Brothers in Arms?
It is always so much easier in the movies: Good guys wear white, bad guys black, causes are always noble and simple to grasp, and soldiers in the same color uniforms are always a band of brothers, indivisible and united by their common interests. Reality, of course, occasionally falls short. Certainly the Civil War provides countless examples of sacrifice on the behalf of one's comrades, but it also offers its fair share of evidence that jealousy, self-interest and back-stabbing could rear their ugly heads at any time — and under any circumstances.
Ulysses S. Grant's ultimate success as a Union general was remarkable and unlikely, not only because of the prewar obscurity and failure from which he emerged to achieve it, but also because of what he had to endure along the way. He had hardly gotten started before he found himself confronted by powerful enemies — and often not the enemies he expected. For all of Henry Halleck's intellectual talents, his skills in dealing with others, particularly those he believed were his mental inferiors (i.e., most everyone he met) left much to be desired. He did not think much of Grant from the start, and the laurels that were heaped on Grant after the victories at Forts Henry and Donelson only poured kerosene on the fire. Jealousy often got the better of Halleck, and as Brian J. Murphy points out in "The Secret War Between Grant & Halleck," it was a powerful factor in the unseemly slander campaign that he waged against Grant after the forts fell in February 1862.
Grant's problems with Halleck receded when the latter was sent to Washington, a place where intrigue and self-interest were all in a day's work. But no sooner had Halleck left, than a new rival emerged from within Grant's own ranks in the form of John A. McClernand. Subordinate though he was, McClernand's lofty political connections, and even loftier aspirations, made him a powerful foe, and he would succeed in making a problem of himself well into the Vicksburg campaign. It is little wonder Grant comments in his memoirs that he never felt the animosity toward any Confederate that he did for some on his own side of the lines.
The Federals hardly held a monopoly on infighting. Both during the war and after, Southern efforts were sabotaged by the same jealousy and self-interest that plagued their counterparts in blue. And as with the Federals, the potency and longevity of these rivalries often seemed to accelerate in proportion with rank — the higher up the command chain people look, the more venom they will usually find among supposed comrades.
Unlike Grant, James Longstreet at least had the luxury of not having to face most of his accusers until after the war, but when they did finally emerge, they did so with a vengeance. "Lost Cause" historians, spearheaded by Jubal Early, were relentless in their attacks on Lee's old war horse, and Longstreet quickly became the lightning rod for much of the finger-pointing that followed Appomattox and the collapse of the Confederacy. Longstreet naturally responded in his own defense, but while doing so he at times revealed his own self-interest.
That aside, it is hard not to see injustice in Longstreet's treatment by his former comrades, and subsequently his fellow countrymen, after the war. This is a soldier whose value to his cause is in many ways just as important as that of the two men whose giant shadows overwhelm his historical reputation. History has bestowed godlike status on Lee and Jackson, while Longstreet, due in no small part to the damning attacks made on him by fellow Confederates, is sometimes treated as, at best, a mixed blessing. As Jeff Wert powerfully argues in "The Best Subordinate," the shakiness of Longstreet's reputation in some circles is unfounded and undeserved.
Grant and Longstreet were two friends who often found themselves surrounded by enemies. One managed to survive these odds and go down in history as the savior of the Union. The other became a casualty of a war that didn't end when the guns stopped firing. Both were living proof that a Civil War general could sometimes find his friends close, but his enemies even closer.
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