[Timmy]

Longstreet didn’t want to order that charge. He appealed to Lee to reconsider. Lee should have listened.

[Antoninus]

Longstreet didn’t want to order that charge. He appealed to Lee to reconsider. Lee should have listened.

Indeed. But sadly, Longstreet is remembered for giving the order.

[OKSooner]

Yes, Longstreet was the visionary among all of them, Union and Confederate, at the time. Unfortunately for his side he wasn't the one in charge.

After the war, at least by the limited reading I've done on the subject, his position was "I tried to tell him."

[Flag_This]

"Longstreet didn’t want to order that charge. He appealed to Lee to reconsider. Lee should have listened."

As I understand it, Longstreet disagreed with Lee on the whole strategy used at Gettysburg. Longstreet thought they should take advantage of the terrain and take up a strong defensive position, so the Union forces would get chewed to pieces attacking an entrenched opponent.

[ReleaseTheHounds]

Right you are. If Lee had followed Longstreet’s suggest guidance, Picket’s Charge would not have happened and who knows how the Civil War would have ended.

[Jim Noble]

They should have gone around to the right.

[LambSlave]

Longstreet didn’t want to order that charge. He appealed to Lee to reconsider. Lee should have listened.

He appealed to Lee multiple times to the point of insubordination to outflank the Union left which was in hindsight brilliant and correct. Moreover, he had also asked to be granted leave so he could be at what he (correctly) surmised as the more important battle at Vicksburg, which may have changed the course of the war. Longstreet was a consistent, cautious military genius (look at his performance at Fredericksburg vs. Jackson, fore example).