Fremantle Arthur James Lyon

Photo Fremantle Arthur James Lyon
General Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, GCMG, CB (November 1835 – 25 September 1901) was a British soldier, a member of Her Majesty's Coldstream Guards, and a notable British witness to the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Whilst holding the rank of lieutenant colonel he spent three months (from April 2 until July 16, 1863) in North America, traveling through parts of the Confederate States of America and the Union. Contrary to popular belief, Colonel Fremantle was not an official representative of the United Kingdom; instead, he was something of a "tourist". Arthur James Lyon Fremantle was born in November 1835 into a distinguished military family. His father, Major General John Fremantle, had commanded a battalion of the Coldstream Guards, and had participated in the Peninsular War, as well as serving as aide-de-camp to Lieutenant General John Whitelocke during the abortive British invasion of Buenos Aires in 1807. Arthur's middle name, Lyon, came from his mother, Agnes Lyon. After his graduation from Sandhurst, Arthur Fremantle entered the army in 1852, serving firstly as an ensign in the 70th Foot, before being transferred to the 52nd Foot almost immediately thereafter. The following year, Fremantle became ensign and lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards, and continued to receive promotions until, in 1860, at the age of 25, he held the rank of Captain of his regiment and Lieutenant Colonel in the Army. The same year, Fremantle was appointed to the position of Assistant Military Secretary at Gibraltar under Governor William John Codrington. In January 1862, the Confederate commerce raider CSS Sumter, pursued by the Union Navy, arrived in port. The ship's commander, Raphael Semmes, sought to have his ship repaired and refitted, although ultimately the Sumter was sold and its crew transferred to the newly-constructed CSS Alabama. Sometime in early 1862, the young British lieutenant colonel met the flamboyant Confederate captain, and was inspired by Semmes' tales of blockade running and combat on the high seas. Like many other officers of his generation, including Lieutenant Colonel Garnet Wolseley, Fremantle had a considerable interest in the American Civil War. Unlike most of the others, however, he decided to take a tour of the South, and applied for a leave of absence in 1863. By his own admission, his initial sympathies lay with the Union, due to his natural distaste for slavery. On 2 March 1863, Lieutenant Colonel Fremantle left England on board the mail steamer, Atrato. Fremantle entered the Confederacy through the Mexican town of Matamoros, Tamaulipas on 2 April on board the Royal Navy frigate HMS Immortalite to avoid being in violation of the Union blockade, and crossed the Rio Grande into Brownsville, Texas. Within three hours of his arrival in the Confederacy, Fremantle encountered 'frontier justice' for the first time, finding the body of a renegade, known as Montgomery, half-buried and stripped of flesh at the roadside. Spending almost two weeks in Brownsville, with occasional visits across the border to Matamoros and the village of Bagdad, Fremantle became acquainted with General Hamilton P. Bee and several merchants and diplomats who were facilitating the trade of cotton across the border with Mexico. Part of the reasoning for Fremantle's tenure in Brownsville may have been that he wished to meet General John B. Magruder, for whom he had a letter of introduction. However, Magruder was delayed, and Fremantle left Brownsville on 13 April in a carriage in the company of some of his merchant friends. Their driver and his assistant, Mr Sargeant and Judge Hyde, are particularly memorable figures from Fremantle's diary, in no small part due to Fremantle's astonishment that a member of the justiciary should be working on a stagecoach. Later, General Longstreet would recall meeting the same two men during his own service in Texas. After finally meeting with General Magruder shortly after leaving Brownsville, Fremantle continued his journey across the Texan desert, dutifully recording in his diary his observations about the taste of polecat, the snuff habits of Texan women, and allusions to the coarse language of his drivers and travelling companions. He finally arrived in San Antonio, Texas on 24 April, where he sold most of his luggage, and from there travelled to Houston, Texas, where he arrived on 30 April. Here, he dined with General William Read Scurry, and observed that those Confederate officers he encountered were extremely complimentary about Great Britain and the Queen, even proposing toasts to her health and to the Empire. Fremantle now proceeded with haste across the remaining Texan countryside, as rumours concerning the fate of Alexandria, Louisiana began to reach him. Furthermore, the continuing siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi was another source of anxiety, as the capture of the city would make passage across the Mississippi River practically impossible. Setting off for Galveston, Texas on 2 May, Fremantle found himself meeting Sam Houston, the father of Texan independence, though he found the elder statesman to be vain and egotistical, as well as bitter and uncouth