In time, during the postwar Gettysburg controversy, Longstreet presented versions of these meetings in published writing. He asserted that he had opposed the offensive movement but accepted it once Lee assented to fight a defensive battle when the two armies collided. ‘All that I could ask was that the policy of the campaign should be one of defensive tactics,’ Longstreet stated in his memoirs, ‘that we would work so as to force the enemy to attack us, in such a good position as we might find in his own country, so well adapted to that purpose — which might assure us of a grand triumph.’

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Before his death in 1870, Lee denied that he had acquiesced to the idea of a defensive battle, terming the assertion ‘absurd’. Although Lee never promised Longstreet to fight only such an engagement, it was understood within the army by certain officers, besides Longstreet, that the Confederates would maneuver to force their opponent to attack them unless circumstances compelled otherwise. Lee even stated in his campaign report that ‘it had not been intended to fight a general battle at such a distance from our base, unless attacked by the enemy.’ Longstreet also presented additional insight into what he termed ‘the ruling idea of the campaign’ in an 1873 private letter to his former division commander, Lafayette McLaws. Longstreet wrote the letter before the controversy about his role in the battle had been reported in the press. He informed McLaws that he and Lee had talked ‘almost every day from the 10th of May 63 until the Battle.’ The two men discussed previous Confederate victories and ‘concluded even victories such as these were consuming us, and would eventually destroy us.’

Lee and Longstreet concurred on what ‘the ruling idea of the campaign’ must be. In Longstreet’s words: ‘Under no circumstances were we to give battle, but exhaust our skill in trying to force the enemy to do so in a position of our own choosing. The 1st Corps to receive the attack and fight the battle. The other corps to then fall upon and try to destroy the Union Army of the Potomac.’

This significant letter has the ring of truth to it because it reflects Longstreet’s beliefs as a soldier and because of the events that would unfold at Gettysburg. In the spring of 1863, Longstreet thought that the Confederacy faced a crisis of manpower. If offensive assaults continued as they had at Chancellorsville, the blood of the South would be drained away before ultimate victory could be attained. ‘Our losses were so heavy when we attacked,’ he asserted to McLaws, ‘that our army must soon be depleted to such extent that we should not be able to hold a force in the field sufficient to meet our adversary.’

To Longstreet, assaults meant the sacrifice of men. If the Confederates had to assail the enemy, it should be done when success seemed assured, and the resultant victory was worth the cost. He believed that Lee’s Second Manassas campaign in August 1862 was that general’s masterpiece, the ideal mix of a strategic offensive and a tactical defensive. On the old killing ground along Bull Run, Longstreet had watched Jackson’s troops defend a position until his divisions rolled forward in a counterattack that nearly destroyed the Union Army. As Longstreet headed north with the army, he expected Lee to fight as he had at Second Manassas, and not with the audacious tactics employed at Chancellorsville.

On June 3, 1863, the leading elements of the Rebel army began the march. During the previous fortnight, Lee had reorganized and refitted his splendid force. Jackson’s death had necessitated a change in commanders, so Lee divided the army’s two corps into three, promoting Lt. Gens. Richard S. Ewell and Ambrose P. Hill to corps commanders. Lee knew the weapon he possessed, saying before the operation commenced that his men, ‘if properly led… will go anywhere & never fail at the work before them.’ A sense of invincibility permeated the army’s ranks as the Southerners marched toward Pennsylvania.

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