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On Friday 15th March 2002 my wife Kati and I set off on yet another 950 mile drive from our home in Orlando, Florida, to Gettysburg in
“Yankeeland,” as Arthur Fremantle calls it in his diary.
Our rendezvous was noon, Saturday, at the Cashtown Inn, a few miles west of Gettysburg, with Tom Fremantle, (also our daughter, Sallyanne, who came in from New York). Tom had finally
arrived at the high water mark of his long trek from Brownsville, Texas.
The venue was most appropriate, since Fremantle and Lawley heard the opening shots as they rode down the Chambersburg Pike, and they would have passed the Cashtown Inn. Who knows, maybe
they even popped in for a quick-one.
We had a pleasant lunch and then took Tom back to his lodgings to finally meet his indefatigable companion, Browny. She was shorter than I had imagined, and these pictures are the first
published of a mule which will become a reenacting legend. After all, there are not many animals who can say they have walked from Texas to New York. She was also surprisingly shy, and tried to hide behind a thin
tree like some ostrich burying its head in the sand. But Tom soon coaxed her out and allowed us to stroke her head. He had arranged for her to be stabled at The Land of Little Horses, so he and I set off down the
back-roads of Gettysburg.
It was a strange experience, walking along with a mule clip-clopping behind, and exchanging waves from passing motorists with expressions of bewilderment on seeing someone actually walking
on the road. It was only about four miles - one quarter of what Tom normally covers in a day - but towards the end my feet were clearly telling me they were on the end of my legs.
With Browny safely introduced to a blind pony and three goats we left her in the capable hands of Sandy, owner of the fine establishment which provides family entertainment and
petting with about 100 animals, from a dromedary to a dwarf horse.
I had arranged rooms in the Baltimore Street Inn, right in the center of the action for Tom, who naturally wanted to visit the battlefield and peripheral attractions of Gettysburg. By
the time we had booked into this fine hostelry there was not much left of Saturday, so we
strolled up to the Dobbin House cellar bar for dinner. This was used as a hospital during the three day battle, and still has an active spring gurgling out of the cellar wall.
Sunday dawned gray and dreary with a chill which we Floridians are not used to, and which I had never experienced in ten years visiting
Gettysburg – always in July for the reenactments. We fortified ourselves with a Champagne breakfast to celebrate Tom’s birthday, and discussed the programme for the day.
Kati and Sallyanne decided they preferred (warm) curiosity shopping, so Tom and I started by braving the biting wind at Herr’s Ridge, where
Fremantle stood to observe the opening salvos, then followed his path as Lee’s army pushed the Federals back to the Seminary and into the town.
Tom exhibited an extraordinary knowledge of both the battle and the movements of his ancestor, which made my job explaining a complicated battle
much easier. Still, it was noon before we covered the first days confrontation, and we had a rendezvous with another famous ancestor, none other
than Lt.Gen.James Longstreet, who befriended Fremantle back in ’63. 
Dan Paterson is a great-great grandson of Longstreet and was instrumental in erecting the bronze of
his famous ancestor, on Confederate Avenue a few years ago. I had planned this as an auspicious meeting of two relatives who had stood in this place 139 years ago, but I had not planned for the
weather and by the time we arrived it was snowing! I was thankful for my heavy Guards uniform, which I had many times wished was thinner at Southern reenactments, but certainly not this day.
Longstreet and Fremantle were meeting once more, at this historic place, like the old comrades used to do each year, with memories and bonds which remain unbroken to the present generation.
A few tour buses stopped on the road and flashbulbs popped, but no-one braved the biting snow. What an opportunity they missed, and they will never know who they photographed.
After a while, (like about ten minutes!), it was agreed we adjourn to the back room pub in the
Farnsworth House, on Baltimore Street, for hot toddy and to thaw out, where we were joined by Kati and Sallyanne.
We only had this one precious day, before Tom was again off on his walk and we returned to Florida, so come hell or high water, we were going to do the battlefield!
I covered the second days fighting with visits to The Wheatfield, Devils Den and Little Round Top, but were unable to make Culp’s Hill before we became
engrossed in events of the third day, and that magnificent, but futile charge, which to my mind is erroneously titled “Picket’s.” It should be known as The Southerner’s Charge.
Luckily it stopped snowing and Tom was able to grasp something of the enormity of the task which those brave men tried to accomplish in the
blistering heat of that July day. We wondered how they might have faired if the weather had been like today? Would the Yankee powder have been damp,
would the snow have presented more difficult targets, would they simply have had more stamina? We were certainly beginning to loose ours, and the chill
was getting to my bones, so we decided the best place to cover questions like these was back in the pub. I have often wondered if the American Civil War
had occurred in England, might it have been settled by Davis and Lincoln over a pint or two in the local?
Our next visit was to The Regimental Quartermaster, one of the best suttleries in the business. George Lomax is one of the organizers of the
Gettysburg reenactments, and I wanted him to meet a “real” Fremantle, and hear that many of the family are planning to attend next years 140th.
The Ladies joined us again and we had another fine meal in the Dobbin House, then went back to our “digs” to show Tom the video of the Fremantle grave restoration ceremony, attended by his parents and many aunts and uncles, in Brighton last September.
Monday morning we bade a fond farewell to Tom and Browny, as they set off on the last 250 miles of a 3000 mile walk across America, and
pointed our own nose south, back to the land of perpetual sunshine.
As we pulled into our driveway in Orlando, having covered 950 miles in 14 hours, it was strange to think that Tom was only 20 miles or so east of
Gettysburg. What could Gen.Lee have done with such transportation I wonder?
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