Post by artraveler on Mar 6, 2020 10:26:28 GMT -8
The Fremantle Diary;
A Journal of the Confederacy
A Revolution in Military Thinking
Arthur Freemantle was born into a military family. His father was a Major General and commanded a battalion of the Coldstream Guards in the Peninsular War (1801-1811). Arthur graduated from Sandhurst in 1852 and was one of those whom, ultimately the stars would fall. By the time of his travels to North America in 1863 he was a Lieutenant Colonel and later Knight of the Empire and General of the Coldstream Guards the longest still serving regiment in the British Army.
The Confederacy was desperate to gain the recognition of any European power, but England was the jewel that would make the secession work. Alliance with England would guarantee the breaking to the blockade, restore the trade in cotton and the presence of British troops in Canada would take Federal troops away from the battlefields, giving a more equitable balance of force and enhancing opportunities for victory.
In 1833 the lifelong work of William Wilberforce and John Newton succeeded in abolishing slavery as an institution in most of the English Empire. The most powerful navy in the world was dedicated to abolishing the slave trade world-wide with particular effort placed on the African slave trade. English officers, like Freemantle, were trained to interdict and seize slave operations. By 1860 the British Empire was the only nation who could exhibit force anywhere in the world. An alliance between England and the CSA would secure independence for the CSA and limit the ability of the Federal to achieve major power status.
The international state system was established with the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648. This system essentially took the issues of and about religion out of relations between states. Additionally, the treaties established the basics of what constituted a state, borders, language and culture. A state could practice any kind of government, including an established religion within its borders. The end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the Congress of Vienna made major changes to the system and included two important changes for states to be full members of the international system; a state must not practice slavery, or polygamy. Slavery in the South and polygamy in the Utah territory exclude the United States from the system during most of the 19th century. The slavery question is resolved with the successful end of the war, polygamy continued until the Utah territory prohibits polygamy in the 1890s and is admitted to the Union as a state.
This diary presents a unique view of the South during a critical period of the war. Colonel Freemantle although technically a civilian and not a representative of his government has free access to most of the military leadership of the Confederacy and comments on the state of the CSA and the probabilities of success with the principal focus on the battle of Gettysburg and the siege of Vicksburg. Military observers, unofficial like Freemantle, and officials from many nations were present on the battlefields throughout the war. However, the observers from England were given exceptional access to both sides. Freemantle is able to travel through a major war with nothing more than a few letters of introduction and his notable accent.
At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Freemantle in the preface says of the war,” if I had any bias, my sympathies were rather in favor of the North, on account of the dislike which an Englishman naturally feels at the idea of slavery” (Kindle Locations 148-149). However, Freemantle admits that his opinion changes as he travels across the CSA his sympathy with the Southern cause is supported by his recognition of the gallantry and determination of the CSA and by understanding that the cause of slavery, although loudly talked about by both sides, was only a symptom of a larger cultural conflict.
Freemantle arrives in Mexico and succeeds in smuggling himself across the border to Brownsville TX providing his credentials to officers of Duffs cavalry a Texas unit. He describes the dress of the Texans,” Their dress consisted simply of flannel shirts, very ancient trousers, jack boots with enormous spurs, and black felt hats ornamented with the “lone star of Texas.” They looked rough and dirty, but were extremely civil to me.” (Kindle Locations 195-197) Throughout the memoir Freemantle describes the dress of CSA units. Most of the units did not have a uniform except a common element like the black hats of Duffs cavalry. Even officers seldom had the traditional gray except the few who were rich enough to have one tailored. In large part this is because of the lack of a significant textile industry in the CSA. Freemantle points out that smuggling cotton from Texas to Mexico could be extremely profitable. Cotton is six cents a pound in Brownsville and across the river in Mexico it is thirty-six cents, opportunity for a 600% profit by running the blockade.
