Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.life From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Visions of Longstreet Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 16:22:11 EST Message-ID: \SE B;LIFE;THE CIVIL WAR;LETTERS \HD Visions of Longstreet In a letter on The Times' Civil War page Sept. 5, Les Kinsolving called into question several items in our package of articles (Aug. 15) about the upcoming Turner Network Television miniseries "The Killer Angels." We only recently saw a copy of that letter. We would like to address two points raised by Mr. Kinsolving: First, it was not our interpretation alone that Michael Shaara's novel portrays Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet "gazing at the body" of Brig. Gen. William Barksdale after Barksdale fell leading his Mississippi brigade on July 2. Roy Frampton, a battlefield guide for 25 years at Gettysburg, introduced us to the view. Mr. Frampton, by the way, is an admirer of Mr. Shaara's book and talked extensively to the late author on several of Mr. Shaara's visits to the battlefield. Rereading Mr. Shaara's description, we admit that Mr. Kinsolving's interpretation may be correct - that Mr. Shaara was describing Longstreet having a "vision" of Barksdale's body behind federal lines. We are skeptical, though. Mr. Shaara writes of Barksdale's corpse: "There is a flag over him." Mr. Kinsolving is, in effect, saying that Mr. Shaara has the federals placing, or allowing others to place, a flag over the dead general. Union soldiers either allowing or placing a flag over an enemy body seems to us improbable. Second, Mr. Kinsolving questions our use of the appellation "commander" in referring to Barksdale. The first definition of commander in our dictionary is "a person who commands." There should be no confusing "commander" used with a lower-case "c" with the naval rank. GERALD A. REGAN PETER A. EMBER New York City This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM