A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [267]
After a couple of days’ observation, Fremantle realized that he was witnessing a rare event in military history: an invasion unaccompanied by mass rape and murder. Northern blacks were being robbed, assaulted, and in some cases forced at gunpoint into slavery. But since these crimes happened along the fringes of the army, Fremantle saw only minor infractions such as fence breaking or Northern whites being forced to accept worthless Confederate dollars for their goods. Fremantle thought they were remarkably ungrateful for the army’s restrained behavior “and really appear to be unaware that their own troops have been for two years treating Southern towns with ten times more harshness.”12 Francis Dawson felt proud to be riding in Longstreet’s corps. “The army behaved superbly in Pennsylvania,” he declared. “The orders against straggling and looting were strict.” He saw Lee dismount in front of a field of broken rails and tidy them up himself: “It was the best rebuke that he could have given to the offenders.” When the army entered Chambersburg, Dawson was surprised to see young men lolling on street corners. Suddenly Lee’s invading army of sixty thousand seemed small and vulnerable; there were no such “spare” men in Virginia. Dawson visited the prison where he had been held after the Battle of Antietam. There were Yankee prisoners in the yard, and for a brief moment he wanted to pelt them with stones, as had been done to him.
To maintain order, Lee had decreed that only generals and their staff were allowed into Chambersburg without a special pass. But this official reassurance was not enough to calm the townspeople: all the shops and hotels were closed and shuttered. The commissary officers could not find anyone willing to sell provisions, though they threatened to seize them by force if necessary. Lawley was recuperating at the Franklin Hotel, which was kept locked to casual passersby. Fremantle had to hammer on the doors, shouting that he was an English traveler, until they were cautiously opened.
Fremantle went to Lawley’s room to give him the latest news and discovered that the journalist was not alone. An Englishman dressed in the full uniform of the Hungarian hussars was sitting in the chair, recounting his journey through the lines. He had crossed into the South in late May, aided as usual by the Maryland journalist W. W. Glenn, in the hope of meeting the famous Robert E. Lee. Fremantle could not stop himself from smiling; the thirty-eight-year-old Captain Fitzgerald Ross had spent the past thirteen years in Austria and had succumbed to the country’s fondness for military pomp. He was dressed as though on parade, and brushed aside Fremantle’s warning that the Confederates would tease him mercilessly.
All day during the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth, Fremantle walked quietly among the Confederates, observing their unhurried preparations to move farther north. The army corps was dispersed for miles around, employed in the unending search for food and water. The Confederate army had marched more than ninety miles from its base at Fredericksburg. Every bullet and shell had been brought with them in long wagon lines. Despite these difficulties, Longstreet’s headquarters had a relaxed air about it. The normally taciturn general passed the early part of the evening with Fremantle, reminiscing about his time in Texas. But shortly after the Englishman departed, Longstreet received another visitor, a scout, who brought devastating news. The Union army had crossed into Maryland and was only days, if not hours, behind them.
Jeb Stuart was meant to be Lee’s eyes and ears, but at this moment