Freemantle is exposed to frontier justice as he travels from Brownsville Texas as he travels with General Bee, the brother of the General who so suitably named Jackson at Manassas. A Yankee sympathizer named Montgomery had been harassing Southern troops. The CSA troops had caught and hung him, “He had been slightly buried, but his head and arms were above the ground, his arms tied together, the rope still round his neck, but part of it still dangling from quite a small mesquite tree. Dogs or wolves had probably scraped the earth from the body, and there was no flesh on the bones. I obtained this my first experience of lynch law within three hours of landing in America. (Kindle Locations 216-219).
Freemantle spends considerable time with this minor incident. The Montgomery execution is his first experience with a solution to a problem that is uniquely American. Yet, for what seems to Freemantle, vigilante justice he comments, “In spite of their peculiar habits of hanging, shooting, &c., which seemed to be natural to people living in a wild and thinly populated country, there was much to like in my fellow travelers. They all had a sort of bon-hommie honesty and straightforwardness, a natural courtesy and extreme good nature, which was very agreeable.” (Kindle Locations 798-800)
Arriving in Houston Texas, Freemantle meets Sam Houston; he is astounded at Houston’s life story and that Houston, “. . . lived for several years amongst the Cherokee Indians, who used to call him “the Raven” or the “Big Drunk.” He married an Indian squaw when he was with them.” (Kindle Locations 972-973) This was in Clarksville Arkansas; the writer’s wife is cousin to the Indian who married Houston.
The issue of slavery presents a conundrum for Freemantle. His country abolished slavery and on that alone he should loathe and oppose any kind of slave holding culture; but in conversations with CSA officials, generals, enlisted men and NCOs he relates, “To my surprise all the party were willing to agree that, a few years ago, most educated men in the South regarded slavery as a misfortune and not justifiable, though necessary under the circumstances. But the meddling, coercive conduct of the detested and despised abolitionists had caused the bonds to be drawn much tighter.” (Kindle Locations 1041-1043)
None of the Southerners Freemantle meets support the maltreatment of slaves and masters who ill-treat their slaves are hated and despised by the rest of the community. Even abolitionist books printed as much as 10 years earlier give the same impression, notably, Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup calls his first owner, “I say, in my opinion, there never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man than William Ford.” (p. 36) “They declare that Yankees make the worst masters when they settle in the South. All seem to be perfectly aware that slavery, which they did not invent but inherited from us English, is and always will be the great bar to the sympathy of the civilized world. I have heard these words used over and over again.” (Kindle Locations 1047-1049)
In East Texas not far from Shreveport, Freemantle encounters groups of plantation owners moving their slaves to Texas along with seemingly unsupervised groups of Blacks also heading for safety in Texas, “We met several planters on the road, who with their families and Negroes were taking refuge in Texas, after having abandoned their plantations in Louisiana on the approach of Banks. One of them had as many as sixty slaves with him of all ages and sizes. The road today was alive with Negroes, who are being “run” into Texas out of Banks’s way. We must have met hundreds of them, and many families of planters, who were much to be pitied, especially the ladies.” (Kindle Locations 1109-1110) Additionally, in Harrisonburg Freemantle encounters 300 slaves who had been employed on fortification building and were fleeing the fighting, “Their only idea and hope at present seemed to be to get back to their masters. All spoke of the Yankees with great detestation and expressed wishes to have nothing to do with such “bad people.” (Kindle Locations 1168-1170)
The journey from Shreveport to Jackson Mississippi takes Freemantle through areas plundered by Union forces. Crossing the Mississippi River is an ordeal of lying low and hiding in marshland to avoid Union gunboats on the river and a fast dash across the river to the eastern shore. Arriving in Natchez Mississippi in transit to Jackson Freemantle encounters more evidence that slavery in the CSS was a very undefined institution; a slave named Nelson, who operates his own carriage business. Nelson owned his carriage and three horses and paid his master $4.50 (Confederate) for the ability to operate on his own.
