War has played a key role in the history of the United States, from the nation's founding

right down to the present. War made the U.S. independent, kept it together, increased its size,

and established it as a global superpower. Understanding America's wars is essential for understanding American history.

Welcome to Key Battles of American History,

a podcast in which we discuss American history

through the lens of the most important battles of America's wars.

Here is your host, James Early.

Thank you. host, James Early. Hello and welcome to a special episode of Key Battles of American History.

This is your host, James Early, as always, that I am super duper excited today to bring a very, very special episode to you.

We're going to leave the topic of World War II for a while, and we're going to go back to

the Civil War again, and we're going to look at a fascinating figure of the Civil War.

It was the most remarkable political about face in American history.

During the Civil War, General James Longstreet fought tenaciously

for the Confederacy. He was alongside Lee at Gettysburg and won a major Confederate victory at Chickamauga.

But after the war, Longstreet dramatically changed coercion. He supported the post-war amendments and

joined the newly elected, integrated government in Louisiana. When white supremacists took up arms to oust that government, Longstreet, leading the interracial

state militia, did battle against former Confederates.

His defiance ignited a firestorm of controversy as white southerners branded him a race trader

and blamed him retroactively for the South's defeat in the Civil War.

Although he's one of the highest-ranking Confederate generals, Longstreet has never been

commemorated with statues or other memorials in the South because of his post-war rejection of the

lost cause mythology and advocacy for racial reconciliation. But he's being rediscovered in the age of racial reckoning.

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