James Longstreet quotes

James Longstreet was an American general best known for his service in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. One of Robert E. Lee’s most trusted commanders, he played key roles in many major battles, including Gettysburg and Chickamauga. He later became a controversial figure for his postwar political views and efforts toward national reconciliation. Here are 15 of his quotes:

I hope to live long enough to see my surviving comrades march side by side with the Union veterans along Pennsylvania Avenue, and then I will die happy.

James Longstreet

Great God! I thought to myself, how my heart swells out out to such magnanimous touch of humanity. Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?

James Longstreet

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.

James Longstreet

The highest of human laws is the law that is established by appeal to arms. The sword has decided in favor of the North, and what they claimed as principles cease to be principles, and are become law. The views that we hold cease to be principles because they are opposed to law. It is our duty to abandon ideas that are obsolete and conform to the requirements of law.

James Longstreet

If it wasn't about slavery, then I don't know what else it was about.

James Longstreet

I cannot help but think that great results would have been obtained had my views been thought better of; yet I am much inclined to accept the present condition as for the best.

James Longstreet

I fancy that no good ideas upon that campaign will be mentioned at any time that did not receive their share of consideration by General Lee.

James Longstreet

There was no indication of panic. The broken files marched back in steady step. The effort was nobly made and failed from the blows that could not be fended.

James Longstreet

Before my troops reached the little city, and before the people of Fredericksburg knew that any part of the Confederate army was near, there was great excitement over the demand for surrender.

James Longstreet

In a very short time the army of Northern Virginia was face to face with the Army of the Potomac.

James Longstreet

The surrender of the former political relations of the negro.

James Longstreet

That man Grant will fight us everyday and every hour until the end of the war.

James Longstreet

The surrender of the Confederate armies in 1865 involved: 1. The surrender of the claim to the right of secession. 2. The surrender of the former political relations of the negro. 3. The surrender of the Southern Confederacy. These issues expired on the fields last occupied by the Confederate armies. There they should have been buried. The soldier prefers to have the sod that receives him when he falls cover his remains. The political questions of the war should have been buried upon the fields that marked their end.

James Longstreet