In Jackson Mississippi, Freemantle witnesses the style of war Grant wages. It is not only war against armies but also against the population, “during the short space of thirty-six hours, in which General Grant occupied the city, his troops had wantonly pillaged nearly all the private houses. They had gutted all the stores and destroyed what they could not carry away. All this must have been done under the very eyes of General Grant, whose name was in the book of the Bowmont House hotel.” (Kindle Locations 1383-1386) The Vicksburg campaign is a precursor of Sherman’s invasion of Georgia and destruction Sherman left in his wake in 1864/65. This looting should not surprise. When Union troops crossed into Fredericksburg in December 1862, they looted the town and officers made no effort to hinder or stop the looting.
In late June Freemantle catches up with the Army of Northern Virginia in Maryland and the stoic Robert E Lee and the enigmatic James Longstreet. Freemantle travels with Longstreet and in contrast to Federal policy; Longstreet relates to Freemantle General Lee’s philosophy on non-combatants on enemy soil he said, “it might be fair, in just retaliation, to apply the torch, yet doing so would demoralize the army and ruin its now excellent discipline. Private property is to be therefore rigidly protected. (Kindle Locations 2842-2843) This does not mean that supplies were not taken, but only that they were paid for with CSA script and unless there was CSA success the currency was worthless. A condition that Freemantle’s tent mate, Major Moses the commissary officer for the army exploits.
Freemantle spends most of the time during the fighting at Gettysburg in a tree observing the movement of troops and listening to discussion between Lee and Longstreet regarding how, when and where to attack. Freemantle’s view of Lee matches the common view of one with great dignity. Telling of Lee’s character after the failed charge on the third day, “I saw General Willcox (an officer who wears a short round jacket and a battered straw hat) come up to him, and explain, almost crying, the state of his brigade. General Lee immediately shook hands with him and said cheerfully, “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.” (Kindle Locations 3195-3198)
Freemantle is very quick to publish his diary almost as soon as arriving home. Does he do this to enlighten Englishmen about the war, or to change the political view in England of the CSA? Freemantle is of the same culture as the political leadership of the South. Two hundred years earlier large numbers of the English aristocracy lost a civil war and fled to North America and cultural traditions tend to last a long time. Since England did not intervene to support the CSA it is likely that publication of the diary did not influence political policy; yet the military influence of the war changed the way Europeans fight.
The war and the military observers have an unquestionable effect on how Europeans would wage war for the next 50 years. Prussian observers of Stonewall Jackson’s Shenandoah campaign conclude that maneuver warfare is the key to victory. In 1866 in the Seven Weeks War with Austria. Prussia wins a significant victory using tactics of fast-moving infantry defeating Austrian forces in detail and moving on, avoiding set piece big battles but winning victories. Five years later in the Franco/Prussian war using perfected tactics of fast-moving infantry with horse mounted infantry to cut off and envelop French troops, capture Napoleon III and accomplish a German state in a campaign that Jackson could have conducted. 80 years later similar tactics coupled with aircraft and tanks, Blitzkrieg, would be used with great effect in 1939 by the Germans in the conquest of Europe.
On the other side of the channel the English learn that defensive warfare backed up with superior technology can be a successful combination. In 1879 in Natal, South Africa, an English army of 1500 is wiped out by Zulus with spears because they do not form defensive squares. Less than 20 miles away a platoon of 130 English hold off two regiments of Zulu from a defensive position and concentrated firepower. The defense of Richmond and Petersburg by Lee during the last year of the war and the defense of the angle by Mead at Gettysburg provide examples for the British Army that carry forward through the Second World War.
More than anything the war precipitated a revolution in military thinking that continues to this day. Lee the gallant and dignified warrior is ultimately defeated by Grant, who is a manager more than a warrior. When Grant took command of Federal armies there were some 550,000 men scattered over a continent in several armies with varying goals. Grant streamlined the structure and, in the process, set the stage for a modern military.
Works Cited
Freemantle, James Lieutenant Colonel. Freemantle Diary. New York, New York: Burford Books, Kindle Edition, 2012.
Northup, Soloman. Twelve Years A Slave. New York, New York: Open Road Media, Kindle Edition, 2014.
