70 CONFEDERATE PORTRAITS
naturally. It will, I think, appear in overwhelming sig- nificance, as we go on. Page after page of Longstreet's book is stamped with it. But perhaps one paragraph near the beginning is as characteristic as any. ** Speak- ing of the impending struggle [spring of 1861], I was asked as to the length of the war, and said, *At least three years, and if it holds for five you may begin to look for a dictator,' at which Lieutenant Ryan, of the Seventh Infantry, said, *If we have to have a dictator, I hope that you may be the man.' " ^^ No doubt, for the good of the country, Longstreet himself hoped that he would be the man.
It is in his relation to Lee that this stolid self-confidence of Longstreet manifests itself most interestingly. The two men loved each other. Lee showed his affection for his second in command more frankly and directly than for almost any one else, even Jackson. " My old war-horse," he called him, perhaps characterizing the subordinate more fully than he meant. If so, Longstreet was quite oblivious of it and refers to the phrase with proud com- placency, as he does to another point which most of us are inclined to view a little differently, that is, the fact that *'on his march he [Lee] usually had his headquar- ters near mine." ^^ Lee has other words, however, of a less equivocal nature. Thus, he writes to the general in the West: "I think you can do better than I could. It was with that view I urged your going." ^^ But he longs to have him back: **I missed you dreadfully and
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