76 CONFEDERATE PORTRAITS
effect that Bragg was not on the field and Lee would have been." ^s
This sort of thing seems incredible in a man of Long- street's age, training, and soldierly habits ; but the lan- guage of his own letters shows abundantly what his attitude was. He writes to Buckner: "As every other move had been proposed to the general and rejected or put off till time made them more convenient, I came to the conclusion that this was to be the fate of our army — to wait till all good opportunities passed, and then, in
And here again, as at Gettysburg, we can ask nothing more characteristic than the little scene that the general paints for us, apparently quite unconscious of its signifi- cance, but depicting himself and a dozen men of similar type that we all know, as effectively as Rembrandt might have done : " The only notice my plan received was a remark that General Hardee was pleased to make : * I don't think that is a bad idea of Longstreet's.' ... I repeated my ideas, but they did not even receive notice. It was not till I had repeated them, however, that Gen- eral Hardee even noticed me." ^o Unconscious self-inter- pretation like this, as with Pepys, amounts to genius.
No one could attack Bragg without attacking Davis, and to Longstreet, Davis — when he was wrong — was no more than Bragg. Twace, at least, in full and formal military council, the general offered his advice to the President — and was snubbed. The first time was early in the war
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