Time & Perspective Quote by James Longstreet

A backhanded defense disguised as modest deference: Longstreet is telling you that whatever brilliant postwar theories people are peddling about that campaign, Lee already thought of them. The line works because it flatters the Cult of Lee while quietly absolving the speaker. If every “good idea” had been weighed by General Lee, then failure can’t be pinned on some obvious oversight that Longstreet should have forced through. The blame shifts from negligence to tragedy: all roads were considered; the road chosen was still wrong.

The context is the Confederate afterlife, where Gettysburg became less a battle than a courtroom. Longstreet, often cast by Lost Cause writers as the man who “failed” Lee, counters with a soldier’s version of legal language: “receive their share of consideration.” It’s bureaucratic, almost antiseptic, a deliberate contrast to the romantic storytelling that turned Lee into an infallible marble statue. Longstreet doesn’t quite say Lee was infallible; he says Lee was thorough. That’s a subtler claim, and harder to refute.

The subtext is also an argument about command culture. Longstreet implies a hierarchy where initiative exists, but final judgment belongs to the commander. By invoking Lee’s omnivorous consideration, he defends obedience as professionalism, not passivity. Yet there’s an edge: if Lee considered everything, then the defeat can’t be explained away by scapegoats, weather, or one reluctant subordinate. It has to be owned at the top, which is precisely what Lost Cause mythology refused to do.