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Through Blood and Fire

At Gettysburg, Chamberlain and his men were called into action on the second day of the battle, July 2, 1863. The 20th Maine, among the regiments in Colonel Strong Vincent's 3rd Brigade, was positioned at the far left of the line on Little Round Top. In an effort to claim this ground and decimate the Union line, Confederate General John Bell Hood's brigades advanced up the rocky hill. A number of Union officers were killed in the midst of the fray, including Colonel Vincent. Chamberlain was now left in a desperate situation. Having been given an order by Vincent to hold the Union's ground at all costs and not to retreat, yet learning that his men's ammunition was virtually depleted, he had to make a quick decision. Chamberlain decided to counterattack and thus ordered a bayonet charge down the hill. The Union's position was saved.

Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the Army of the Potomac near Falmouth, Virginia, on the chill, wintry evening of December 7, 1862

In his account, "Through Blood and Fire at Gettysburg," published by Hearst's Magazine in 1913, Chamberlain recalls the bravery of the Fifth Army Corps which fought that day on Little Round Top. In the chapter "To the Rescue or All is Lost!", he recognizes and commends the following officers: Brigadier General Gouverneur K. Warren, Chief of Engineers; Colonel Vincent of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Division; Brigadier General Romeyn B. Ayres of the 2nd Division; Brigadier General Stephen H. Weed and Colonel Patrick O'Rorke of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division; and Lieutenant Charles E. Hazlett of the 5th U.S. Battery D, Artillery Brigade. Chamberlain would receive the Congressional Medal of Honor many years after the war ended for his "daring heroism" on Little Round Top and for "carrying the advance position on the Great Round Top."

Chamberlain at Fredericksburg, Va.,
Dec. 13, 1862

Not long after the Union's victory at Gettysburg, Chamberlain was given command of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Division, Fifth Corps, and participated in the Culpepper and Centreville campaign in October. By now, after having undergone his baptism of fire and many trials with the 20th, Chamberlain had earned the respect and loyalty of his men. The soldiers admired his skill and bravery, and appreciated his acts of kindness and courtesy towards them. The attention he paid to the sick or wounded in his command, and the time and care he took in sending home the personal effects of those who died would long be remembered. Moreover, the men saw in him a humble man, as Chamberlain often chose to endure the same conditions as them, sleeping on the ground in the harshest of climates. But this practice was sometimes hazardous for the colonel. After a bivouac beside the Rappahannock in early November, having slept all night in the snow, Chamberlain suffered from pneumonia and a severe recurrence of malarial fever. He was sent to Georgetown in Washington, D.C. where he remained for treatment until spring.

Chamberlain at Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862

In early May 1864, Chamberlain returned to command his brigade during the Battle of Spotsylvania, but did not see action until the 20th's engagement at Pole Cat Creek at the end of the month. On June 2nd and 3rd, he and the 20th Maine fought at Bethesda Church, not far from Cold Harbor. As in other engagements Chamberlain threw himself into the thick of the battle, executing commands with a cool head and great composure but showing little regard for his own personal safety. This would be the last time he would lead the 20th, as General Warren reorganized the Fifth Corps. In a few days, Chamberlain would be appointed commander of the 1st Division's new 1st Brigade of Pennsylvania regiments.

Kershaw's Brigade at Fredericksburg
December 13, 1862

By mid-June, the Union army was in Petersburg, one of the key cities of the Confederacy. Chamberlain's 1st Brigade fought valiantly at Rives' Salient on June 18, 1864. At one point, he bore the flag after the color bearer was killed at his side, until he too was shot by a minié ball. Though the wound was severe, Chamberlain maintained his composure until every one of his men had passed from view. Even in his grave condition he refused preferential treatment, insisting that others with far more serious wounds be tended to first.

A HARD DAY FOR MOTHER
Joshua Chamberlain and his brothers react to a near miss by a bullet which almost caused "A Hard Day for Mother."

The belief that Chamberlain's wound was mortal led to his swift promotion to Brigadier General by General Ulysses Grant, in what is said to have been the only instance of a promotion on the battlefield given by Grant. Chamberlain was admitted into the Naval Academy hospital at Annapolis with little hope for his survival, but as his will to live was strong, he would not remain hospitalized for very long. By November he again reported for duty, despite the fact that he could not yet ride a horse or walk a great distance.

Chamberlain was now placed in command of a new 1st Brigade, 1st Division, comprised of two large regiments from Pennsylvania and New York. However, not yet fully recovered, he was hospitalized again in early December, this time in Philadelphia, after participating in a raid on Weldon Railroad. Following a month's sick leave, without his doctors' knowledge Chamberlain returned to service. But he did not see action until General Grant's final campaign.

On March 29, 1865, Chamberlain and his 1st Brigade headed up Quaker Road and engaged in a hot fight in which they employed their bayonets. Again wounded while having one of many horses shot under him during the war, Chamberlain was nearly taken prisoner but eluded his captors by posing as a Confederate officer. Despite his injury in this battle, Chamberlain remained in command. He ordered his men to capture enemy breastworks and drive the Confederates from their position, thus opening a path to the Boydton Plank and White Oak Roads. By exhibiting exceptional leadership and organizational skills, Chamberlain had attained that coveted lodgment on the White Oak Road. For this accomplishment, he would be breveted Major General by President Lincoln.