in his mannerisms. This occurred less than three months before Houston's death, presumably making Fremantle one of the last foreign visitors to meet the legendary general. The English observer finally left Texas on 8 May, arriving in Shreveport, Louisiana and partaking of the hospitality of General Edmund Kirby Smith and his wife. On the advice of General Kirby Smith, Fremantle made his way to Monroe, Louisiana to attempt to cross the river from there due to the uncertainty surrounding the status of Alexandria. By the morning of 10 May, the day Fremantle's stagecoach arrived at its destination, travellers began to report that the city had fallen. In Monroe itself, Fremantle learned of the Confederate victory at Chancellorsville, although the news was accepted by locals without excitement. The wounding of Stonewall Jackson, however, caused some distress. The high expectations of Southerners, and their contempt for their enemies, would be among the few major points of criticism made by Fremantle. After considerable anxiety on board a steamer on the Mississippi, Fremantle finally crossed the river and arrived in Natchez, Mississippi on 15 May. From Natchez, Fremantle travelled to Jackson, which he reached on 18 May. As the city had been evacuated and attacked only a few days earlier, Fremantle was treated with some suspicion by soldiers and locals, who expressed scepticism that an English officer should be travelling alone through the South. One local, the gun-toting Mr Smythe, even went so far as to threaten the foreign visitor with execution should he be unable to prove his identity and credentials. Upon 'examination' by a mob in a hotel, Fremantle finally convinced a Confederate cavalry officer and an Irish doctor of his legitimacy, and was spirited away to meet General Joseph E. Johnston, who accepted the peculiar traveller into his company. Fremantle remained near Johnston for several days, learning of the death of General Jackson from his Chancellorsville wound. Fremantle's next stop was at Mobile, Alabama, which he reached on 25 May after an eventful journey by train, in which a railway engineer shot a passenger. After inspecting the defenses of the city with General Dabney H. Maury, Fremantle briefly visited Montgomery, the former capital of the Confederate States, before arriving in Chattanooga, Tennessee on 28 May. Here, Fremantle met yet more prominent figures, including Generals William J. Hardee and Leonidas Polk, and Clement Vallandigham, the leader of the Copperheads. Later, Fremantle also encountered Braxton Bragg, who supplied the Englishman with letters of introduction and passes, allowing him to travel to Shelbyville, which he reached the following day. Fremantle remained here until 5 June, inspecting troops in the company of General Hardee, his fellow Englishman Colonel George St. Leger Grenfell and the Irish-born General Patrick Cleburne. He also witnessed the baptism of General Bragg, and a small skirmish between Federal and Confederate forces outside the town, before leaving for Charleston the following day Increasingly, Lieutenant Colonel Fremantle became possessed of a desire to get to the Confederate capital, Richmond, and from there attempt to locate the Army of Northern Virginia, with whom he intended to journey for a while. From Tennessee, he travelled through Augusta and Atlanta, before arriving in Charleston, South Carolina, the birthplace of the war, on 8 June. The English tourist was keen to inspect the defences of the city, and remained there until 15 June, inspecting Fort Sumter and visiting Morris Island in the company of General Roswell S. Ripley, commander of South Carolina's First Military District. During this stay, Fremantle also met General PGT Beauregard, and a member of the Captain Semmes' crew from the CSS Sumter, whom Fremantle had first met in Gibraltar in 1862. En route to Richmond, Fremantle passed through Wilmington, North Carolina and Petersburg, Virginia, before arriving in the Confederate capital two days after leaving Charleston. On the day of his arrival, he was granted a meeting with Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin. During the audience, Benjamin assured Fremantle that British diplomatic recognition of the C.S.A. would terminate the war without more bloodshed, though the British officer was concerned about a possible Union invasion of Canada. Benjamin also complained to his guest about revelations about his gambling habits made by the former correspondent of The Times, William Howard Russell. Benjamin then took Fremantle to see President Jefferson Davis, with whom he spoke for an hour. From Fremantle's account, it is possible to conclude that the Confederate leaders may have been trying to impress their British visitor on the matter of diplomatic intervention, without real consideration of his lack of power to do so. Intent on finding Lee's army at the earliest opportunity, Fremantle visited the Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon on 18 June, where he was furnished with letters of introduction to Generals Lee and Longstreet. Leaving Richmond two days later, Fremantle came upon the division of General William Dorsey Pender on 21 June, and reached Lee's headquarters at Berryville a day later.
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