After Longstreet’s Infamous Letter Endorsing Black Civil Rights, the Destruction of His Reputation Began

This morning, I posted Gen. James Longstreet’s “infamous letter” in which he called on Southern whites to accept that the Confederacy had lost the war and that it was time to recognize the verdict of battle. He believed that the South had to come to terms with the new status of African Americans by acknowledging the right of black men to vote and enjoy other rights and priviledges under the law. Longstreet had been one of the Confederacy’s most accomplished generals and his call to face up to the new reality was denounced as treason by conservatives.

Longstreet was hardly a racial egalitarian, but he believed, wrongly it turns out, that the right of blacks to vote could not be taken away and that it was political suicide for white Southerners to continue alienating black voters by demanding their disenfranchisement. Better for white to move into the Republican party where they could fight for control of the party in the Southern states than to allow it to be the sole preserve of the Radicals. This strategic motivation was ignored by the white press in the South.

Denunciations set in right away. In July, a Democratic newspaper in New York published this open letter from a Louisianan. I reprint the headline and an excerpt:

Metropolitan Record and New York Vindicator Saturday, Jul 13, 1867 New York, NY Page: 13 reply to Longstreet

Longstreet compounded his disgrace in the minds of some Southern whites by participating in a meeting that African Americans were allowed to attend in New Orleans where Radical Republican Senator Henry Wilson spoke. In the article below, which uses racist language, the gathering is called a “Mongrel meeting,” a common epithet for events in which people of all races were allowed admittance. The reference to “amalgamate” with blacks refers to blacks and whites marrying.

 

This article, originally from a conservative paper in Louisiana and reprinted in a Georgia newspaper, was typical of the reaction of the hard-line white papers of the South:

Many of the articles critical of Longstreet began by acknowledging his heroic military career. This would change in later years when Lost Cause histories would try to pin the blame for the Confederate defeat on Longstreet! But in 1867 he was seen as a hero gone astray by many former Confederates.

 

 

 

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