Longstreet’s contribution to the battle was critical.  Bragg would split his armies into two wings for the decisive action on the 20th.  Polk, on the right, would be slow to start, Longstreet on the left would grab the initiative. 

Longstreet wants to join Bragg Longstreet disagrees with Lee He disagrees again on 3rd July Pickett’s Charge

While Longstreet’s action on the field can be said to have been the decisive assault that destroyed the Federal right wing, and allowed the Confederates to roll up the battle, he might not have been there at all. Without trying to recreate Gettysburg, it is important to go back to that major battle to understand a little of Longstreet and his contribution to Chickamauga.

Gettysburg took place on the 1st through the 3rd of July and following that defeat the Confederates withdrew, but as Rosecrans’ and Bragg manoeuvred their way towards Chattanooga, Longstreet became impatient to leave Lee, and take part in the action on the Tennesee.  Lee believed that another costly offensive was needed against Meade, but Longstreet disagreed with this strategy, and on the 2nd September he wrote to Lee to say that he felt that one corps from Lee’s army should join Bragg against Rosecrans.  Naturally, it should be his own corps.  He also suggested that he and Bragg might swap places and rather disingenuously suggested that “I feel that I am influenced by no personal motive in this suggestion.....” He had a low opinion of Bragg; “I doubt if General Bragg has confidence in his troops or himself either.  He is not likely to do a great deal for us.”  On September 5 Lee and President Davis decided to send Longstreet with two divisions to serve under Bragg, a man he has already shown he has little respect for.  This move will not be easy as the rail links are now circuitous thanks to Burnside having occupied Knoxville, and forced Longstreet into a 750 mile rail journey on a mix-bag of rail cars. Longstreet’s force starts to arrive on the 17th, and he himself reports to Bragg during the night of the 19th.  As we know from the description of the battle, his arrival and action were decisive, but why was he there, why had he pushed so strongly to be allowed to join the expected action against Rosecrans?

Longstreet

Lee believed that he needed another offensive action against Meade but that was exactly what he had tried at Gettysburg, and Longstreet had been strongly against such action, and had stated his objections to Lee during that battle.  Longstreet believed that in discussions with Lee, before Gettysburg, that they had both agreed that the South could not afford the loss in men that followed from overtly offensive actions. Longstreet’s recolection of the agreement was that “I then accepted his (Lee’s) proposition to make a campaign into Pennsylvania, provided it should be offensive in strategy but defensive in tactics, forcing the Federal army to give us battle when we were in strong position and ready to receive them.” He argued that the correct way for them to fight was to observe the Napoleonic maxim that an invading army should maneouvre to force an enemy to assail it in a chosen position.  Direct assault on a strong defensive position was likely to go against the Confederates.

View from the Devil’s Den towards Little Round Top.  Photo by J. Dillon

When Longstreet joined Lee on the 1st July he was disappointed to hear that Lee intended a direct assault on the Federal position on Cemetery Ridge. Lees’s view was that if they were still there the next day, he would attack them; Longstreet’s view was that if they were still there it was because the Federals wanted them to attack, and that was good enough reason for not doing so.  He proposed instead that the Confederates should move round to the right and execute a flanking move on and behind the Federal left wing.  The proposed flanking move would be in the area of the Round Tops.  These opposing views of the way to deal with the situation were expressed the next day, the 2nd July.

View from Little Round Top towards the Devil’s Den, the rocky area left centre, just over the track.  That area was not so wooded at the time of the battle.            Photo by J. Dillon

Longstreet and Lee had a close, respectful and intimate relationship.  Longstreet respected Lee as an army commander, Lee knew Longstreet as his senior and reliable subordinate, but on the question of how to approach the Federals at Gettysburg, they disagreed.  Each time the question of the flanking move was put forward, and Longstreet tried again during the battle on the 3rd July, Lee over-ruled him.  Lee wanted Longstreet to position himself across the Emmitsburg Road, south of the Round Tops, they would then move up the road, rolling up the Federals on Cemetery Ridge while Ewell attacked south from his position on the Confederate left.  Longstreet did not agree with this strategy and in his memoirs he claimed to have expressed his view to Lee as; “General, I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know, as well as any one, what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arranged for battle can take that position.”

View from Little Round Top towards the north-west. The ‘x’ shows the open area in front of Seminary Ridge, just around the Emmitsburg Road.  Pickett’s Charge was on that line, but further to the right. Photo by J. Dillon

Longstreet, having set himself against the plan that Lee wanted executed, has come in for much later criticism for failing to adequately support Lee. Having voiced his position, and been over-ruled by his commander, he should have then done his best to make the plan work. He did not.  He delayed before taking up his position near the Round Tops, he had not adequately reconnoitered the ground causing confusing counter-marches and his demeanour was apparent to his own subordinates.  His lowest point was probably on the 3rd July when he had to order in Pickett for his assault on the ridge.  He knew the end result would be slaughter, he did not want the ‘charge’ to take place but said later that he “never exercised discretion” with Lee present. To Alexander, commanding the Artillery, he had said of the charge; “I don’t want to make this attack.  I believe it will fail - I do not see how it can succeed - I would not make it even now, but that General Lee has ordered it & expects it”.

From the Union position. The tree line is Seminary Ridge from which Pickett must make his celebrated Charge.  Photo by J. Dillon

Longstreet then was at Chickamauga because he wanted to take time away from Lee, who was proposing another assault on Meade, after Longstreet had strongly disgreed with these tactics at Gettysburg.  He believed that it would be wasteful in men, and as a courageous and practical General, he did not believe in wasting his soldiers. He was there because he had pushed to be there, it was his pushing for a corps to leave Lee’s force and join Bragg that gave Bragg what was needed, a fighting General.  At Gettysburg Longstreet had seen that Lee’s plan would not work, while at Chickamauga his tactic of forming his units into a strong column, giving strength in depth for the assault through the gap was the deciding move. At Gettysburg when things were going wrong he had infuriated his subordinate, Mclaws, by involving himself in the movement of individual units. At Chickamauga, when his breakthough was going well, he was almost too hands-off as they moved on Snodgrass, but his command and enthusiasm had rubbed off on his commanders, who followed through as he would have wanted.