A Journal of the Confederacy
A Revolution in Military Thinking
Arthur Freemantle was born into a military family. His father was a Major General and commanded a battalion of the Coldstream Guards in the Peninsular War (1801-1811). Arthur graduated from Sandhurst in 1852 and was one of those whom, ultimately the stars would fall. By the time of his travels to North America in 1863 he was a Lieutenant Colonel and later Knight of the Empire and General of the Coldstream Guards the longest still serving regiment in the British Army.
The Confederacy was desperate to gain the recognition of any European power, but England was the jewel that would make the secession work. Alliance with England would guarantee the breaking to the blockade, restore the trade in cotton and the presence of British troops in Canada would take Federal troops away from the battlefields, giving a more equitable balance of force and enhancing opportunities for victory.
In 1833 the lifelong work of William Wilberforce and John Newton succeeded in abolishing slavery as an institution in most of the English Empire. The most powerful navy in the world was dedicated to abolishing the slave trade world-wide with particular effort placed on the African slave trade. English officers, like Freemantle, were trained to interdict and seize slave operations. By 1860 the British Empire was the only nation who could exhibit force anywhere in the world. An alliance between England and the CSA would secure independence for the CSA and limit the ability of the Federal to achieve major power status.
The international state system was established with the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648. This system essentially took the issues of and about religion out of relations between states. Additionally, the treaties established the basics of what constituted a state, borders, language and culture. A state could practice any kind of government, including an established religion within its borders. The end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the Congress of Vienna made major changes to the system and included two important changes for states to be full members of the international system; a state must not practice slavery, or polygamy. Slavery in the South and polygamy in the Utah territory exclude the United States from the system during most of the 19th century. The slavery question is resolved with the successful end of the war, polygamy continued until the Utah territory prohibits polygamy in the 1890s and is admitted to the Union as a state.
This diary presents a unique view of the South during a critical period of the war. Colonel Freemantle although technically a civilian and not a representative of his government has free access to most of the military leadership of the Confederacy and comments on the state of the CSA and the probabilities of success with the principal focus on the battle of Gettysburg and the siege of Vicksburg. Military observers, unofficial like Freemantle, and officials from many nations were present on the battlefields throughout the war. However, the observers from England were given exceptional access to both sides. Freemantle is able to travel through a major war with nothing more than a few letters of introduction and his notable accent.
At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Freemantle in the preface says of the war,” if I had any bias, my sympathies were rather in favor of the North, on account of the dislike which an Englishman naturally feels at the idea of slavery” (Kindle Locations 148-149). However, Freemantle admits that his opinion changes as he travels across the CSA his sympathy with the Southern cause is supported by his recognition of the gallantry and determination of the CSA and by understanding that the cause of slavery, although loudly talked about by both sides, was only a symptom of a larger cultural conflict.
Freemantle arrives in Mexico and succeeds in smuggling himself across the border to Brownsville TX providing his credentials to officers of Duffs cavalry a Texas unit. He describes the dress of the Texans,” Their dress consisted simply of flannel shirts, very ancient trousers, jack boots with enormous spurs, and black felt hats ornamented with the “lone star of Texas.” They looked rough and dirty, but were extremely civil to me.” (Kindle Locations 195-197) Throughout the memoir Freemantle describes the dress of CSA units. Most of the units did not have a uniform except a common element like the black hats of Duffs cavalry. Even officers seldom had the traditional gray except the few who were rich enough to have one tailored. In large part this is because of the lack of a significant textile industry in the CSA. Freemantle points out that smuggling cotton from Texas to Mexico could be extremely profitable. Cotton is six cents a pound in Brownsville and across the river in Mexico it is thirty-six cents, opportunity for a 600% profit by running the blockade.
