III
JAMES LONGSTREET
Longstreet had half New Jersey blood and probably part Dutch. It shows in him. He is far more the modern, practical nineteenth-century American than most of his fellows. What Southern romance he has sits awkwardly and is mixed with mocking. He reminds you again and again of Grant and Sherman in his bulldog pugnacity and tenacity, his brusque, sharp fashions of hitting right out at men and measures. Southern easygoing ways and shiftlessness vexed him: "Our people have been so accustomed to having things at their hands that they seem at a loss for resources when emergencies arise. 'Where there is a will there is a way' of overcoming all human obstacles. It is left for us to find it out."1
He was hard-headed, solid, stolid; and he looked it.
"A thick-set, determined-looking man," 2 says Fremantle. And Pollard describes his appearance as " not engaging. It was decidedly sombre; the bluish-gray eye was intelligent, but cold; a very heavy brown beard was allowed to grow untrimmed; he seldom spoke unnecessarily; his weather-stained clothes, splashed boots, and heavy black hat gave a certain fierce aspect to the man." 3 His health, vigor, power of supporting fatigue
