Knudsen makes the case that General Longstreet has not only been misjudged by history, but actually was one of the most successful generals of the war. He subtitles his book "The Confederacy's Most Modern General" and indeed it appeared Longstreet was. Longstreet broke with the Napoleonic practices of warfare and introduced innovations that not been seen in nineteenth-century warfare. Not until recently has Longstreet's reputation begun a slow re-examination. In fact, it wasn't until 1998 that the first monument to honor him was erected at Gettysburg.
James Longstreet was a South Carolina-born West Point graduate who was raised on a Georgia plantation. He received his first Telephone Number List combat experience at age twenty four as the US began its war with Mexico. At age forty, he accepted a commission as a Confederate colonel with the Army of Northern Virginia at the start of the Civil War in 1861. Biographers of the post war era stated Longstreet was smart and ambitious but also a "know it all."
They turned against him for rejecting the ideology of the "Lost Cause." Indeed, Longstreet was not a politically correct person, and according to the author, considered political correctness a form of dishonesty. Longstreet wasn't interested in political debate and didn't engage on the causes of the war, but instead excelled in the art of war. His view was simple: once war was decided to be the course of action; his goal was to win it.