Killer Angel: Longstreet

This is the eighth of 13 mashups of clips from "Gettysburg" (1993) that attempt to capture the motives of major characters from the film and its source, Michael Shaara's novel, The Killer Angels. To go to the next and those that follow, go to • Killer Angel: Lee .
Longstreet is another character whose motives and complexities are shortchanged in the film, in which there is no mention of the personal tragedy he had suffered the previous winter, when three of his children had died of a fever within a week. Gone with them was his belief in God. This could help explain his emphasis on defensive tactics, as his troops surely served as a replacement for his family, making their prospective loss all the more to be feared. But, we are told in Shaara's novel, Longstreet had been set apart from the other officers behind Confederate lines even before this loss. By what? He was the only high ranking Confederate we meet who was not from the Old Dominion, so perhaps not so bound by his Virginia comrades' conviction that the only honorable way to fight was face-to-face with the enemy.
His comrades had seen the same engagements he had to this point in the war. Many of them shared his doubts about breaking the oath they had sworn to the Union and fighting against former comrades, but could his non-Virginia (Carolina) nativity be the reason he recognized the value of fighting defensively and questioned Lee's decision to invade the North and employ such aggressive tactics, instead of "re-deploying" and making the North attack on ground of the South's choosing? Could this also explain why Longstreet was the only Southerner we meet who conceded that the war was about slavery, although he denied this was his reason for fighting?
Longstreet's recognition that Pickett's Charge would fail led him to contemplate resignation, disobeying his orders, even suicide. Ultimately, and with a heavy heart, he did as told by Lee and sent his substitute family to the slaughter because he had nothing else. After all, in the place of God, he had only Lee. There seems no reason to question Longstreet's doubts about the Confederate "Cause": "The war had come as a nightmare in which you chose your nightmare side, ... you put your head down and went on to win.... The cause was Victory."
The quote is from page 68 in The Killer Angels.

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Legend

[@davidpeek191]

He knew...

[@TheNightWatcher1385]

The south would’ve had a better chance at Gettysburg with Longstreet in charge.

[@uyeda]

Neat.

[@davidpeek191]

Lee, at his arrogant best...

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Trajic