James Longstreet

James Longstreet (1821-1904), Confederate general, who distinguished himself in several battles of the American Civil War.

Longstreet was born on January 8, 1821, in Edgefield District, South Carolina, and educated at the U.S. Military Academy. He served in the Mexican War and was promoted to major for gallantry in action. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and entered the Confederate army as a brigadier general. He commanded a brigade in the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861 and was made a major general in 1862. In the retreat before the Union General George Brinton McClellan during the Peninsular campaign of April to July 1862, he aided in the successful withdrawal of the main army. At the Second Battle of Bull Run later that year, the Confederate victory was due largely to his timely arrival and effective tactics. Longstreet's further participation in the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg (both in 1862) won him promotion to lieutenant general.

After the Battle of Gettysburg, where Longstreet's failure to take the offensive according to plan contributed to the Confederate defeat, he was transferred to the Army of Tennessee. At the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, he led a decisive charge that broke the Union line. He was severely wounded in May 1864 but recovered in time to resume command later that year. Longstreet was with General Robert E. Lee when Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in April 1865.

After the war Longstreet became a member of the Republican Party. From 1880 to 1881 he was U.S. minister to the Ottoman Empire, and from 1897 until his death in Gainesville, Georgia, on January 2, 1904, Longstreet held the position of federal commissioner of Pacific railroads.