the Academy of Richmond County. His father died from a cholera epidemic while visiting Augusta in 1833; although James's mother and the rest of the family moved to Somerville, Alabama, following his father's death, James remained with uncle Augustus. Augustus Longstreet, a man of some political prominence, was a fierce states' rights partisan who supported South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis.

In 1837, Augustus attempted to obtain an appointment for James to the United States Military Academy, but the vacancy for his congressional district had already been filled so James was appointed in 1838 by a relative, Reuben Chapman, who represented the First District of Alabama (where Mary Longstreet lived). James was a poor student academically and a disciplinary problem at West Point, ranking 54th out of 56 cadets when he graduated in 1842. He was popular with his classmates, however, and befriended a number of men who would become prominent during the Civil War, including George Henry Thomas, William S. Rosecrans (his West Point roommate), John Pope, D. H. Hill, Lafayette McLaws, George Pickett, and Ulysses S. Grant, who was of the Class of 1843. Longstreet was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant. After a brief furlough, he set out to join the 4th U.S. Infantry at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. Longstreet spent his first two years of service at the post, which was under the command of Lt. Col. John Garland. In 1843, he was joined by his friend, Lieutenant Ulysses Grant.

In 1844, Longstreet met his future first wife Maria Louisa Garland, called Louise by her family. She was the daughter of Longstreet's commander, Lt. Col. Garland. Little is known of their courtship or marriage. Longstreet never once mentioned Louise in his memoirs, and there are no surviving letters between the two. Most anecdotes about their relationship come through the writings of Longstreet's second wife, Helen Dortch Longstreet.

At about the same time as Longstreet began courting Garland, Grant became acquainted with and courted Longstreet's fourth cousin, Julia Dent, and the couple eventually married. Historians agree that Longstreet attended the Grant wedding on August 22, 1848 in St. Louis, but his role at the ceremony remains unclear. Grant biographer Jean Edward Smith asserted that Longstreet served as Grant's best man at the wedding.[16] John Y. Simon, editor of Julia Grant's memoirs, concluded that Longstreet "may have been a groomsman," and Longstreet biographer Donald Brigman Sanger called the role of best man "uncertain" while noting that neither Grant nor Longstreet mentioned such a role in either of their memoirs.
SOURCE: Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Longstreet#Postbellum_life
(for full history of his military career, see attachment)

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Timeline James G LONGSTREET

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