The Battle of Five Forks commenced on April 1, 1865, and would culminate in a significant Union victory. On the first day of the battle, Chamberlain's brigade captured more than 1000 soldiers, including 19 officers, and five battle flags. The second day found the 1st Brigade advancing on the South Side Railroad. Here they pushed back the enemy's cavalry and captured a train in addition to many prisoners. Then onward they marched to Appomattox Court House to assist General Philip Sheridan's cavalry.

By now, the Confederate army had been severely weakened, with the number of its troops and supplies rapidly dwindling. Finally, the next day, April 9, General Robert E. Lee called a truce to halt the four-year bloodshed between the two armies.

A Final Salute

Chamberlain felt deeply touched when he learned that he was selected to receive the formal surrender of arms and colors of Lee's army. At his request, he was reunited with the 20th Maine and members of the 3rd Brigade, whom he modestly believed should be the real recipients of this honor. On April 12, Confederate General John B. Gordon and his soldiers were met by Chamberlain and the Fifth Corps at Appomattox. Upon their arrival, the Confederates were astonished to be honorably welcomed by the marching salute. This gracious reception prompted Gordon and his soldiers to salute Chamberlain and his men in return. In his speeches and memoirs, Gordon would always remember Chamberlain as "one of the knightliest soldiers of the Federal Army." Chamberlain too often reminisced on this profound event with the greatest respect for Gordon and his men. In his book, The Passing of the Armies: The Last Campaign of the Armies, published in 1915 after his death, he recalls the noble spirit of the Confederate troops and their gallant and bittersweet surrender in his Chapter 6, "Appomattox."

Photo of Joshua Chamberlain after he became President of Bowdoin College.

The war had ended, and the Union Army of the Potomac held a grand review on May 23 in Washington, D.C. Chamberlain would never forget that moment of glory, nor the great deeds of the many soldiers who had fought or died for their country. Reflecting on this last parade, he pays a tribute to all members of the corps of the Army of the Potomac in Chapter 9, "The Last Review," of Armies. With sentimentality, he addresses the survivors of the war when he writes:

Sit down again together, Army of the Potomac! all that are left of us—on the banks of the river whose name we bore, into which we have put new meaning of our own. Take strength from one more touch, ere we pass afar from the closeness of old. The old is young to-day; and the young is passed. Survivors of the fittest,—for the fittest, it seems to us, abide in the glory where we saw them last,—take the grasp of hands, and look into the eyes, without words! Who shall tell what is past and what survives? For there are things born but lately in the years, which belong to the eternities.

[Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, The Passing of the Armies: the Last Campaign of the Armies (Pennsylvania: Stan Clark Military Books, 1994), p. 363.]

Govenor Chamberlain

Chamberlain's last days in the army are related in Chapter 11, "The Disbandment," of Armies. In his eloquent conclusion, he remarks on the final orders from the Army of the Potomac, expressing his interpretation of the command from a philosophical and religious viewpoint.

Now that the war had officially ended, Chamberlain would return once more to life as a civilian, often giving speeches about the war. But nothing would ever be the same again.

Life After the War After having lived through all the drama and excitement of the battlefield, Chamberlain would now find a professor's occupation at Bowdoin tame and uninspiring. Despite receiving an honorary doctor of law degree from Pennsylvania College in 1866, and later from Bowdoin in 1869, a restlessness prevailed within him.

The new statue of Joshua L. Chamberlain by Joseph Query, located in the park between Bowdoin College and the Chamberlain Museum, Brunswick, Maine.

Chamberlain decided to pursue a political career, and in September 1866 was elected governor of Maine by the largest majority in the state's history. He would serve four terms in all, concluding his last term at the end of 1870. As governor, he felt it was his duty to carry out the law and therefore addressed and enforced such controversial measures as capital punishment which brought about a bit of unrest to a governorship otherwise regarded as being an "era of good feeling."

In 1871, Chamberlain was elected president of Bowdoin by the trustees of the college. His presidency, which would conclude in 1883, found him introducing progressive and occasionally unpopular ideas to the conservative institution. He endorsed studies in science and engineering, which were relatively unheard of at the time, and also had students participate in military drills in preparation for the possibility of war.

While president at Bowdoin, Chamberlain received additional appointments in both education and government which occupied his time off campus. In 1878, he was named U.S. Commissioner of Education to the Paris Universal Exposition. For this event, he, his wife Fanny, and their now grown children embarked on a five-month stay in Europe. Chamberlain would be awarded a medal by the French government for his services in Paris. In 1880, as the appointed military commander of the state, he was called to step in to oversee the state's election crisis. A dispute erupted into an assassination plot against Chamberlain which he confronted and diffused. It had not been since the war that he had to face such adversity.

