LONGSTREET, JAMES (1821-1904), American soldier, lieutenant general in the Confederate army, was born on Feb. 8, 1821, in Edgefield district, S.C., and graduated from West Point in 1842. He was severely wounded in the Mexican war, and received two brevets for gallantry. In 1861, having attained the rank of major, he resigned when his state seceded, and became a brigadier general in the Confederate army. In this rank he fought at the first battle of Bull Run, and at the head of a division in the Peninsular campaign and the Seven Days. This division later became the nucleus of the I. Corps, Army of Northern Vir ginia, which was commanded throughout the war by Longstreet, and took part in the second battle of Bull Run, Antietam and Fredericksburg. Most of the corps was absent in North Carolina when the battle of Chancellorsville took place, but Longstreet, now a lieutenant general, returned to Lee in time to take part in the campaign of Gettysburg. In Sept. 1863 he took part in the great battle of Chickamauga. In November he commanded the unsuccessful expedition against Knoxville. In 1864 he re joined Lee's army in Virginia, and on May 6 arrived upon the field of the Wilderness as the Confederate right had been turned and routed. His attack was a model of impetuosity and skill, and drove the enemy back until their entire force upon that flank was in confusion. At this critical moment, as Longstreet in person, at the head of fresh troops, was pushing the attack in the forest he was fired upon by mistake by his own men and desperately wounded. This mischance stayed the Confederate assault for
two hours, and enabled the enemy to provide effective means to meet it. In Oct. 1864 he resumed command of his corps, which he retained until the surrender, although paralysed in his right arm. During the period of Reconstruction, Longstreet's attitude towards the political problem, and the discussion of certain mili tary incidents, notably the responsibility for the Gettysburg fail-. ure, brought the general into extreme unpopularity. His admira tion for General Grant, and his loyalty to the Republican party accentuated the ill-feeling of the Southern people. But in time his services in former days were recalled, and he became once more "General Lee's war-horse" to his old soldiers and the people of the South. He held several civil offices, among them that of minister to Turkey under Grant, and that of commissioner of Pacific railways under Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt. In 1896 he published From Manassas to Appomattox, and in his later years he prepared an account of Gettysburg, which was published soon after his death, with notes and reminiscences of his whole military career. He died at Gainesville, Ga., on Jan. 2, 1904.