The Remarkable Helen Dortch Longstreet

   

     Do not think about, write about or deal with  human behavior without determining the effects of incentives.

      Obama has made a trip to Ireland to visit his “roots” emphasizing his “whiteness”. Since he was elected emphasizing his “blackness”, must be some kind of political thing.

      Below is a brief history of a remarkable woman who defended Lee’s “Old Warhorse”, James “Ol’ Pete” Longstreet against the calumnies of revisionist Southerners who blamed Longstreet for the failure of the Southern attack on the last day of Gettysburg, July 3, 1863. The failure of an attack against a prepared enemy, some of who were behind a stone wall, well-supplied with artillery, up a long slope, under observation for more than a mile, scarcely needed a scapegoat.

“ HELEN DORTCH LONGSTREET was the second wife of General James Longstreet, and was known as ‘The Fighting Lady’. She is remembered for her work as a Confederate memorialist, progressive reformer, environmentalist, civil rights activist, and librarian and postmistress. She was born in Carnesville, Ga. on April 20th, 1863, the daughter of Mary Pulliam and James Speed Dortch. She atteneded the Georgia Baptist Female Seminary (now known as Brenau College) and the Notre Dame Convent in Baltimore, Maryland. While at college, Helen met General James Longstreet, the controversial Confederate officer and grandfather of her roommate.
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      Grandfather of her college roommate, Love works in mysterious ways.

She described the first meeting with the General in an unpulished (sic) memoir called ‘Wooed to the Warrior’s Tent’. After college, Helen served as assistant state librarian of Georgia from 1894 until her marriage to Longstreet in 1897. She was the first woman to hold office under Georgia’s state government. She used her position to author the ‘Dortch Bill’, passed by the Georgia General Assembly in 1896, which made it possible for women to hold the office of State Librarian. Helen and Longstreet were married at the Georgia Governor’s mansion on September 8th, 1897. She was thirty-four; he was seventy-six. The General died on January 2nd, 1904. After Longstreet’s death, Helen was appointed postmistress of Gainesville, a position she held until 1913. Defending her husband’s role in the Civil War became another of her causes, and she worked fiercely to see that his place in history was accurately portrayed, fighting accusations that he was responsible for the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg. She had promised him "in the future, so long as I shall live, whenever your war record is attacked, I will make answer". In 1905 she published the book ‘Lee and Longstreet at High Tide’, which was her husband’s account of the War. 
 

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     It was actually her account, interleaved with official records. Longstreet was blameless and didn’t want to make the attack.  Lee often said that he, “….thought my army could do anything.”, but it couldn’t make the Gettysburg charge.

In the book Helen stated that, because of the statements of insignificant men, "the South was seditiously taught to believe that the Federal victory was wholly the fortuitous outcome of the culpable disobedience of General Longstreet". She also noted that the attacks on Longstreet hadn’t started until after the death of General Robert E. Lee, who, she was sure, would have defended her husband. The book appeared one year after one of Longstreet’s harshest critics, General John B. Gordon, had published his memoirs—renewing the attack on Gen. Longstreet’s actions. Helen also founded the Longstreet Memorial Association to place a statue to her husband at Gettysburg. In 1898, Helen Longstreet was appointed postmaster in Gainesville, reportedly the first woman to hold that position in the state. She was also active in politics. She served as a delegate to the Progressive Party Convention in 1912 and backed Theodore Roosevelt’s presidential campaign. She had a passion for environmental preservation, and took on the Georgia Power and Railroad Company in 1911 to 1913. They were planning a dam at Tallulah Gorge which would divert the river’s flow from the famous waterfalls. That would affect the thriving tourist town’s economic future. Helen traveled the state to gain support for her organization ‘The Tallulah Falls Conservation Association’. In 1913 she lost the battle, though Georgia Power would go on in 1992 to lease 3,000 acres to the State of Georgia to create the Tallulah Gorge State Park, and return the natural flow through the canyon. Not content with campaigning for environmental issues in the continental U.S., she took the battle to the Virgin Islands, fighting for improved economic and social conditions, as well as the exposure of the corrupt political system. After the fight over the Tallulah Falls Dam, Helen returned to college, where she studied speech, lectured, and worked as a freelance author. Some of her other causes at this time included women’s suffrage, civil rights for African-Americans, and promoting the establishmen of the Georgia State College for Women in Milledgeville. She also kept up her defense of her late husband, with the Longstreet Memorial Exhibit at the New York World’s Fair of 1939, and at the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco in 1940. At the age of 80, during World War II, she went to work as a riveter at the Bell Bomber Plant in Marietta, partially for patriotic reasons, and partially to point up the need to employ women in the defense industry. She stated at the time that "I am going to assist in building a plane to bomb Hitler." Helen worked the 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. shift. A controversy broke out over unionism and Mrs. Longstreet’s age was brought up. She was asked to quit. She refused, saying she had the eyesight of a 20-year-old, and was otherwise healthy. "I’ve been an assembler and riveter for about two years and have never lost a day from work," she was quoted in the ‘Atlanta Journal’, "or been a single minute late. I will quit only when the last battle flag has been furled on land and sea."

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     I appreciate the phrase “ when the last battle flag has been furled…”.

In 1947 she became the first woman to have her portrait placed in the State Capitol. She also ran an active write-in campaign for Governor against Herman Talmadge in 1950, but was uncuccessful. In 1957 Helen Longstreet was admitted to the Central State Hospital in Milledgeville for mental illness. She remained there until her death on May 3rd, 1962. She was buried in West View Cemetery in Atlanta. In 1999 the trails at Tallulah Gorge State Park were named the ‘Helen Dortch Longstreet Trail System. In 2004 she was inducted into Georgia Women of Achievement.

The General James Longstreet Monument at Gettysburg was dedicated on July 3rd, 1998.

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     Defending her husband all her life and building bombers at 80. Remarkable is too weak a word.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies