Shaara fleshes out Longstreet in greater detail through Longstreet's reaction to the battle and through his conversation with Fremantle. Longstreet's legendary black moods show up here, and his officers stay clear. Only the cheerful and oblivious Fremantle can break through the gloom.
Thoughts of his wife and his dead children break through, and Longstreet seeks the solace of campfire and company. He reflects on his dead son, on his wife who didn't even cry, and how he couldn't comfort her. It was the one strength he didn't have. The whole thing "pushed him out of his mind, insane, but no one knew it."
The Longstreet approaching Gettysburg is a much different man from the past, and he buries all his energy into his army. It is his only family now. His men are his boys, and Lee is his father. As to God, he didn't think God would do a thing like take his children. He doesn't believe there is a God listening out there.
Longstreet knows there is no talking Lee out of attacking the Union here. "Lee would attack in the morning . . . fixed and unturnable, a runaway horse." Longstreet smells disaster. It is his curse to see things clearly.
The themes of honor and of Virginians being special are also shown in this chapter. Fremantle sees traces of Englishmen in these Southerners, especially the Virginians, in spite of their earthiness and their crude habit of shaking hands. His thoughts on Lee show the attitudes of that aristocratic "gentlemen's" society: "Lee is a moralist, as are all true gentlemen. . . but he respects minor vice . . . in others." When Fremantle and Longstreet discuss the "new" theory of evolution, Fremantle's distaste shows through. He can't imagine a General Lee coming from an ape.
