Augustus Baldwin Longstreet

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Augustus Baldwin Longstreet – Life, Career, and Legacy

Discover the life, writings, and influence of Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (1790–1870) — American lawyer, educator, humorist, minister, and Southern intellectual. Explore his major works, public views, and the complexities of his legacy.

Introduction

Augustus Baldwin Longstreet (September 22, 1790 – July 9, 1870) was a polymath of the American South — a lawyer, judge, minister, educator, newspaper editor, and humorist.

Longstreet is perhaps best remembered for Georgia Scenes (1835), a collection of sketches portraying life in rural Georgia with a mix of humor, dialect, and local color, which made him a forerunner of the Southwestern humor tradition.

But his legacy is complicated: he was also a vocal defender of slavery, secession, and Southern rights, and he occupied leadership roles in several Southern institutions.

Early Life and Education

• Longstreet was born in Augusta, Georgia, on September 22, 1790, to Hannah Randolph and William Longstreet.

• His father had some reputation as an inventor and public figure.

• For early schooling, Longstreet attended Richmond Academy in Augusta, and the Hickory Gum Academy in South Carolina, then the famed Moses Waddel’s academy in Willington, South Carolina.

• In 1811 he matriculated at Yale University, graduating in 1813.

• After Yale, he studied law at the Litchfield (Connecticut) law school (sometimes referred to as Tapping Reeve’s school) and was admitted to the bar in Georgia in 1815.

Legal and Early Public Career

• Returning to Georgia, Longstreet practiced law in Greensboro and elsewhere.

• He entered politics and was elected to the Georgia legislature from Greene County in 1821.

• In 1822 he was appointed as a Superior Court judge in the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit.

• Later, he shifted partly into editorial work, founding or acquiring a newspaper called the Augusta State Rights Sentinel, which he used as a platform for his political and sectional views.

Literary Work: Georgia Scenes and Humor

• Longstreet’s best-known writing is Georgia Scenes, Characters, Incidents, &c. in the First Half Century of the Republic (1835). It collected sketches which had first appeared in newspapers and his own Sentinel.

• The work uses two narrators — Hall (a rural gentleman) and Baldwin (a more urbane judge) — who comment on the lives, dialect, and customs of rural Georgians, sometimes contrasting refined ideals with local behaviors.

• Edgar Allan Poe praised Georgia Scenes in Southern Literary Messenger, calling it vigorous and realistic.

• The work is often regarded as an early influence on local color and regional humor, paving the way for writers like Mark Twain.

• Late in his life, Longstreet published a moralistic novel, Master William Mitten; or, A Youth of Brilliant Talents, Who Was Ruined by Bad Luck (1864). But this work did not attain the success of Georgia Scenes.

• Much of his later writing was political or theological, including pamphlets defending slavery and secession (e.g. Letters on the Epistle of Paul to Philemon (1845), A Voice from the South (1847)).

Religious Life & Ministry

• Though earlier not deeply religious, Longstreet experienced a personal transformation after the death of his firstborn child, Alfred Emsley, in 1824. That grief led to deeper engagement with religion.

• He joined the Methodist Church in 1827, and in 1838 became a traveling Methodist minister.

• His ministry and religious identity were intertwined with his ideological support for Southern institutions, and he used religious arguments in defense of slavery.

Academic Leadership & Later Career

Longstreet held presidencies and leadership roles in multiple Southern institutions:

• In 1839, he became president of Emory College (in Oxford, Georgia) and served until 1848.

• He briefly served as president of Centenary College, Louisiana in 1849.

• Later that same year (1849), he became president of the University of Mississippi, a post he held until 1856.

• After a period of retirement, in 1857 he accepted the presidency of South Carolina College (later University of South Carolina).

• He remained in that post into the early years of the Civil War, though the conflict disrupted academic life.

While serving these roles, he often intertwined his educational vision with his sectional views, advocating for a distinct Southern cultural and intellectual identity independent (or resistant) of Northern influence.

