[283]
The editor says:
The letter from General Longstreet which accompanies these enclosures dwells particularly upon a point which he wishes to have his readers understand, as the justification of his present narrative. It is that while General Lee on the battlefield assumed all the responsibility for the result, he afterwards published a report that differs from the report he made at the time while under that generous spirit. General Longstreet and other officers made their official reports upon the battle shortly after its occurrence, and while they were impressed with General Lee's noble assumption of all the blame; but General Lee having since written a detailed and somewhat critical account of the battle — and the account from which General Longstreet's critics get all their points against him — Longstreet feels himself justified in discussing the battle upon its merits. It is in recognition of his soldiery modesty that the substance of his letter is given here; the article is its own sufficient justification.This is a direct imputation upon the motives that governed Gen. Lee in writing his detailed report, if it does not impeach his veracity, and place him among General Longstreet's assailants. General Longstreet ranks me among the assailants whose attacks call for this vindication of himself and criticism of General Lee, and in that connection he says:
It was asserted by General Pendleton, with whom the carefulness of statement or deliberatefiess of judgment has never been a characteristic, but who has been distinguished by the unreliability of his memory, that General Lee ordered me to attack the enemy at sunrise on the 2nd. General J. A. Early has, in positive terms, endorsed this charge, which I now proceed to disprove.General Longstreet is exceedingly'careless in his statements, as I have had occasion before to demonstrate, and, while to some it may be a matter of surprise when I assert that there is no foundation whatever for the statement that I endorsed either General Pendleton's or anybody else's assertion that the order was given by General Lee to General Longstreet to attack at sunrise on the morning of the 2d of July at Gettysburg, those familiar with the controversy that arose out of a bitter assault by General Longstreet on myself will not be at all astonished. In my official report, dated in the month of August, 1863, after giving an account of the operations of the 1st of July, I say:
Having been informed that the greater portion of the rest of our army would move up during the night, and that the enemy's position
