History Today - Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and The Battle of Little Round Top

If you are a student of history (especially the American Civil War), or saw Ken Burns’ epic documentary “The Civil War,” then you know about Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the 20^th Maine.  Today is the 150^th anniversary of the famous “Battle of the Little Round Top,” which took place on July 2, 1863 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was a college professor in Maine when the Civil War broke out in 1861.  Driven by his high ideals, Chamberlain, like so many, immediately responded to Lincoln’s call to arms.  Based on his highly polished academic credentials (which included no military training), Chamberlain was offered command of the 20^th Maine volunteers as a colonel.  As he was to recall, he thought it better for him to "start a little lower and learn the business first."  He was made Lt. Colonel, and despite the skepticism of some professional soldiers (who though him a bit of a dandy), he took to military life.  Highly disciplined and with complete faith in the Union cause, Chamberlain thoroughly schooled himself in both practical and theoretical military matters and became a highly-regarded officer, respected by his superiors and his men. 

The first major battle that Chamberlain and the 20^th Maine participated in was the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862.  The 20^th Maine was involved in one of the multiple (and ultimately futile) Union assaults on the Confederate position on Marie’s Heights; and was trapped on the battlefield overnight, pinned down by Confederate snipers.  Chamberlain left a very vivid account of that night, and of having to use his fallen comrades as shields against the Southern bullets.  Sidelined by an outbreak of smallpox, the 20^th Maine missed most of the fighting during the first half of 1863.  Chamberlain was promoted to full colonel in  June 1863, less than a month before the battle of Gettysburg.

Since Lee’s second invasion of the North in the spring of 1863, the large Northern Army of the Potomac had been shadowing the Army of Northern Virginia’s advance through Maryland and into southern Pennsylvania, careful to stay between the Confederates and Washington.  When drawn into battle on July 1^st near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, it was on ground that neither commander wanted.  Although Union General John Buford had managed to hold the high ground at the north end of town on the first day of fighting, the Confederates had performed so well, that Lee decided to fully engage the battle.

The Union commander, General George Meade, hastily set up defensive positions on raised area known as Cemetery Ridge, extending south to two small hills, known as the Big and Little Round Tops.  It was on the Little Round Top, the most extreme end of the Union line, that the 20^th Maine was posted.  As the second day’s fighting began on July 2, 1863, Confederate Corps Commander James Longstreet sensed weakness on the Union left (and, in fact, Chamberlain and the 20^th Maine were completely unsupported.)  Chamberlain realized the strategic importance of his position – if the Little Round Top fell, the Confederates could flank the Union line, possibly destroy the Army of the Potomac and effectively end the war – and understood the terrible consequences of the order to hold his position at all costs.

The Confederates began repeated assaults, first under General Evander Law and then Colonel William Oates.  Although successfully repulsed, each assault left Chamberlain’s force weaker.  As the Confederates regrouped for another assault, Chamberlain took stock of his desperate situation.  He had lost a good deal of his men and ammunition was running low – he did not believe his troops could withstand another assault.  Retreat would destroy the Union army, to stay would mean destruction and the same result.  Chamberlain’s only option was to attack, and now the commander with no formal military training decided on what has be famously called “an unlikely textbook maneuver.”  Ordering his men to fix their bayonets, he had the right side of his line hold while the left and middle swung like a huge gate down on the Confederates.  Taken completely by surprise, the Confederates were out flanked themselves, and those that were not captured or killed, retreated down the hill.  The Battle of the Little Round Top was over.

It is no exaggeration to say that Chamberlain’s grit and ingenuity saved the Union cause that day.  Unable to turn the Union flank, Lee would gamble the next day on a full frontal assault on the Union center – the doomed Pickett’s charge.  Unable to break the Union line, Lee would escape from Gettysburg, to fight defensively for the remaining two years of the war.  Chamberlain received the Medal of Honor for his "daring heroism and great tenacity in holding his position on the Little Round Top against repeated assaults, and carrying the advance position on the Great Round Top."  Chamberlain and the 20^th Maine went on to fight in some of the grimmest and bloodiest battles of the war.  During the siege of Petersburg, he was shot through the abdomen.  In order to prevent his men from retreating, Chamberlain propped himself up on his sword until falling unconscious from loss of blood.  Not expected to live, Chamberlain was promoted to brigadier general by General Ulysses Grant.  Chamberlain did survive, and through sheer strength of will was back in command by November 1864.  Once again wounded (this time in the chest and the arm – which was almost amputated) during Grant’s last advance on Lee, Chamberlain remained on the field to direct his men.  For his bravery, he was given a brevet promotion to major general by President Abraham Lincoln.

Chamberlain presided over the surrender of Lee’s infantry, following Appomattox.  The Confederates, led by General George Gordon (wounded six times in the service of the Confederacy) advanced to lay down their arms.  Noting Gordon’s pensive expression, Chamberlain called his men to attention in salute to their former enemies, noting,  “Gordon, at the head of the marching column, outdoes us in courtesy. He was riding with downcast eyes and more than pensive look; but at this clatter of arms he raises his eyes and instantly catching the significance, wheels his horse with that superb grace of which he is master, drops the point of his sword to his stirrup, gives a command, at which the great Confederate ensign following him is dipped and his decimated brigades, as they reach our right, respond to the 'carry.' All the while on our part not a sound of trumpet or drum, not a cheer, nor a word nor motion of man, but awful stillness as if it were the passing of the dead.”  Gordon would later call Chamberlain "one of the knightliest soldiers of the Federal Army."

Chamberlain went on to a distinguished career in politics and academia.  He served four one-year terms as governor of Maine and became president of his alma mater, Bowdoin College, all the while in near constant pain from the wounds he had received during the war.  In 1898, at the outbreak of the Spanish American War and at the age of seventy, Chamberlain volunteered for military service.  Rejected because of his age and infirmity, Chamberlain called the refusal the greatest disappointment of his life.  He lived long enough to attend the 50^th reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1913.  He died the following year at age 85 from complications from his wounds.

 

The word hero is thrown about with a good deal of abandon these days, but Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was a genuine hero.  He not only was heroic during the war, he was repeatedly heroic; and yet in victory he was sympathetic and magnanimous towards his former enemies who were now his countrymen again.  I hope that my grandsons will study his life and career, and realize that the quality of man lies in his convictions, his courage and his honor.