Arthur Lyon Fremantle
General Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle (11 November 1835 – 25 September 1901) was a British Army officer and a notable British witness to the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Whilst holding the rank of "Captain and Lieutenant Colonel" he spent three months (from 2 April until 16 July 1863) in North America, travelling through parts of the Confederate States of America and the Union. Contrary to popular belief, Colonel Fremantle was not an official representative of the United Kingdom; instead, he was something of a war tourist. Early life and career Fremantle was born into a distinguished military family; his father, Lieutenant-General John Fremantle, had commanded a battalion of the Coldstream Guards, and had served during the Peninsular War and Waterloo Campaign, as well as acting as aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-General John Whitelocke during the abortive British invasion of Buenos Aires in 1807. Arthur's middle name, Lyon, came from his mother, Agnes Lyon. He was called "Arthur" after the Duke of Wellington, who had been the first witness at his parents' wedding in 1829. After his graduation from Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Arthur Fremantle was commissioned into the British Army in 1852, serving firstly as an ensign in the 70th Foot, before being transferred to the 52nd Foot almost immediately thereafter. The following year, Fremantle became ensign and lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards, and continued to receive promotions until, in 1860, at the age of 25, he held the rank of captain of his regiment and lieutenant colonel in the Army. The same year, Fremantle was appointed to the position of assistant military secretary at Gibraltar under Governor William Codrington. In January 1862, the Confederate commerce raider CSS Sumter, pursued by the Union Navy, arrived in port. The ship's commander, Raphael Semmes, sought to have his ship repaired and refitted, although ultimately the Sumter was sold and its crew transferred to the newly constructed CSS Alabama. Sometime in early 1862, the young British captain met the flamboyant Confederate captain, and was inspired by Semmes' tales of blockade running and combat on the high seas. Like many other officers of his generation, including Lieutenant Colonel Garnet Wolseley, Fremantle had a considerable interest in the American Civil War. Unlike most of the others, however, he decided to take a tour of the South, and applied for a leave of absence in 1863. By his own admission, his initial sympathies lay with the Union, due to his natural distaste for slavery. But as stated in his own book, in the Preface: On 2 March 1863, Captain and Lieutenant Colonel Fremantle left England on board the mail steamer Atrato. Travelling through Texas Fremantle entered the Confederacy through the Mexican town of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, on 2 April on board the Royal Navy frigate HMS Immortalité to avoid being in violation of the Union blockade, and crossed the Rio Grande into Brownsville, Texas. Within three hours of his arrival in the Confederacy, Fremantle encountered 'frontier justice' for the first time, finding the body