Freemantle is exposed to frontier justice as he travels from Brownsville Texas as he travels with General Bee, the brother of the General who so suitably named Jackson at Manassas. A Yankee sympathizer named Montgomery had been harassing Southern troops. The CSA troops had caught and hung him, “He had been slightly buried, but his head and arms were above the ground, his arms tied together, the rope still round his neck, but part of it still dangling from quite a small mesquite tree. Dogs or wolves had probably scraped the earth from the body, and there was no flesh on the bones. I obtained this my first experience of lynch law within three hours of landing in America. (Kindle Locations 216-219).
Freemantle spends considerable time with this minor incident. The Montgomery execution is his first experience with a solution to a problem that is uniquely American. Yet, for what seems to Freemantle, vigilante justice he comments, “In spite of their peculiar habits of hanging, shooting, &c., which seemed to be natural to people living in a wild and thinly populated country, there was much to like in my fellow travelers. They all had a sort of bon-hommie honesty and straightforwardness, a natural courtesy and extreme good nature, which was very agreeable.” (Kindle Locations 798-800)
Arriving in Houston Texas, Freemantle meets Sam Houston; he is astounded at Houston’s life story and that Houston, “. . . lived for several years amongst the Cherokee Indians, who used to call him “the Raven” or the “Big Drunk.” He married an Indian squaw when he was with them.” (Kindle Locations 972-973) This was in Clarksville Arkansas; the writer’s wife is cousin to the Indian who married Houston.
The issue of slavery presents a conundrum for Freemantle. His country abolished slavery and on that alone he should loathe and oppose any kind of slave holding culture; but in conversations with CSA officials, generals, enlisted men and NCOs he relates, “To my surprise all the party were willing to agree that, a few years ago, most educated men in the South regarded slavery as a misfortune and not justifiable, though necessary under the circumstances. But the meddling, coercive conduct of the detested and despised abolitionists had caused the bonds to be drawn much tighter.” (Kindle Locations 1041-1043)
None of the Southerners Freemantle meets support the maltreatment of slaves and masters who ill-treat their slaves are hated and despised by the rest of the community. Even abolitionist books printed as much as 10 years earlier give the same impression, notably, Twelve Years a Slave, Solomon Northup calls his first owner, “I say, in my opinion, there never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man than William Ford.” (p. 36) “They declare that Yankees make the worst masters when they settle in the South. All seem to be perfectly aware that slavery, which they did not invent but inherited from us English, is and always will be the great bar to the sympathy of the civilized world. I have heard these words used over and over again.” (Kindle Locations 1047-1049)
In East Texas not far from Shreveport, Freemantle encounters groups of plantation owners moving their slaves to Texas along with seemingly unsupervised groups of Blacks also heading for safety in Texas, “We met several planters on the road, who with their families and Negroes were taking refuge in Texas, after having abandoned their plantations in Louisiana on the approach of Banks. One of them had as many as sixty slaves with him of all ages and sizes. The road today was alive with Negroes, who are being “run” into Texas out of Banks’s way. We must have met hundreds of them, and many families of planters, who were much to be pitied, especially the ladies.” (Kindle Locations 1109-1110) Additionally, in Harrisonburg Freemantle encounters 300 slaves who had been employed on fortification building and were fleeing the fighting, “Their only idea and hope at present seemed to be to get back to their masters. All spoke of the Yankees with great detestation and expressed wishes to have nothing to do with such “bad people.” (Kindle Locations 1168-1170)
The journey from Shreveport to Jackson Mississippi takes Freemantle through areas plundered by Union forces. Crossing the Mississippi River is an ordeal of lying low and hiding in marshland to avoid Union gunboats on the river and a fast dash across the river to the eastern shore. Arriving in Natchez Mississippi in transit to Jackson Freemantle encounters more evidence that slavery in the CSS was a very undefined institution; a slave named Nelson, who operates his own carriage business. Nelson owned his carriage and three horses and paid his master $4.50 (Confederate) for the ability to operate on his own.
