Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

Chamberlain, circa 1865

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, usually called "Lawrence", (1828-1914) was an American educator, who taught in a wide variety of fields, but was also an exceptionally distinguished citizen-soldier in the American Civil War. At Appomattox Court House, he was given the honor of accepting the Confederate flags, but did so, without orders, in a way that started healing for both sides.

After the war, Congress explicitly voted him the Medal of Honor; it was not one of the questionable awards that did not meet the modern standards of the Pyramid of Honor. He was also governor of Maine, but his beloved Bowdoin College was first in his heart.

Early career

Brought up on his parents' farm, his father wanted him to join the military while his mother aimed him for the clergy. Since he chose to attend Bowdoin College, which, at the time, had a strong Congregationalist influence, perhaps his mother had the last word.

Before attending Bowdoin, he had to meet a requirement of proficiency in the Greek language, so, already having learned French and Latin, he taught himself Greek and was accepted. He was a respected general student, and also a musician, who taught voice, led choirs, and played the bass viola.

While attending Bowdoin, he attended the First Parish Church, falling in love with the minister's daughter, Fanny. After his graduation, he enrolled in Bangor Theological Seminary, but stayed in contact with Fanny. At the seminary, his languages expanded to German, Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac.

He joined the Bowdoin College faculty after his undergraduate education there, first with a professorship in logic and natural theology, then adding rhetoric and oratory, and eventually professor of modern languages.

In spite of objections from her father, he married Fanny, starting a what was generally considered a lifelong love affair. They had five children, two of whom survived into adulthood. Another historian, however, suggests their marriage may have had problems.

American Civil War

Volunteering for service in 1862, he declined, initially, a regimental command. He became lieutenant colonel of the 20th Maine Regiment, taking command in May 1863, and was promoted to colonel on August 8. His brother Tom also served in the regiment, as a junior officer.

He fought with the 20th at the Battles of Antietam, Shepherdstown Ford, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. He suffered his first wound at Fredericksburg.

Little Round Top

For performance in combat, however, he is most remembered for the Battle of Gettysburg, and the Little Round Top engagement. Immediately prior to the battle, he faced the difficult command task of speaking to soldiers, accused of mutiny, whose enlistments in the 2nd Maine had expired, but who were involuntarily assigned to the 20th. "Chamberlain's brief speech and his pledge to plead their case caused all but a handful to take arms and join the ranks of the 20th for the coming battle".

At Little Round Top, the 20th held the end of the Union flank, in a desperate defense ending in an all-out bayonet charge against the 15th Alabama Regiment. Indeed, it was tactically critical; it has also become a legend in American military history; Chamberlain was to become a key character in Michael Shaara's historical novel The Killer Angels, the basis for a number of books, continued by Shaara's son, and for the Turner Broadcasting film and miniseries, in which he was played by Jeff Daniels. The character of his sergeant, Buster Kilrain, was fictional, but the Shaara material is highly regarded.

Not a moment was about to be lost! Five minutes more of such a defensive and the last roll call would sound for us! Desperate as the chances were, there was nothing for it but to take the offensive. I stepped to the colors. The men turned towards me. One word was enough- 'BAYONETS!' It caught like fire and swept along the ranks. The men took it up with a shout, one could not say whether from the pit or the song of the morning sat, it was vain to order 'Forward!'. No mortal could have heard it in the mighty hosanna that was winging the sky. The whole line quivered from the start; the edge of the left-wing rippled, swung, tossed among the rocks, straightened, changed curve from scimitar to sickle-shape; and the bristling archers swooped down upon the serried host- down into the face of half a thousand! Two hundred men!

There have been some suggestions that one of his junior officers originally started the bayonet charge, but there is little question Chamberlain committed all his forces to it, and was wounded in combat.

Higher command

In November 1863 he was relieved from field service and sent to Washington suffering from malaria, the eventual cause of his death. He returned to the 20th, commanding it in the First Battle of Cold Harbor and the Battle of Petersburg, in which he was wounded; Ulysses S. Grant spot-promoted him to brigadier general, although he was expected to die.

He returned to brigade command in November, and fought in the Overland Campaign in the Battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna and Second Petersburg. Wounded at the Rives' Salient engagement at Second Petersburg, he was again expected to die, and again spot-promoted by Grant, this time to major general. By the final days, he led a division.

A time to heal

At Appomattox Court House, he was given the honor, a sad one, of accepting the formal surrender of Confederate troops. As Confederate Gen. John Gordon's troops passed, Chamberlain, without orders, called his troops to attention and gave formal recognition to fellow soldiers, fellow citizens again. This was long remembered as a healing act, about which Chamberlain wrote in the lengthy Passing of the Armies.

I resolved to mark it by some token of recognition, which could be no other than a salute of arms. Well aware of the responsibility assumed, and of the criticisms that would follow, as the sequel proved, nothing of that kind could move me in the least. The act could be defended, if needful, by the suggestion that such a salute was not to the cause for which the flag of the Confederacy stood, but to its going down before the flag of the Union. My main reason, however, was one for which I sought no authority nor asked forgiveness. Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond; — was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured?

...Gordon at the head of the column, riding with heavy spirit and downcast face, catches the sound of shifting arms, looks up, and, taking the meaning, wheels superbly, making with himself and his horse one uplifted figure, with profound salutation as he drops the point of his sword to the boot toe; then facing to his own command, gives word for his successive brigades to pass us with the same position of the manual, — honor answering honor. On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word nor whisper of vain-glorying, nor motion of man standing again at the order, but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the dead!

As each successive division masks our own, it halts, the men face inward towards us across the road, twelve feet away; then carefully "dress" their line, each captain taking pains for the good appearance of his company, worn and half starved as they were. The field and staff take their positions in the intervals of regiments; generals in rear of their commands. They fix bayonets, stack arms; then, hesitatingly, remove cartridge-boxes and lay them down. Lastly, — reluctantly, with agony of expression, — they tenderly fold their flags, battle-worn and torn, blood-stained, heart-holding colors, and lay them down; some frenziedly rushing from the ranks, kneeling over them, clinging to them, pressing them to their lips with burning tears. And only the Flag of the Union greets the sky!

Postwar

He rode in the formal end-of-war review, ended his service in August 1865, and was elected governor of Maine in 1866.

Return to Bowdoin

He preferred education to politics, and in 1871 became president of Bowdoin College. At a 2003 dedication of a memorial to him, the current college president, Barry Mills as "'thankless and wasteful'." Hardly the feelings of a man who felt appreciated, but also hardly the feelings of anyone assembled here today!" Bowdoin, a small but influential school, in Mills' words, "can trace much of its modern identity to the controversial Chamberlain presidency."

Chamberlain took a college steeped in the traditions of a classical curriculum and urged it to consider practical and technical education. In his inaugural address he pushed the College to "...accept immediately the challenge of the times," by placing a new emphasis on science and by replacing Greek and Latin with French and German. In the same speech, Chamberlain had the audacity to suggest that women too should "...have part in [the] high calling" represented by a Bowdoin education - an "innovation" that would take another century to materialize.

As president, Chamberlain set out to reform the strict and outdated student code of discipline. He eliminated mandatory morning and evening prayers and Saturday classes. He encouraged the faculty to be more accessible to students both inside and outside the classroom. And he established something near and dear to the hearts of each of his successors: an endowment for the College. where he restructured the college curriculum to include science and engineering.

Legacy

A descendant, Bill Chamberlain, commanded a U.S. Army battalion in the Gulf War.