Political Views, Ideology & Support for the South

• Longstreet was a staunch states’ rights advocate and defender of Southern slavery.

• In 1845, he published Letters on the Epistle of Paul to Philemon, defending slavery based on scripture.

• In 1847, he issued A Voice from the South, explicitly addressing and defending Southern positions.

• He aligned with John C. Calhoun’s doctrines — including nullification, sectional autonomy, and Southern honor.

• As the Civil War approached, Longstreet was vocal in urging Southern resistance and in some writings predicted conflict.

• Even after the war, he remained unrepentant. In essays (1869–1870) he denounced the North, Reconstruction, and what he regarded as “barbarism” by Union victors.

Final Years & Death

• During the Civil War, Longstreet and his family lived as refugees at times, and his home in Oxford, Mississippi, was burned by Union troops who used his papers as kindling.

• After the war, he retreated to Oxford, Mississippi, to live near his family in a quieter scholarly life.

• He continued writing until near his death. He died on July 9, 1870, in Oxford, Mississippi, and was buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery.

Personality, Strengths & Contradictions

• Longstreet was a gifted storyteller, with a strong ear for dialect, character, and social detail, especially in Georgia Scenes.

• He had a restless intellectual energy — shifting between law, ministry, academia, journalism, and polemics.

• However, his moral and political commitments—to slavery, white supremacy, and sectional conflict—are deeply problematic and central to any assessment of his legacy.

• His commitment to educational leadership, though shaped by pro-Southern ideology, did contribute to the growth of several institutions in the antebellum South.

Legacy & Impact

Literary and Cultural Impact

• Longstreet is often cited as an early progenitor of Southern humor or Southwestern humor — writers who drew on local dialect, rural characters, and satire of manners.

• His sketches in Georgia Scenes influenced later regional writers and contributed to a tradition of local color literature.

• Some scholars credit him with helping to open American literature to vernacular voices and rural folk types.

Educational Institutions

• He held presidencies at Emory College, University of Mississippi, South Carolina College, and Centenary College, shaping generations of Southern students.

• At Emory, during times of financial difficulty, he reportedly used personal funds to keep operations going.

Contested Memory

• Because of his advocacy for slavery, sectionalism, and white supremacist ideology, Longstreet’s commemoration in modern times is controversial. Some institutions have reconsidered honoring his name.

• He remains a figure of study for how intellectuals in the antebellum South reconciled culture, religion, and the institution of slavery.

Notable Quotes & Writings

• From Georgia Scenes: the humorous and sometimes biting sketches themselves carry voices of ordinary Southern life and conflict.

• In A Voice from the South, he wrote polemically: "What you believe to be sinful, we believe to be perfectly innocent.”

• In speeches and addresses to students, he exhorted them to defend Southern rights even at personal cost.

Because many of his statements are deeply tied to pro-slavery ideology, direct “celebratory” quotes are less suitable for modern endorsement, but they reveal how he used rhetoric to justify his worldview.

Lessons from Augustus Baldwin Longstreet

1. Complexity of Legacy
   Longstreet reminds us that historical figures can be both innovative and deeply flawed. His literary contributions coexist with morally objectionable politics.

2. Cultural Voice Matters
   His attention to local speech, customs, and humor shows that literature rooted in place and vernacular can carry weight historically.

3. Ideology and Institution
   His life demonstrates how intellectual, religious, and institutional power often supported oppressive systems rather than challenged them.

4. Critical Memory
   When studying or commemorating historical figures, it’s crucial to balance recognition of achievements with clear awareness of harms.

Conclusion

Augustus Baldwin Longstreet was a significant, though controversial, figure of 19th-century Southern America. His Georgia Scenes holds a place in the history of American letters; his leadership roles shaped several universities; and his views, while now often condemned, offer insight into the intellectual defenses of slavery and sectionalism.

In remembering him, we see the tensions of an era: between humor and oppression, culture and conflict, creativity and ideology. Any account of his life must take both the light and the dark into view.