By 1863 the American Civil War, which had broken out two years earlier, had attracted a gallery of official observers from foreign armies, whose mission was to accompany the warring armies and report on their operations to headquarters at home.
The role of the foreign observer was widely accepted. General George McClellan, of the United States Army, had been present as an observer with the Anglo-French expeditionary force at the siege of Sebastopol during the Crimean War.
Lieutenant-Colonel James Fremantle was an officer of the (British) Coldstream Guards who, in mid-1863, was attached to the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and accompanied it on its march to Gettysburg in July. In these extracts from his personal diaries, he describes the layout of the battle line on the second day of the fighting there, 2 July. The Northern troops of the Army of the Potomac were defending a ridge some three miles long, running from Cemetery Hill to the Little Round Top. The Confederates lined the ridge opposite. Fremantle’s description of the topography, which remains today much as it did at the time of the battle, is strikingly accurate.
He was on excellent terms with the Confederate generals — Robert E. Lee, in supreme command, and Longstreet, A. P. Hill and Ewell, commanding I, II and III Corps respectively. His report reveals him to be an acute observer of the Confederate general staff at work, Longstreet wanting to outflank the Union position, Lee to make a frontal attack. Lee had his way but Longstreet was probably in the right. The Union position was indeed weak on the left flank and, but for a hasty reinforcement of Little Round Top, might well have been turned.
Lee, far from home in central Pennsylvania, appears to have thought that his best hope was to press forward with all his strength and break the Union centre. On the third day, 3 July, he ordered just such an effort, the attack known as Pickett’s Charge. It was defeated with heavy loss and, on 4 July Lee was forced to lead his army back in defeat to Virginia.
2d July (Thursday) — We all got up at 3:30 A.M., and breakfasted a little before daylight. Lawley insisted on riding, notwithstanding his illness. Captain and I were in a dilemma for horses; but I was accommodated by Major Clark (of this staff), whilst the stout Austrian was mounted by Major Walton. The Austrian, in spite of the early hour, had shaved his cheeks and ciréd [waxed] his mustaches as beautifully as if he was on parade at Vienna.
Colonel Sorrell, the Austrian, and I arrived at 5 A.M. at the same commanding position we were on yesterday, and I climbed up a tree in company with Captain Schreibert of the Prussian Army. Just below us were seated Generals Lee, Hill, Longstreet, and Hood, in consultation — the two latter assisting their deliberations by the truly American custom of whittling sticks. General Heth was also present; he was wounded in the head yesterday, and although not allowed to command his brigade, he insists upon coming to the field.
At 7 A. M. I rode over part of the ground with General Longstreet, and saw him disposing of M’Laws’s division for today’s fight. The enemy occupied a series of high ridges, the tops of which were covered with trees, but the intervening valleys between their ridges and ours were mostly open, and partly under cultivation. The cemetery was on their right, and their left appeared to rest upon a high rocky hill. The enemy’s forces, which were now supposed to comprise nearly the whole Potomac army, were concentrated into a space apparently not more than a couple of miles in length.
The Confederates inclosed them in a sort of semicircle, and the extreme extent of our position must have been from five to six miles at least. Ewell was on our left, his headquarters in a church (with a high cupola) at Gettysburg; Hill in the center; and Longstreet on the right. Our ridges were also covered with pine woods at the tops, and generally on the rear slopes.
The artillery of both sides confronted each other at the edges of these belts of trees, the troops being completely hidden. The enemy was evidently intrenched, but the Southerners had not broken ground at all. A dead silence reigned till 4:45 P.M., and no one would have imagined that such masses of men and such a powerful artillery were about to commence the work of destruction at that hour.
Only two divisions of Longstreet were present today — M’Laws’s and Hood’s — Pickett being still in the rear. As the whole morning was evidently to be occupied in disposing the troops for the attack, I rode to the extreme right with Colonel Manning and Major Walton, where we ate quantities of cherries and got a feed of corn for our horses. We also bathed in a small stream, but not without some trepidation on my part, for we were almost beyond the lines, and were exposed to the enemy’s cavalry.
