The Bloody Shirt: Terror After Appomattox
By Stephen Budiansky

Illustrated, notes, references, 281 pages, 2008. Viking, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014, $27.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: George Khoury
George Khoury is an adjunct professor at University of Central Florida. He will present a workshop this summer at the Civil War Preservation Trust's Teacher Institute. He has taught the war from a Southern perspective and is the winner of six National Endowment for the Humanities History grants.

Review:
Stephen Budiansky has provided readers and historians with a micro look at a long forgotten aspect of postwar turbulence.

It is fascinating to follow James Longstreet in a new light. We see him a mediator between citizens out for the blood of freed slaves and the principles of Reconstruction. His new role was adjutant general of the Louisiana State Militia, as appointed by his friend, Republican President U.S. Grant and at a salary of $6,000 a year.

Longstreet’s reputation as Lee’s most able second begins to erode with Lee’s death. Lee was blameless while Longstreet was the Great Betrayer to the Cause. He became the man who lost the Confederacy and the man who undermined Mr. Lee.

The author relates an important event. On a summer day in 1874 Longstreet found himself in the middle of a New Orleans ready to erupt against “a usurping government” that reduced the rights of whites and elevated the rights of the newly freed.

Armed rebellion was taking place in the streets. The White Leaguers pushed the militia until the city was overrun and chaos ruled. Within 15 minutes 31 men were dead and almost 100 were wounded. When he realized all was lost, we learn that Longstreet surrendered the State House and went home and laid in bed for almost six months with “a severe illness.”

We learn no more about Longstreet or the illness. Longstreet’s chapter is closed by depicting him as either a coward or a malingerer period. No other clarification follows, which is a slight flaw in the book.

We read about bloody events, innocent people murdered, a feeble government and a growing and aggressive Democratic Party bent on social and political revenge at any price. I found the newspaper accounts revealing reading, as well the generous portions of various diaries.

This book has so many subplots running that readers must slowly digest each chapter.

It is a valuable addition to the reality of Reconstruction on local levels.