GDG- The real R.E.Lee

[Margaret D. Blough]

Well, it couldn't have hurt that Longstreet's staff included Maj. John Fairfax (one can't get much more FFV than that) and Osmun Latrobe (ultimately Moxley Sorrel's successor as Longstreet's chief of staff) who came from an extremely prominent Maryland family (his grandfather was the great architect Benjamin Latrobe).  While Longstreet was by no means considered anything close to an FFV, he was connected, on his mother's side, to the massive Dent and Marshall clans.  Furthermore, his uncle and foster father, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, was a famous and respected man: a university president, lawyer, judge, politician, lay minister and prominent in the Methodist Episcopal Church, author, friend of John Calhoun, and father-in-law of Lucius Q.C. Lamar. Lee would have found simultaneously a more diverse (including Raphael Moses, a member of South Carolina's Sephardic Jewish community) but comfortably familiar environment in Longstreet's mess.

Regards,

Margaret

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Tom Ryan" <pennmardel at mchsi.com> 

> Esteemed GDG Member Contributes: 
> 
> 
> <> usually travelled with Longstreet's command and not Jackson's was not, as 
> the Lost Causers claimed, that Lee believed he needed to keep a close watch 
> on Longstreet's performance but that Longstreet's mess, and his lively and 
> diverse staff, was just considerably more interesting and relaxing than 
> Jackson's. While Lee was the total opposite of his wastrel father and older 
> half-brother, he was still born and raised a gentleman of Virginia's planter 
> class.>> 
> 
> Margaret, 
> 
> That is interesting, because Brown in her book "Reading the Man" describes a 
> certain elitism that was part of Lee's makeup in that he preferred to 
> interact with people of his own class (the upper class). Perhaps, in your 
> example, he not only found Longstreet's mess to be more interesting, but 
> also that they were of a better class of people than those around Jackson. 
> I do not know whether that was the case or not, but, if it were, Brown's 
> point may be well taken. 
> 
> Regards, Tom 
> 
> 
> 
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