At 1 P.M. I met a quantity of Yankee prisoners who had been picked up straggling. They told me they belonged to Sickles’s corps (3d, I think), and had arrived from Emmetsburg during the night. About this time skirmishing began along part of the line, but not heavily.
At 2 P.M. General Longstreet advised me, if I wished to have a good view of the battle, to return to my tree of yesterday. I did so, and remained there with Lawley and Captain Schreibert during the rest of the afternoon. But until 4:45 P.M. all was profoundly still, and we began to doubt whether a fight was coming off today at all.
At that time, however, Longstreet suddenly commenced a heavy cannonade on the right. Ewell immediately took it up on the left. The enemy replied with at least equal fury, and in a few moments the firing along the whole line was as heavy as it is possible to conceive. A dense smoke arose for six miles. There was little wind to drive it away, and the air seemed full of shells — each of which appeared to have a different style of going, and to make a different noise from the others. The ordnance on both sides is of a very varied description.
Every now and then a caisson [ammunition wagon] would blow up — if a Federal one, a Confederate yell would immediately follow. The Southern troops, when charging, or to express their delight, always yell in a manner peculiar to themselves. The Yankee cheer is much more like ours; but the Confederate officers declare that the Rebel yell has a particular merit, and always produces a salutary and useful effect upon their adversaries. A corps is sometimes spoken of as a ‘good yelling regiment’.
As soon as the firing began, General Lee joined Hill just below our tree, and he remained there nearly all the time, looking through his fieldglass — sometimes talking to Hill and sometimes to Colonel Long of his staff. But generally he sat quite alone on the stump of a tree. What I remarked especially was, that during the whole time the firing continued, he only sent one message, and only received one report. It is evidently his system to arrange the plan thoroughly with the three corps commanders, and then leave to them the duty of modifying and carrying it out to the best of their abilities.
When the cannonade was at its height, a Confederate band of music, between the cemetery and ourselves, began to play polkas and waltzes, which sounded very curious, accompanied by the hissing and bursting of the shells.
At 5:45 all became comparatively quiet on our left and in the cemetery; but volleys of musketry on the right told us that Longstreet’s infantry were advancing, and the onward progress of the smoke showed that he was progressing favorably. About 6:30 there seemed to be a check, and even a slight retrograde movement. Soon after 7, General Lee got a report by signal from Longstreet to say ‘We are doing well.’
A little before dark the firing dropped off in every direction, and soon ceased altogether. We then received intelligence that Longstreet had carried everything before him for some time, capturing several batteries, and driving the enemy from his positions; but when Hill’s Florida brigade and some other troops gave way, he was forced to abandon a small portion of the ground he had won, together with all the captured guns, except three. His troops, however, bivouacked during the night on ground occupied by the enemy this morning.
Everyone deplores that Longstreet will expose himself in such a reckless manner. Today he led a Georgian regiment in a charge against a battery, hat in hand, and in front of everybody. General Barksdale was killed and Semmes mortally wounded; but the most serious loss was that of General Hood, who was badly wounded in the arm early in the day. I heard that his Texans are in despair. Lawley and I rode back to the General’s camp, which had been moved to within a mile of the scene of action. Longstreet, however, with most of his staff, bivouacked on the field.
Major Fairfax arrived at about 10 P.M. in a very bad humor. He had under his charge about 1,000 to 1,500 Yankee prisoners who had been taken today; among them a general, whom I heard one of his men accusing of having been ‘so G — d d — d drunk that he had turned his guns upon his own men’. But, on the other hand, the accuser was such a thundering blackguard, and proposed taking such a variety of oaths in order to escape from the US Army, that he is not worthy of much credit. A large train of horses and mules, &c., arrived today, sent in by General Stuart [J. E. B. Stuart, noted Confederate cavalry commander], and captured, it is understood, by his cavalry, which had penetrated to within 6 miles of Washington.