Diary of Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle: Wednesday, May 13, 1863

There was a row on board last night; one of the officers having been too attentive to a lady, had to skedaddle suddenly into the woods, in order to escape the fury of her protector, and he has not thought it advisable to reappear. My trusty companion for several days, the poor young Missourian, was taken ill to-day, and told me lie had a “right smart little fever on him.” I doctored him with some of the physic which Mr Maloney had given me, and he got better in the evening.

We had pickets out in the woods last night. Two of my fellow-travellers on that duty fell in with a negro, and pretending they were Yankees, asked him to join them. He consented, and even volunteered to steal his master's horses; and he then received a tremendous thrashing, administered by the two soldiers with their ramrods.

At 9 P.M., to the surprise of all, the captain suddenly made up his mind to descend the river at all hazards, thinking, I suppose, that anything was better than the uncertainty of the last twenty-four hours.

The further we went, the more beautiful was the scenery.

At 4 P.m. we were assured by a citizen on the bank that the gunboats really had retreated; and at 5.30 our doubts were set at rest, to our great satisfaction, by descrying the Confederate flag flying from Fort Beauregard, high above the little town of Harrisonburg. After we had landed, I presented my letter of introduction from General Hébert to Colonel Logan, who commands the fort. He introduced me to a German officer, the engineer.

They gave me an account of the attack and repulse of the four Federal gunboats under Commodore Woodford, and supposed to have been the Pittsburg (ironclad), the General Price, the Arizona, and another.

Fort Beauregard is a much more formidable looking work than I expected to see, and its strength had evidently been much underrated at Munroe.

A hill 190 feet high, which rises just in rear of Harrisonburg, has been scarped and fortified. It is situated at an angle of the river, and faces a long "reach" of two miles.

The gunboats, after demanding an unconditional surrender, which was treated with great contempt by Colonel Logan, opened fire at 2 P.M. on Sunday, and kept it up till 6.30, throwing about one hundred and fifty 9 and 11 inch shell. The gunboats reopened again for about an hour on Monday afternoon, when they finally withdrew, the Arizona being crippled.

The fort fired altogether about forty-five 32-pound shot (smooth bore.) The range was about a mile.

The garrison thought that they had loosened several of the Pittsburg's iron-plates. They felt confident they could have sunk the wooden vessels if they had attempted to force the passage; and they were naturally much elated with their success, which certainly had not been anticipated on board my steamer, or at Munroe.

I had not time to visit the interior of the fort, but I saw the effect of the shell upon the outside. Those which fell in the sand did not burst. Only three men were wounded in the garrison. They told me the deck of the Pittsburg was furnished with a parapet of cotton bales for riflemen.

The river at Harrisonburg is about 160 yards broad, and very deep, with a moderate current. The town, being between the vessels and the fort, had, of course, suffered considerably during the bombardment.

When the works are complete they will be much more formidable.

To our great joy Colonel Logan decided that our vessel should proceed at once to Trinity, which is fifteen miles nearer Natchez (on the Mississippi) than Harrisonburg.

We arrived there at 8 P.M., and found that the gunboats had only just left, after having destroyed all the molasses and rum they could find, and carried away a few negroes.

Six of us pigged in one very small room, paying a dollar each for this luxury to an old woman, who was most inhospitable, and told us “she didn't want to see no soldiers, as the Yanks would come back and burn her house for harbouring rebels.” I am always taken for a Confederate officer, partly from being in their company, and partly on account of my clothes, which happen to be a grey shooting-suit, almost the same colour as most of the soldiers' coats.

SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 91-5

Diary of Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle: Monday, May 11, 1863

General Hébert is a good-looking creole.* He was a West-Pointer, and served in the old army, but afterwards became a wealthy sugar-planter. He used to hold Magruder's position as commander-in-chief in Texas, but he has now been shelved at Munroe, where he expects to be taken prisoner any day; and, from the present gloomy aspect of affairs about here, it seems extremely probable that he will not be disappointed in his expectations. He is extremely down upon England for not recognising the South. †

He gave me a passage down the river in a steamer, which was to try to take provisions to Harrisonburg; but, at the same time, he informed me that she might very probably be captured by a Yankee gunboat.

At 1 P.M. I embarked for Harrisonburg, which is distant from Munroe by water 150 miles, and by land 75 miles. It is fortified, and offers what was considered a weak obstruction to the passage of the gunboats up the river to Munroe.

The steamer was one of the curious American river boats, which rise to a tremendous height out of the water, like great wooden castles. She was steered from a box at the very top of all, and this particular one was propelled by one wheel at her stern.

The river is quite beautiful; it is from 200 to 300 yards broad, very deep and tortuous, and the large trees grow right down to the very edge of the water.

