Very many of us were not able to reconcile these reported utterances of General Lee with facts within our own knowledge; and General Longstreet was asked more than once to publish the whole letter that he claimed to have received from General Lee, that we might see the connection before and after the short sentence he permitted only to be known. His reply to this was concluded[1] in hasty language foreign to the enquiry, and he failed to produce anything more. In the narrative in the Times, once again appears the same sentence, "only that and nothing more." It is possible that after General Lee's plans had been frustrated and his opportunity lost, he would naturally regret that he had not taken the advice of one who urged him not to attack.
In the Rev. J. Wm. Jones' "Personal Reminiscences, Anecdotes, and Letters of Lee," page 156, we find that General Lee, in speaking (to Professor White, of Washington and Lee University,) of the irreparable loss the South had sustained in the death of Jackson, said with emphasis: "If I had had Stonewall Jackson at Gettysburg, we should have won a great victory." How, by General Lee's or General Longstreet's plan? Tell me, you who knew Jackson best, if he had been in command of troops, say four miles in rear of the battle-field on the night of the 1st of July, 1863, and General Lee had suggested to him to attack from his right on the morning of the 2d, what hour would he have attacked[2] Meade's "key-point" on Round Top? Would the hour have approached nearer to 4 A. M. or 4 P. M.? For General Lee has said, "I had such implicit confidence in Jackson's skill and energy that I never troubled myself to give him detailed instructions—the most general instructions were all that he needed." But as bearing upon this point stronger, if possible, than Lee's wish for Jackson at Gettysburg, is the following language in a letter to me from a gentleman extensively known and universally noted for the purity of his life and the conscientiousness of his character, and who now worthily fills the responsible position of Governor of his State. This letter was written some two years ago in response to a note of mine sending him the published controversy between General Longstreet and Early in reference to the operations at Gettysburg. The high character of the writer gives to his statements great weight, but the letter being private one, would have been kept from the public had not General Longstreet paraded what he
