Frank Lawley and the Confederacy

FRANK LAWLEY AND THE CONFEDERACY Brian Jenkins Frank Lawley's name is one that many students of the Civil War will recognize and yet not be quite able to place. He flits briefly across the pages or is cited as a source in some studies of Confederate military history, particularly biographies of Lee and Jackson, and even makes an appearance in Michael Shaara's recent Pulitzer Prize winning novel about the battle of Gettysburg. Also, one of the volumes in the series of Confederate Centennial Studies is devoted to his work. He was, of course, the special correspondent of The Times in the South from the Fall of 1862 until the fall of Richmond, and he travelled with the Confederate troops, especially those of Lee, on their many campaigns during this period. Indeed, he became an intimate of general headquarters, occasionally dined with Lee, and when he fell ill on the march to Gettysburg was not only transported in an army ambulance but lived with the doctors on the headquarters staff, who lived more luxuriously than their generals. All of the while he was sending home to Britain's most powerful newspaper, by the somewhat circuitous route of the French Consulate in Richmond and Paris office of The Times, reports that helped to shape that nation's view of the military events and prospects in America.1 Francis Charles Lawley was the fourth and youngest son of the first Baron Wenlock. Bom a gentleman, he received the education appropriate to his station. He attended school at Hatfield and Rugby before going up to Balliol College, Oxford, and in 1848 was elected a fellow of All Souls. By then he had also entered the Inner Temple but was not called to the bar. However, if he enjoyed some of the benefits of gentlemanly birth, Lawley quickly fell victim to one of its temptations. He became addicted to the Turf. A little successful gambling soon begat greater failures, and Lawley began to sink seriously into debt. A joint owner of the favorite for the Derby in 1850, he backed the colt heavily only to see it finish a 1 See Douglas Southall Freeman, H. E. Lee, (New York, 1935); Clifford Dowdy, Lee (Boston, 1965); G. F. R. Henderson, Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War (reprinted, New York, 1961); Frank Vandiver, Mighty Stonewall (New York, 1957); Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels (New York, 1974); William Stanley Hoole, Lawley Covers the Confederacy (Tuscaloose, 1964); Walter Lord (ed.), The Fremantle Diary (New York, 1954), pp. 189, 192. Dowdey, Lee, pp. 375-376; The History of The Times: The Tradition Established 1841-1884 (London, 1939), p. 379. 144 costly third. There now began for him five years of what he was later to describe as "hopeless and heart breaking struggle." With the assistance of his family he attempted to pull his life together. In July of 1852 he secured election to Parliament as a Liberal for the Yorkshire constituency of Beverly, and when in December of that same year William E. Gladstone became Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Aberdeen Coalition he appointed Lawley, a cousin of his wife, his Private Secretary. The young Member, although already overburdened with debts, accepted the post to please his family and perhaps in the hope that it would assist him to break with the Turf. It did not, and by 1854 his physical removal from temptation seemed the only solution. Thus Gladstone's close friend, the Duke of Newcastle, before retiring as Colonial Secretary, offered Lawley the vacant post of Governor of South Australia, and after some hesitation he accepted, although by then Sir George Grey had succeeded Newcastle at the Colonial Office.2 Grey was not over impressed with the young man. Lawley was still under thirty and there had been murmurings in Parliament about the appointment of so young and unknown a figure. More disturbing, however, were the persistent reports of his heavy indebtedness , and it even crossed Grey's mind that Lawley wanted the Australian appointment to remove himself not from temptation but from the reach of his many creditors. Then the rumors began to circulate that Lawley had abused his position as Gladstone's...