LONGSTREET, James, American soldier: b. in Edgefield district, S. C., 8 Jan. 1821; d. Gainesville, Ga., 2 Jan. 1904. He was grad uated at the United States Military Academy in 1842; entered the army as lieutenant of in fantry and, after performing duty at various Western posts, served in the Mexican War, in which (at Chapultepec) he was badly wounded and for gallantry in which he received the bre vets of captain and major. From 1847 to 1852 he was stationed on the Texas frontier and in 1858 became paymaster with the rank of major. In June 1861, the Civil War having broken out, he resigned from the United States army and entered that of the Confederacy as a brigadier general. At the first battle of Bull Run (q.v.) he commanded a brigade, and in 1862 was made a major-general. In the retreat before Mc Clellan, during the Peninsular campaign (q.v.), he was in command of Gen. J. E. Johnston's rear guara, anti contrioutea greatly to tne sate withdrawal of the main army to Richmond. In the Seven Days' Battles (q.v.) he fought with credit to himself and his division, whose losses were very heavy; and at the second bat tle of Bull Run (q.v.) he displayed promptness, energy and generalship to which the Confederate victory was largely attributed. He com manded the right wing at Antietam, and at the battle of Fredericksburg (q.v.) had command of the left, repulsing the desperate assault of Burnside's army. After Fredericksburg he was made lieutenant-general, and with that rank commanded one of the three corps of the Con federate army of invasion, known as the Army of Northern Virginia. At the battle of Gettys
burg (q.v.) during the second and third days, he commanded the right wing, which sustained the chief burden of the conflict, furnishing the columns that made Pickett's charge. Trans ferred to the Army of Tennessee, Longstreet arrived on the field in time to save the day at the battle of Chickamauga (q.v.). He next moved unsuccessfully against Burnside at Knoxville (q.v.) and early in 1864 rejoined General Lee in Virginia. Again distinguishing himself in the battles of the Wilderness, he was severely wounded and for some months disabled, but was in command of the first corps of the Army of Northern Virginia during the later months of 1864 and took some further part in active field-service, retaining to the last his distinction as a general and a fighter, and com ing out of the war at its close with the respect of the whole country, which has never dimin ished. After the war he engaged in business as a cotton factor in New Orleans and, having become a Republican in politics, was surveyor of customs at that port, 1869-73. In the same city he was afterward postmaster. He re moved to Georgia in 1875; was United States Minister to Turkey, 1880-81; in 1881-84 served as United States marshal of Georgia, and was appointed United States railway commissioner in 1898. He wrote for periodicals, and pub lished