Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.

In early 1864, printers in New York and Mobile, Ala. began to publish one of the most unusual books of the Civil War: the diary of a British officer, Lt. Colonel Arthur Fremantle, who had spent three months observing the war, on both sides. Though he began his tour with a pro-Union bias on account of his opposition to slavery, Fremantle traveled extensively through the South. Entering through Mexico, he crossed the Rio Grande on April 7, 1863, and left New York to return to Britain 14 weeks later. His insights into the Confederacy, though at times myopic, especially on the question of slavery, offer one of the best single sources on life in the wartime South.

Fremantle certainly got around: During his journey he visited every rebellious state except Arkansas and Florida, meeting personally with prominent Confederate leaders. He was an observer at Gettysburg, where he is popularly remembered as a character in Michael Shaara’s historical novel “The Killer Angels.”

In a war that focused extensively on the front lines, Fremantle is especially valuable on the civilian population. He was impressed with the character of soldiers on both sides but spent more time with civilians in the South where he observed that although “every other man one meets has been ruined since the war, all speak of their losses with the greatest equanimity.” Toward the end of his Confederate visit he wrote that he

never met a man who was not anxious for a termination of the war; and I never met a man, woman or child who contemplated its termination … without an entire separation from the … Yankee. I [was] never asked for alms … by any man or woman, black or white … I rarely heard any person complain of the almost total ruin, which had befallen so many.

Fremantle was particularly spellbound by the resolve of Southern women. “All of the villages through which we passed were deserted except by women and very old men … [I]t is impossible to exaggerate the unfortunate condition of the women left behind … they have scarcely any clothes … and are in miserable uncertainty as to the fate of their relations, whom they can hardly ever communicate with.” As long as the tenacity of women persisted, he concluded, the Confederate armies would remain in the field.

The ferocity among women that Fremantle witnessed reflected in part the escalation of the war to encompass Southern civilians. He describes the destruction of Jackson, Miss., nearly a year and a half before Sherman’s March to the Sea:

[Union] troops had wantonly pillaged nearly all private houses. They had gutted all the stores and destroyed what they could not carry away. All of this must have been done under the very eyes of General Grant … I saw the ruins of the Roman Catholic Church … and the principal hotel … together with many other buildings which could in no way be identified with the Confederate government. The whole town was a miserable wreck.

A month later Fremantle was in Northern Virginia. The destruction was devastating. “All fences have been destroyed and numberless farms burnt, the chimneys alone left standing,” he observed. “It is difficult to depict and impossible to exaggerate the sufferings which this part of Virginia has undergone.” Yet he noted that the women of the region were less hostile toward the enemy than the ladies farther south. When asked to explain, the Virginia ladies replied that “they had seen many men shot down in the streets before their own eyes [and] knew what they were talking about, which other more excited Southern women did not.”

Fremantle also shared a number of observations about slavery. But while he recognized the prevalence of racism among Southerners, he viewed it in the same sort of sepia-toned terms that Margaret Mitchell would later employ in “Gone With the Wind.” He took it on face that the “peculiar institution” was presumed to be necessary to the economic survival of the region, and his diary records numerous instances of affinity between the races:

Most educated men in the South regarded slavery as a misfortune and not justifiable, though necessary under the circumstances … [T]hey do not attempt to deny that there are many instances of cruelty. But they say a man who is known to mistreat his Negroes is hated by all the rest of the community.

Eventually he concludes,

From what I have seen of the Southern Negroes, I am of the opinion that the Confederates could … convert a great number into soldiers; and from the affection that undoubtedly exists as a general rule between the slaves and their masters, I think they would prove more efficient than black troops under any other circumstances.

The validity of Fremantle’s opinion is impossible to verify. The Confederate Congress did not permit blacks to become regular soldiers until a month before Appomattox, when recruitment of 300,000 was authorized.

In any case, Fremantle’s view on slavery demonstrates the limits of his observations – namely, that he only spoke casually with a few slaves. If he had conversed more deeply, he might have found that what he took as comity and friendship on the part of slaves partly reflected self-interest among slaves to conceal their true, more conflicted feelings. For example, Booker T. Washington confirmed that slaves on the small farm where he lived vied with one another to care for their owner’s sons when the boys returned home with combat wounds. They also buried the white family’s silver to protect it from Yankees and stood ready to defend that family against assault, but they privately rejoiced at each Northern victory.

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Fremantle was likewise impressed with the quality of Confederate soldiers. In Tennessee he met Col. George Grenfell, a British expatriate who had joined Gen. John Hunt Morgan’s cavalry raiders. Grenfell explained the qualities required of Confederate military leaders. “The only way in which an officer could acquire influence over the Confederate soldier was by his personal conduct under fire … Every atom of authority has to be purchased by a drop of your blood.”

Above all, Fremantle was awestruck by Robert E. Lee. Fremantle admired how Lee required his soldiers to respect private property after crossing the Potomac River. “To anyone who has seen, as I have, the ravages of Northern troops in Southern towns, this forbearance seems most commendable and surprising,” he wrote. Lee, he said, was “a perfect gentleman in every respect … I believe he has never slept in a house since he has commanded the Virginia army … His only faults … arise from his excessive amiability.”

When Lee lost at Gettysburg with the bloody repulse of the 13,000-man assault known as Pickett’s Charge, Fremantle considered the general’s conduct in meeting survivors as “perfectly sublime”:

His face … did not show signs of the slightest disappointment … 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.’

A few days later Fremantle crossed enemy lines in order to reach New York to catch a ship for Britain. Although he encountered some difficulties convincing the Federals he was not a spy, his diary records, “The only Federal officers I [came] in contact with were gentlemen.” After arriving in Philadelphia and New York, he was struck by the contrasting prosperity of the North. “The streets are … crowded with able-bodied civilians capable of bearing arms, who have evidently no intention of doing so. They apparently don’t feel the war at all here.” He witnessed the New York draft riots and wrote, “No colored man or woman was visible or safe in the streets or even in his own dwelling.”

Partly because the outcome remained contested during the midpoint of the war when he visited, Fremantle overestimated the prospects for a rebel victory. But he correctly identified the keystone that when knocked from its position led to a Confederate collapse: once the letters from those hard-eyed women at home became hopeless, the soldiers deserted.

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Sources: Bruce Levine, “Confederate Emancipation”; Emory Thomas, “The Confederate Nation”; Ludwell Johnson, “North Against South”; Bell Irvin Wiley, “Southern Negroes”; Eugene D. Genovese, “Roll, Jordan, Roll”; James McPherson, “Battle Cry of Freedom.”

Phil Leigh is an independent Civil War historian and author. He is writing a book about wartime intersectional trade between North and South, “Trading With the Enemy.”