Three Months in the Southern States

April - June 1863, the high-noon of the Confederacy. The Union blockade is closing in on the last Southern ports. The Mississippi River is one siege away from cutting the Confederacy in two. But the South remains optimistic, defiant and ready for a fight. Vicksburg holds fast. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia is on the march into Maryland and Pennsylvania. The drums of war are beating loudly.

From the Rio Grande, across the Mississippi, and into Yankeedom, follow Lieutenant Colonel Fremantle’s travels through the Southern Confederacy during the spring and summer of 1863.

A British officer was a valued commodity as the Confederate States desperately sought-after international recognition. Granted extraordinary access, Fremantle went everywhere, and met everyone; from President Davis to General Lee, to cotton speculators and the common stagecoach driver. Climaxing at the Battle of Gettysburg, Fremantle’s journal provides an outstanding primary source into the daily life of the Confederacy at war.

“I never can believe that in the nineteenth century the civilized world will be condemned to witness the destruction of such a gallant race.”