Critic's Corner

Three Months in the Southern States: April-June 1863

By Stephen Davis · Originally published October 2016 · p. 37

“Nowhere is there a more revealing firsthand picture of the South at war,” judges Walter Lord in his 1954 edition of Arthur Fremantle’s famous diary. Sailing from England in March 1863, this British officer (lieutenant colonel, Coldstream Guards) landed in Texas and traveled across the Confederacy for three months. He kept a meticulous, colorful diary of the people he met and the places he saw. When he returned home, friends urged him to publish his journal. He did so, with the result that Three Months in the Southern States is, according to Nevins, Robertson and Wiley, “the best commentary on the wartime South by an English visitor.” Colonel Fremantle’s diary was published in London in 1863. Northerners were so interested in what he wrote about the Rebels that a New York edition came out in spring of 1864. (The Atlanta History Center owns a copy; in its front is handwritten, “Jno A Dahlgren R. Admiral; U S Navy Commd S. Atlantic Squadron April 15th, 1864.”) Southerners were so interested in what Fremantle wrote about them that the diary was also printed in Mobile that spring. Henry Watterson, the redoubtable “Shadow,” wrote a column on June 9 for the Mobile Advertiser & Register, complimenting Colonel Fremantle on his book. A century-plus later, Three Months in the Southern States is one of the sprightliest and most entertaining Civil War journals we have. It helped that Fremantle was something of an English aristocrat, who genuinely enjoyed observing the behavior of American ruffians. After landing near the Rio Grande, he was invited to a fandango, a Mexican dancing/ gambling/ drinking party. He noticed that whenever there was some kind of brawl, “it is invariably caused by Texans from Brownsville,” who “are at once seized and cooled in the calaboose.” Everywhere, he sought out persons of note. As David Eicher notes (The Civil War in Books, 1997), it helped that Confederate generals respected him as a professional soldier and that Southern politicians wanted to win over a spokesman for their cause among the British. He looked up and conversed with John B. Magruder, recording the general’s expression of ill will against the Puritanical Yankees— ”that pestiferous crew of the Mayflower.” At Shreveport he spent time with Edmund Kirby Smith, including a fishing trip, noting that the general proved to be energetic hauling in crayfish. In Mississippi, Fremantle met Joe Johnston, whom he found “extremely affable, but he certainly possesses the power of keeping people at a distance when he chooses.” Over a meal, the traveler learned that Johnston and his staff had only one fork (one tine missing); this the general handed over to his guest. Fremantle expressed no liking for slavery, but chose to tour the Confederacy because of his “great admiration for the gallantry and determination of the Southerners,” as he explains in his Preface. He was quite interested in the Confederate common soldier. Visiting Bragg’s army in Tennessee, he observed the men’s liking for jackets and pants sent from home, gray and brown in color, and for their felt hats. The Englishman learned that even if given regulation uniforms, a regiment “would become parti-colored again in a week,” so fond were the troops of homespun. Officers looked the other way at this, insisting that arms and equipment were more important. Aided by passes from General Bragg and others, Fremantle passed through Charleston, where he called upon Gen G. T. Beauregard. He judged the Creole to be about 47 years, “very youthful in appearance were it not for his hair,” which the Englishman found surprisingly gray. Some said it was because of his wartime cares and worries; Fremantle learned the real reason was that the Yankee blockade had cut off the general’s supply of hair coloring. Traveling on to Richmond, he met Jefferson Davis, for whom Fremantle expressed admiration of his “unflinching determination and administrative talent.” He also had an appointment with Judah Benjamin, secretary of state. He said the Confederates were more amused than annoyed at the term “Rebel,” which was so constantly applied to them. But he wished mildly to remark that in order to be a “Rebel,” a person must rebel against someone who has a right to govern him; and he thought it would be very difficult to discover such a right as existing in the Northern over the Southern States. Fremantle followed the trail of Lee’s army through Winchester; it was now the last week of June ‘63. When he came upon the Southern troops, he found them “in the highest spirits, cheering and yelling most vociferously.” “At no point of the war, they say, have the men been so well equipped, so well clothed, so eager for a fight, or so confident of success,” he recorded on June 24. Then came Gettysburg. The day before the battle opened, Colonel Fremantle in Chambersburg caught up with General Lee, whom he admiringly described as “the handsomest man of his age I ever saw….a perfect gentleman in every respect.” Approaching Gettysburg on the afternoon of July 1, the Britisher chanced upon General Powell Hill, who said that his troops had driven the enemy, but added ominously that “the Yankees had fought with a determination unusual to them.” On the morning of the second, he viewed Lee, Hill, Longstreet and Hood planning their assault, “the two latter assisting their deliberations by the truly American custom of whittling sticks.” That afternoon the colonel sat in a tree, trying to discern the progress of Longstreet’s attack on the enemy left. Below him sat General Lee on a tree stump, receiving a few messages. One of them, coming in around 7 p.m., was from Longstreet: “we are doing well.” Longstreet, of course, was not doing that well, yet Fremantle remained hopeful of Confederate victory. The next day, July 3, as Lee launched his charge on the Union center, the colonel strained for a view. At one point he encountered Longstreet, beaming, “I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.” Came Pete’s reply, “The devil you wouldn’t! I would like to have missed it very much; we’ve attacked and been repulsed; look there!” Sure enough, Fremantle began to discern “Confederates slowly and sulkily returning towards us in small broken parties.” Longstreet’s stolid acceptance of the bad news led to Fremantle’s appreciating that general’s reputation as a “bulldog.” He was even more moved by General Lee’s deportment in the face of disaster. Re-reading Fremantle’s diary, one is struck by how often his recording of Lee’s words has infused the literature. • “All this will come right in the end; we’ll talk it over afterwards; but, in the meantime, all good men must rally. We want all good and true men just now.” • “This has been a sad day for us, Colonel—a sad day; but we can’t expect always to gain victories.” • “Never mind, General, all this has been my fault—it is I that have lost this fight, and you must help me out of it in the best way you can.” Needless to say, when Freeman in his biography quotes Lee speaking these words, his only source is Fremantle. After the battle, the colonel succeeded in passing through the lines. By July 12 he was in New York. He soon boarded a steamer across the ocean and returned to England. There Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine in its September ‘63 issue published Fremantle’s Gettysburg narrative in a pamphlet; Mary Chesnut was reading it a few months later (“He pays a very handsome compliment to General Hood”). Admiral Dahlgren, “Shadow” Watterson, Mrs. Chesnut—all have read Fremantle’s diary, and for a very good reason. It’s just fun. Steve Davis of Atlanta is a regular contributor to Civil War News and is the Book Review Editor. His new book, A Long and Bloody Task: The Atlanta Campaign from Dalton through Kennesaw Mountain to the Chattahoochee River May 5-July 18, 1864, has just been published as part of Savas Beatie’s Emerging Civil War paperback series. The companion volume, carrying the Atlanta Campaign to the city’s surrender on September 2, 1864, will be published later this year.