I agree, with the caveat that when the person is still living we need to distinguish between people who have had a genuine change of heart and people who are just publically adopting a popular position for social reasons.

Isn't there a Sun Tzu quote kinda like that? Something about always leaving your enemy with an escape?

Something about a hard pill to swallow

Absolutely. People are complex and capable of change. I'm not saying we should be building statues of Longstreet or honoring him, but we should remember him more kindly than we do.

👆Wisdom

Lee died shortly after the war which helps. The south needed a scapegoat and Longstreet was it.

historical revisionists

Uh... no? Revisionism just means "critically challenging the mainstream historical narrative." "Lee was actually an evil slaveholder who fought for slavery fuck him" is the revisionist narrative here. The word gets a bad rep because certain people only like to revise narratives about how fascism is bad actually, but revisionism is an important part of studying history, as any historian will tell you.

Lee was revered by both sides at the time.

I could see him being much more pragmatic like that after the dream of southern independence was shattered.

They're very moreish

Lost Cause types blame Longstreet for the loss at Gettysburg and therefore the entire war. Even though he tried to tell Lee that his plan of "send my entire army across a giant open field directly into enemy artillery" was shit and suggested the far more reasonable plan of moving toward DC and entrenching themselves to scare the congress into peace talks which may have actually worked.

Dude was a far better strategist than Lee.