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July 2, Longstreet concluded that an attack had little chance of success. He urged Lee to move south (toward Washington) and find some good defensive terrain. This maneuver, said Longstreet, would compel Meadeto attack the Confederates, who could stand on the defensive and repeat the victories of Second Manassas and Fredericksburg. But Lee's blood was up. He rejected the advice. The model of a successful battle most vivid in his mind was Chancellorsville, just two months earlier. Courage and dash—plus some dazzling tactical maneuvers by Lee and Jackson—had enabled them to overcome superior numbers and win that battle by attacking, not by fighting on the defensive. Longstreet had not been at Chancellorsville. With Pickett's and Major General John Bell Hood's divisions, he had been operating against Union forces in the Norfolk-Suffolk region of Virginia. Nor had Longstreet arrived at Gettysburg on July 1 in time to see Hill's and Ewell's divisions drive the enemy pell-mell through the town. Confederate success on July 1 had confirmed Lee's belief in the invincibility of his men. Their morale was high, despite the seven thousand casualties they had sustained. According to Colonel Arthur Fre-mantle, a British observer accompanying the Army of Northern Virginia, the Confederates were eager to attack an enemy “they had beaten so constantly” and for whose fighting capacity they felt “profound contempt.” They might regard the move that Longstreet suggested as a retreat, and lose their edge. With limited supplies and a vulnerable line of communications to Virginia, Lee could not stay in Pennsylvania indefinitely He had come there to win a battle; he intendedto do so that day. Pointing toward Cemetery Hill, he said to Longstreet, “The enemy is there, and I am going to attack him there.” Longstreet replied, “If he is there, it will be because he is anxious that we should attack him; a good reason, in my judgment, for not doing so.” But Lee had made up his mind. Longstreet turned away sadly, as he wrote years later, with a conviction of impending disaster.
    Lee's intent was to attack both Union flanks on July 2. But after looking over the position on Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill, he agreed with Ewell that the Union right was too strong. Lee therefore ordered Longstreet to take his two divisions (the third, Pick-ett's, would not arrive in time) plus Hill's one division that had not fought the previous day and attack the Union left. Ewell would demonstrate against the enemy in his front, and convert the demonstration into an attack if Meade weakened that flank to reinforce his left against Longstreet's assault.
    Longstreet took a long time getting his troops into position for the attack. A large part of the delay was not his fault. The shortage of cavalry had made it difficult to scout a route to the jump-off point. (Stuart's troopers were finally on their way to Gettysburg, but would not get there until evening.) Because the Confederates did not want to telegraph the point of attack, Longstreet had to countermarch several miles afterdiscovering that the original approach road could be seen from a Union signal station on Little Round Top.
    Part of Longstreet's slowness on July 2 may also have resulted from a lack of enthusiasm for the attack he had been ordered to make. After the war, he became a target of withering criticism from Virginians who dominated the writing of Confederate history. They accused him of insubordination and tardiness at Gettysburg. They held him responsible for losing the battle—and, by implication, the war. But some of this criticism was self-serving, intended to shield Lee and other Virginians (chiefly Ewell and Stuart) from blame. In the eyes of unreconstructed Southern whites, Longstreet also made the mistake of urging them to accept the results of the war. Even worse, he became a Republican and received a federal appointment from President Ulysses S. Grant, a friend of Longstreet from their