Our captain at starting expressed in very plain terms his extreme disgust at the expedition, and said he fully expected to run against a gunboat at any turn of the river.

Soon after leaving Munroe, we passed a large plantation. The negro quarters were larger than a great many Texan towns, and they held three hundred hands.

After we had proceeded about half an hour, we were stopped by a mounted orderly (called a courier), who from the bank roared out the pleasing information, “They're a-fighting at Harrisonburg.” The captain on hearing this turned quite green in the face, and remarked that he'd be “dogged” if he liked running into the jaws of a lion, and he proposed to turn back; but he was jeered at by my fellow-travellers, who were all either officers or soldiers, wishing to cross the Mississippi to rejoin their regiments in the different Confederate armies.

One pleasant fellow, more warlike than the rest, suggested that as we had some Enfields on board, we should make “a little bit of a fight,” or at least “make one butt at a gunboat.” I was relieved to find that these insane proposals were not received with any enthusiasm by the majority.

The plantations, as we went further down the river, looked very prosperous; but signs of preparations for immediate skedaddling were visible in most of them, and I fear they are all destined to be soon desolate and destroyed.

We came to a courier picket every sixteen miles. At one of them we got the information, “Gun-boats drove back,” at which there was great rejoicing, and the captain, recovering his spirits, became quite jocose, and volunteered to give me letters of introduction to a “particular friend of his about here, called Mr Farragut;” but the next news, “Still a-fightin’,” caused us to tie ourselves to a tree at 8 P.M., off a little village called Columbia, which is half-way between Munroe and Harrisonburg.

We then lit a large fire, round which all the passengers squatted on their heels in Texan fashion, each man whittling a piece of wood, and discussing the merits of the different Yankee prisons at New Orleans or Chicago. One of them, seeing me, called out, “I reckon, Kernel, if the Yankees catch you with us, they’ll say you're in d----d bad company;" which sally caused universal hilarity.

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* The descendants of the French colonists in Louisiana are called Creoles; most of them talk French, and I have often met Louisianian regiments talking that language.

† General Hébert is the only man of education I met in the whole of my travels who spoke disagreeably about England in this respect. Most people say they think we are quite right to keep out of it as long as we can; but others think our Government is foolish to miss such a splendid chance of “smashing the Yankees,” with whom we must have a row sooner or later.

SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 87-90

Diary of Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle: Sunday, May 10, 1863

I spent a very rough night in consequence of the badness of the road, the jolting of the carriage, and having to occupy a centre seat.

In the morning we received news from every one we met of the fall of Alexandria.

The road to-day was alive with negroes, who are being “run” into Texas out of Banks's way. We must have met hundreds of them, and many families of planters, who were much to be pitied, especially the ladies.

On approaching Munroe, we passed through the camp of Walker's division (8000 strong), which was on its march from Arkansas to meet Banks. The division had embarked in steamers, and had already started down the “Wachita” towards the Red River, when the news arrived of the fall of Alexandria, and of the presence of Federal gunboats in or near the Wachita itself. This caused the precipitate return and disembarkation of Walker's division. The men were well armed with rifles and bayonets, but they were dressed in ragged civilian clothes. The old Matagorda man recognised his son in one of these regiments — a perfect boy.

Munroe is on the “Wachita” (pronounced Washtaw), which is a very pretty and wide stream. After crossing it we arrived at the hotel after dark.

Universal confusion reigned there; it was full of officers and soldiers of Walker's division, and no person would take the slightest notice of us.

In desperation I called on General Hebert, who commanded the post. I told him who I was, and gave him a letter of introduction, which I had fortunately brought from Kirby Smith. I stated my hard case, and besought an asylum for the night, which he immediately accorded me in his own house.

The difficulty of crossing the Mississippi appeared to increase the nearer I got to it, and General Hebert told me that it was very doubtful whether I could cross at all at this point. The Yankee gunboats, which had forced their way past Vicksburg and Port Hudson, were roaming about the Mississippi and Red River, and some of them were reported at the entrance of the Wachita itself, a small fort at Harrisonburg being the only impediment to their appearance in front of Munroe.

On another side, the enemy's forces were close to Delhi, only forty miles distant.

There were forty or fifty Yankee deserters here from the army besieging Vicksburg. These Yankee deserters, on being asked their reasons for deserting, generally reply, — “Our Government has broken faith with us. We enlisted to fight for the Union, and not to liberate the G-d d----d niggers.” Vicksburg is distant from this place about eighty miles.

The news of General Lee's victory at Chancellorsville had just arrived here. Every one received it very coolly, and seemed to take it quite as a matter of course; but the wound of Stonewall Jackson was universally deplored.

SOURCE: Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States: April-June, 1863, p. 85-7