“All we have to do is file around his left and secure good ground between him and his capital,” Longstreet pleaded. He spoke in unusually personal and emotional terms. “I have been a soldier all my life,” Longstreet said, “and it is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for battle can take that position.” But Lee had impatiently gestured to the Union brigades lining the ridge above and replied, “The enemy is here, and if we do not whip him, he will whip us”; any maneuvering would be taken by the men as a demoralizing retreat.
