Crimea Vet
Private
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2016
- Location
- Cambridgeshire, UK.
I think that most people have heard of Col. Freemantle, the English officer who was an unofficial observer on Lee’s staff at Gettysburg. I have now discovered that Sir Garnet Wolseley also met with Lee and Longstreet. Does anyone have any American references to this meeting?
What follows is taken from Wikipedia, so I cannot verify its credibility:
In November 1861, Wolseley was one of the special service officers sent to Canada in connection with the Trent incident.[7]
In 1862, shortly after the Battle of Antietam, Wolseley took leave from his military duties and went to investigate the American Civil War. He befriended Southern sympathizers in Maryland, who found him passage into Virginia with a blockade runner across the Potomac River. There he met with the Generals Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson.[10] He also provided an analysis on Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest. The New Orleans Picayune (10 April 1892) published Wolseley's ten-page portrayal of Forrest, which condensed much of what was written about him by biographers of the time. This work appeared in the Journal of the Southern Historical Society in the same year, and is commonly cited today. Wolseley addressed Forrest's role at the Pillow near Memphis, Tennessee in April, 1864 in which black USCT troops and white officers were alleged by some to have been slaughtered after Fort Pillow had been conquered. Wolseley wrote, "I do not think that the fact that one-half of the small garrison of a place taken by assault was either killed or wounded evinced any very unusual bloodthirstiness on the part of the assailants."
Wolseley in 1874, from the Illustrated London News
What follows is taken from Wikipedia, so I cannot verify its credibility:
In November 1861, Wolseley was one of the special service officers sent to Canada in connection with the Trent incident.[7]
In 1862, shortly after the Battle of Antietam, Wolseley took leave from his military duties and went to investigate the American Civil War. He befriended Southern sympathizers in Maryland, who found him passage into Virginia with a blockade runner across the Potomac River. There he met with the Generals Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet and Stonewall Jackson.[10] He also provided an analysis on Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest. The New Orleans Picayune (10 April 1892) published Wolseley's ten-page portrayal of Forrest, which condensed much of what was written about him by biographers of the time. This work appeared in the Journal of the Southern Historical Society in the same year, and is commonly cited today. Wolseley addressed Forrest's role at the Pillow near Memphis, Tennessee in April, 1864 in which black USCT troops and white officers were alleged by some to have been slaughtered after Fort Pillow had been conquered. Wolseley wrote, "I do not think that the fact that one-half of the small garrison of a place taken by assault was either killed or wounded evinced any very unusual bloodthirstiness on the part of the assailants."
Wolseley in 1874, from the Illustrated London News