The Document That Ended Gen. James Longstreet’s Political Career

During the Civil War, Gen. James Longstreet was one of the foremost Confederate generals and the principal subordinate of Gen. Robert E. Lee, who called him his “Old War Horse”. In the years that immediately followed the war, Longstreet committed what were to many Southerners three unpardonable sins. First, he openly criticized Lee for his actions at Gettysburg (many historians today agree with the Longstreet’s critiques, but this was a charged subject back then). Second, he became a Republican, the political party largely responsible for war and the hated Reconstruction policies. Third, he wrote a letter that was condemned in several newspapers across the South for its apparent counsel to allow Negro suffrage and to bow to Federal authority.

After the war he served in various government posts, including a stint as the head of the largely black Louisiana state militia, and was briefly held prisoner during a riot in New Orleans (the rioters being members of the Crescent City White League, a white supremacist organization attempting to overthrow the Reconstruction government of Louisiana). But Longstreet longed to return to his native Georgia, and did so in 1875, hoping to be in a position to gain an influence in the Georgia political scene. He purchased the Piedmont Hotel in Gainesville, GA, as well as a farm outside of town as his residence. He briefly served as the postmaster of Gainesville.

Meanwhile, the Republicans, who saw him as the foremost Confederate to espouse their party and views, were anxious to reward him. In 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes named him U.S. ambassador to Turkey, in which role Longstreet secured permission from the Turkish Sultan for an American archaeological team to work in that country. He served there for one year, and then was named Federal Marshal for Northern Georgia, again allowing him to return home, which he did in June 1881. The role as marshal thrust him into the spotlight of Georgia politics, as he had hoped.

Seeing that the Radical Republicans had left only ill will behind when Reconstruction ended, what Longstreet attempted to do in Georgia was to go around them and build an alternative Republican Party in his state. He intended to overpower the Democrats, many of whom loathed him for, as they saw it, collaborating with the Republicans, by establishing a state Republican Party based on a core of native whites that would negate the Radical’s influence. This concept, though interesting, would have required a brilliant politician and communicator to succeed. Unfortunately, Longstreet did not have these skills, and his policies had the effect of splitting the Republicans into two distinct factions, with neither being able to mount a successful challenge to the Democrats. For his tactic, he lost the support of the Radical wing of the Republicans, who were trying to build the party based on black voters. The struggle between the two Republican factions lasted for two decades. And as for the Democrats, they were led by former Confederate Gen. John Gordon, who lost no chance to brand Longstreet a turncoat and a slanderer of the sainted Lee, whose own bad advice to Lee had caused the defeat at Gettysburg. Longstreet had few political friends left in North Georgia.

For Longstreet, having enemies in Georgia meant having them in Washington as well, as many resented his intrusion into Georgia politics; there was really no constituency in Congress or the executive branch for what he was trying to accomplish. His opponents in the nation’s capital began to charge that his administration of the Federal Marshal’s office was corrupt and inefficient, and that some of the accounts of his deputies were fictitious and fraudulent. Then came the 1884 presidential contest. The Democrats used this corruption claim as a campaign issue, and the Georgia anti-Longstreet Republicans, led by John E. Bryant (who coveted Longstreet’s lucrative and influential Federal job), supported Sen. James J. Blaine for the party’s presidential nomination. Blaine was nominated on June 6, 1884, so now the national party was behind Longstreet’s foes.

Longstreet defended himself, writing letters to Congressmen and personally presenting his case to President Chester A. Arthur. However, Arthur supported Longstreet’s rivals, and on July 25, 1884, he removed Longstreet from office, appointing in his place the ambitious Bryant.

This is the very document in which he did so. Document signed as President, Washington, July 25, 1884. “…By of the authority conferred upon the President by Section 1768 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, I do hereby suspend James Longstreet, Marshal of the United States for the Northern District of Georgia, until the end of the next session of the Senate; and I hereby designate John E. Bryant of Georgia to perform the duties of said suspended officer in the meantime, he being a suitable person therefor, subject to all provisions of the law applicable thereto…” The seal is still present, and the document is countersigned by the Secretary of State, Frederick T. Frelinghuysen.

The 1884 presidential election resulted in the victory of the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland. Longstreet therefore had no prospect of obtaining another position, and retired from politics. He wrote articles for magazines and journals, and also wrote his magnum opus, his memoir From Manassas to Appomattox. In 1898 President McKinley briefly appointed him to a sinecure, as a member of the U.S. Railroad Commission, where he was assigned to take a trip on the Central Pacific Railroad, ostensibly for inspection purposes. But Longstreet’s public service career was effectively ended that day in July 1884.