Colonel Fremantle, a member of the Cold Stream Guards, was a guest of
the Army of Northern Virginia during the Gettysburg campaign. After the
battle of Gettysburg, he returned to England and published “Three Months
in the Southern States.” The following is a vivid extract, describing a
part of the battle from the Confederate lines.
“_July 1st (Wednesday)._ At 4.30 P.M. we came in sight of Gettysburg,
and joined General Lee and General Hill, who were on the top of one of
the ridges which form a peculiar feature of the country round
Gettysburg. We could see the enemy retreating up one of the opposite
ridges, pursued by the Confederates with loud yells. The position into
which the enemy had been driven was evidently a strong one. His right
appeared to rest on a cemetery, on the top of a high ridge to the right
of Gettysburg, as we looked at it.
“General Hill now came up and told me he had been very unwell all day,
and in fact he looks very delicate. He said he had two divisions
engaged, and had driven the enemy four miles into the present position,
capturing a great many prisoners, some cannon, and some colors. He said,
however, that the Yankees had fought with a determination unusual to
them.
“_July 2nd (Thursday)._ 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 quiet, 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 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 made a different noise from the others. The ordnance on
both sides is of a very varied description. Every now and then a caisson
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
like ours, but the Confederate officers declare that the Rebel yell has
a particular merit, and always produces a salutary 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
field-glasses, 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 sent only one message, and received only one report. It
evidently is his system to arrange the plan thoroughly with the three
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; but about 6.30 there seemed to be a check, and
even a slight retrograde movement.... 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 in
the morning.
“_July 3rd (Friday)._ At 2.30 P.M., after passing General Lee and his
staff, I rode on through the woods in the direction in which I had left
Longstreet. I soon began to meet many wounded men returning from the
front; many of them asked in piteous tones the way to a doctor or an
ambulance. The further I got, the greater became the number of the
wounded. At last I came to a perfect stream of them flocking through the
woods in numbers as great as the crowd in Oxford Street in the middle of
the day. Some were walking alone on crutches composed of two rifles,
others were supported by men less badly wounded than themselves, and
others carried on stretchers by the ambulance corps, but in no case did
I see a sound man helping the wounded to the rear unless he carried the
red badge of the ambulance corps. They were still under heavy fire, the
shells bringing down great limbs of trees, and carrying further
destruction amongst this melancholy procession. I saw all this in much
less time than it takes to write it, and although astonished to meet
such vast numbers of wounded, I had not seen enough to give me any idea
of the real extent of the mischief.
“When I got close up to General Longstreet, I saw one of his regiments
advancing through the woods in good order; so, thinking I was just in
time to see the attack, I remarked to the General that ‘I wouldn’t have
missed this for anything.’ Longstreet was seated at the top of a snake
fence at the edge of the woods (Spangler Woods), and looking perfectly
calm and unperturbed. He replied, laughing, ‘The devil you wouldn’t! I
would like to have missed it very much; we’ve attacked and been
repulsed: look there!’
“For the first time I then had a view of the open space between the two
positions, and saw it covered with Confederates slowly and sulkily
returning towards us in small broken parties, under a heavy fire of
artillery. But the fire where we were was not so bad as further to the
rear; for although the air seemed alive with shells, yet the greater
number burst behind us. The General told me that Pickett’s Division had
succeeded in carrying the enemy’s position and captured his guns, but
after remaining there twenty minutes, it had been forced to retire on
the retreat of Heth and Pettigrew on his left....
“Major Walton was the only officer with him (Longstreet) when I came
up—all the rest had been put in the charge. In a few minutes Major
Latrobe arrived on foot, carrying his saddle, having just had his horse
killed. Colonel Sorrell was also in the same predicament, and Captain
Goree’s horse was wounded in the mouth....
“Soon after I joined General Lee, who had in the meanwhile come to that
part of the field on becoming aware of the disaster. If Longstreet’s
conduct was admirable, that of General Lee was perfectly sublime. He was
engaged in rallying and in encouraging the broken troops, and was riding
about a little in front of the woods, quite alone—the whole of his staff
being engaged in a similar manner further to the rear. His face, which
is always placid and cheerful, did not show signs of the slightest
disappointment, or annoyance; and he was addressing to every soldier he
met a few words of encouragement, such as, ‘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.’ He spoke to all
the wounded men that passed him, and the slightly wounded he exhorted
‘to bind up their hurts and take up a musket’ in this emergency. Very
few failed to answer his appeal, and I saw many badly wounded men take
off their hats and cheer him. He said to me, ‘This has been a sad day
for us, Colonel—a sad day; but we can’t expect always to gain
victories.’ He was also kind enough to advise me to get into some more
sheltered position as the shells were bursting round us with
considerable frequency....
“I saw General Wilcox 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.’ In this manner I saw General Lee encourage and
reanimate his somewhat dispirited troops, and magnanimously take upon
his own shoulders the whole weight of the repulse.”