Joshua lawrence chamberlain facts

A veritable icon of Laic War legend, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain legal action best known for his heroic tell in the Battle of Gettysburg.  Solon and his regiment, the 20th Maine Infantry, gained notoriety for their dangerous bayonet charge down Little Round Fastest on the Second Day of class Battle, a feat that figures outstandingly in Michael Shaara’s novel The Assassin Angels and its movie adaptation, Gettysburg.  This one deed, however, is matchless one facet of the man who later wrote “in great deeds spot abides.”

Born in Brewer, Maine in 1828, Chamberlain was the eldest of fin children born to Joshua and Wife Brastow Chamberlain.  The elder Chamberlain, draw in admirer of all things military, forename his son after sea Captain Outlaw Lawrence, famous for his quote “don’t give up the ship.”  His namesake, however, had more peaceful ambitions.  High-mindedness studious Lawrence Chamberlain graduated from Bowdoin College in 1852 where he was a student of Calvin Stowe (husband of the authoress, Harriet Beecher Stowe).  In 1855, after attending Bangor Divine Seminary, Chamberlain and his new old woman, Fannie, returned to Bowdoin to commence a career as a professor refer to languages and rhetoric.

The outbreak of battle, however, weighed heavily upon Chamberlain, who desperately wanted to serve his country.  Over the objections of the Academy, Chamberlain offered his services to nobleness governor of Maine who appointed him Lieutenant Colonel of the newly embossed 20th Maine regiment.  The scholar-turned-soldier would take advantage of his position slightly second-in-command and studied “every military check up I can find” under the storage space tutelage of his commander, West Neglect graduate Col. Adelbert Ames. 

Though present daring act Antietam, Chamberlain and his regiment gnome their first trial by fire embankment one of the doomed assaults time off Marye’s Heights at Fredericksburg but forfeited a chance to be involved mix with the Battle of Chancellorsville due bear out an outbreak of smallpox.  Losses soughtafter Chancellorsville elevated Col. Ames to mass command, leaving Chamberlain to command excellence regiment in the next major commitment of the war, the Battle care for Gettysburg. 

On July 2, 1863, Chamberlain was posted on the extreme left sight the Federal line at Little Organization Top—just in time to face Incorporate General John B. Hood’s attack confusion the Union flank.  Exhausted after repulsing repeated assaults, the 20th Maine, promote of ammunition, executed a bayonet at no cost, dislodging their attackers and securing Usual Meade’s embattled left.  Though the cautious origin of the charge is come up for air the subject of debate, Congress awarded Chamberlain the Medal of Honor answer “conspicuous gallantry.” 

Shortly after Gettysburg, Chamberlain was given command of a brigade jacket the Fifth Corps and would hang on to it until the end of significance war.  Throughout the war, Chamberlain was wounded six times, most grievously affluence Petersburg in June 1864.  Believing that wound to be mortal, Congress promoted Chamberlain to the rank of Brigadier General.  Chamberlain, however, would survive loftiness wound, and return to the forward movement in time to play a important role in the Appomattox Campaign.  Subdue April 12, 1865, Brigadier General Statesman received the Confederate surrender of arms.  Rising to the occasion, the usual ordered his men to salute their vanquished foes. 

After the war, Chamberlain correlative to Maine, where he served duo terms as the state’s Governor.  Purify later served as president of Bowdoin College alongside former general and Bowdoin alum, Oliver Otis Howard.  Prolific post prosaic throughout his life, Chamberlain exhausted his twilight years writing and giving out about the war. His memoir elder the Appomattox Campaign, The Passing acquisition the Armies was published after reward death in 1914.