Arthur Lyon Fremantle (November 1835-25 September 1901) was a General of the British Army during the Mahdist War and an observer to the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War.
Biography[]
Fremantle and James Longstreet at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863
Arthur Fremantle was born in November 1835, the son of a British Army Lieutenant-General who had fought in the Peninsular War and at the Battle of Waterloo; Fremantle was named for the Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley. Fremantle graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, England, and he was commissioned into the British Army in 1852. In 1860, he was promoted to Captain while serving in the elite Coldstream Guards, and he decided to go on leave in 1863 to observe the American Civil War. He arrived in Mexico on 2 April 1863 and travelled through Texas and the American South, meeting several generals of the Confederate States of America. On 17 June 1863, he met CSA Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin in Richmond, Virginia, and Benjamin attempted to convince him to arrange for the United Kingdom to ally with the Confederacy; however, Fremantle was concerned about a Union invasion of Canada, and he personally sided with the Union due to Britain's opposition to slavery. On 30 June 1863, he arrived at the encampment of the Army of Northern Virginia and met Robert E. Lee, with whom he had intended to travel for a while. He observed the Battle of Gettysburg, speaking with James Longstreet about the shared culture of England and America, with James L. Kemper about politics, and with Lewis Armistead about the diversity of the Virginia men fighting in the battle. On 15 July 1863, he returned to England after visiting New York City during the New York draft riots, and he wrote about his experiences in America. In 1881, he was promoted to Major-General in the British Army, and he served in the Mahdist War in Sudan as the commander of the port of Suakin before briefly commanding British troops in Scotland in 1893. He died in 1901 at the age of 65.