Today in history CSA General James Longstreet died, January 2, 1904. He was very active Civil War general. Reading briefly over his Civil War battles, he seemed to be present at all the better known or big ones. He had Georgia connections, as in getting his educaiton in Augusta and dying in Gainesville.
His 2nd wife was Helen Dortch Longstreet. They married in 1897, she was 34 and he was 76. In later years she was famous, in her own way. During the Bell Bomber Days in Marietta she was hired for as a riveter on the assembly line.
It appears that Mrs. Longstreet (1862-1963) felt it was more important to socialize than do actual work at the plant. She also had the direct telephone lines of everybody who was anybody, which included the president, Franklin D. Roosevelt. When things didn’t go her way she would simply make a call and suddenly the manager who was demanding work from her would either be transferred someplace else or, I heard, even fired.
Helen Dortch Longstreet, other than her Bell Bomber days, was well known for getting CSA memorials at Civil War sights.
She lived 99 years.
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