In Jackson Mississippi, Freemantle witnesses the style of war Grant wages. It is not only war against armies but also against the population, “during the short space of thirty-six hours, in which General Grant occupied the city, his troops had wantonly pillaged nearly all the private houses. They had gutted all the stores and destroyed what they could not carry away. All this must have been done under the very eyes of General Grant, whose name was in the book of the Bowmont House hotel.” (Kindle Locations 1383-1386) The Vicksburg campaign is a precursor of Sherman’s invasion of Georgia and destruction Sherman left in his wake in 1864/65. This looting should not surprise. When Union troops crossed into Fredericksburg in December 1862, they looted the town and officers made no effort to hinder or stop the looting.
In late June Freemantle catches up with the Army of Northern Virginia in Maryland and the stoic Robert E Lee and the enigmatic James Longstreet. Freemantle travels with Longstreet and in contrast to Federal policy; Longstreet relates to Freemantle General Lee’s philosophy on non-combatants on enemy soil he said, “it might be fair, in just retaliation, to apply the torch, yet doing so would demoralize the army and ruin its now excellent discipline. Private property is to be therefore rigidly protected. (Kindle Locations 2842-2843) This does not mean that supplies were not taken, but only that they were paid for with CSA script and unless there was CSA success the currency was worthless. A condition that Freemantle’s tent mate, Major Moses the commissary officer for the army exploits.
Freemantle spends most of the time during the fighting at Gettysburg in a tree observing the movement of troops and listening to discussion between Lee and Longstreet regarding how, when and where to attack. Freemantle’s view of Lee matches the common view of one with great dignity. Telling of Lee’s character after the failed charge on the third day, “I saw General Willcox (an officer who wears a short round jacket and a battered straw hat) come up to him, and explain, almost crying, the state of his brigade. General Lee immediately shook hands with him and said cheerfully, “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.” (Kindle Locations 3195-3198)
Freemantle is very quick to publish his diary almost as soon as arriving home. Does he do this to enlighten Englishmen about the war, or to change the political view in England of the CSA? Freemantle is of the same culture as the political leadership of the South. Two hundred years earlier large numbers of the English aristocracy lost a civil war and fled to North America and cultural traditions tend to last a long time. Since England did not intervene to support the CSA it is likely that publication of the diary did not influence political policy; yet the military influence of the war changed the way Europeans fight.
The war and the military observers have an unquestionable effect on how Europeans would wage war for the next 50 years. Prussian observers of Stonewall Jackson’s Shenandoah campaign conclude that maneuver warfare is the key to victory. In 1866 in the Seven Weeks War with Austria. Prussia wins a significant victory using tactics of fast-moving infantry defeating Austrian forces in detail and moving on, avoiding set piece big battles but winning victories. Five years later in the Franco/Prussian war using perfected tactics of fast-moving infantry with horse mounted infantry to cut off and envelop French troops, capture Napoleon III and accomplish a German state in a campaign that Jackson could have conducted. 80 years later similar tactics coupled with aircraft and tanks, Blitzkrieg, would be used with great effect in 1939 by the Germans in the conquest of Europe.
On the other side of the channel the English learn that defensive warfare backed up with superior technology can be a successful combination. In 1879 in Natal, South Africa, an English army of 1500 is wiped out by Zulus with spears because they do not form defensive squares. Less than 20 miles away a platoon of 130 English hold off two regiments of Zulu from a defensive position and concentrated firepower. The defense of Richmond and Petersburg by Lee during the last year of the war and the defense of the angle by Mead at Gettysburg provide examples for the British Army that carry forward through the Second World War.
More than anything the war precipitated a revolution in military thinking that continues to this day. Lee the gallant and dignified warrior is ultimately defeated by Grant, who is a manager more than a warrior. When Grant took command of Federal armies there were some 550,000 men scattered over a continent in several armies with varying goals. Grant streamlined the structure and, in the process, set the stage for a modern military.
Works Cited
Freemantle, James Lieutenant Colonel. Freemantle Diary. New York, New York: Burford Books, Kindle Edition, 2012.
Northup, Soloman. Twelve Years A Slave. New York, New York: Open Road Media, Kindle Edition, 2014.