The later years of Chamberlain's career found him pursuing business ventures; serving as U.S. Surveyor of Customs at the Port of Portland, Maine; and writing about his wartime experiences. He would survive Fanny who died in 1905; then he passed away on February 24, 1914 at the age of 86, having died of the war wound he received so long ago in Petersburg.

Chamberlain, circa 1905. Image courtesy of the National Archives.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain would be buried in Pine Grove Cemetery in Brunswick, Maine, but the memory of this gallant soldier and citizen would live on in his words, memoirs of fellow soldiers and friends, and in the works of historians. His own detailed accounts of the battles in which he participated, and his powerful passages filled with his soulful spirit, will long be remembered and cherished in the hearts and minds of readers throughout the ages.

In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream; and lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.

Additional Sources:

www.state.me.us
users.ids.net/~tandem
brucebouley15.tripod.com
www.framery.com
www.me.ngb.army.mil
www.pf-militarygallery.com
www.nps.gov
www.dixieprints.com
www.americanmastersgallery.com
www.mortkunstler.com
www.civil-war-tribute.com
www.joshua.lurker00.com
www.bairnet.org

On This Day In History

Birthdates which occurred on May 17:
1444 Sandro Botticelli Italian painter (Birth of Venus)
1741 John Penn US attorney (signed Declaration of Independence)
1749 Edward Jenner England, physician, discovered vaccination
1768 Caroline Brunswick, Queen Consort of King George IV
1812 Joseph Warren Revere Brigadier General (Union volunteers), died in 1880
1836 Joseph Norman Lockyer discovered Helium/founded Nature magazine
1846 Edmund Bishop English secretary of Thomas Carlyle
1850 Antonio Scontrino composer
1867 Gerrit Mannoury Dutch mathematician/philosopher
1878 Conway Tearle US actor (Klondike Annie, Should Ladies Behave?)
1886 Alfonso XIII Borbón King of Spain (1902-31)
1900 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini Iran's spiritual leader (1979-89)
1908 Zinka Milanov Zagreb Yugoslavia, soprano (Ljublama Opera 1927)
1911 Maureen O'Sullivan Boyle Ireland, actress (Tarzan, Pride & Prejudice, The Quiet)
1912 Archibald Cox 1st Watergate special prosecutor
1923 Peter Mennin[i] Erie PA, composer (Moby Dick)
1931 Dewey Redman jazz musician
1934 Earl Morrall NFL QB (Lions, Giants, Colts)
1936 Dennis Hopper Dodge City KS, actor (The Shining, Blue Velvet, Easy Rider)
1941 Malcom Hale trumpeter
1942 Taj Mahal New York NY, singer/songwriter (The Real Thing)
1945 D A S Pennefather Major-General/Commandant (General Royal Marines)
1953 Kathleen Sullivan Pasadena CA, newscaster (ABC-TV, CBS Morning Show)
1956 "Sugar" Ray [Charles] Leonard Palmer Park MD, welter/middle/light-heavyweight boxing champion (Olympics-gold-76)
1963 Brigitte Nielsen actress (Red Sonja, Rocky IV, Domino)
1974 Marcia Turner Cambridge MA, Miss America 1976 Peter Devine New York NY, fencer-foil (Olympics-96)

Deaths which occurred on May 17:
1050 Guido van Arezzo Italian music theorist, dies
1510 Sandro Botticelli [Alessandro di Mariano del Filpepi] painter (Birth of Venus), dies at about 65
1575 Matthew Parker archbishop of Canterbury (1559-75), dies at 68
1606 Forges Dimitri czar of Russia (1605-06), murdered
1727 Catherine I Empress of Russia (1725-27), dies
1729 Samuel Clarke theologian, dies
1838 Charles-Maurice duke of Talleyrand-Périgord French bishop, dies at 84
1930 Herbert David Croly US founder (New Republic), dies at 61
1964 Otto V Kuusinen President of Karelo-Finnish Soviet Republic (1940-56), dies 82
1969 Joseph Beran Czechoslovakia, archbishop of Prague/cardinal, dies at 80
1981 Jeannette Ridlon Piccard 1st US woman free balloon pilot, dies
1985 Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) killed off on Dallas
1992 George Hurrell Hollywood photographer, dies of cancer at 87
1992 Lawrence Welk conductor/accordionist (Lawrence Welk Show), dies at 89
1992 Leonardo del Ferro [Keyser] US epic tenor, dies

Reported: MISSING in ACTION

1966 DEERE DONALD T.---SNYDER TX.
1967 DODGE RONALD WAYNE---SAN DIEGO CA.
[PHOTO SEEN IN PARIS PAPER, REMAINS RETURNED 07/08/81]
1967 LEWIS CHARLIE G.---FAYETTEVILLE NC.
1968 YOUNG CHARLES L.---NEW YORK NY.
1969 STEWART VIRGIL G.---BATON ROUGE LA.
1970 WESTWOOD NORMAN P. JR.---WEST HARTFORD CT.
1971 PEARCE DALE A.---MENTOR OH.
1971 SOYLAND DAVID P.---RAPID CITY SD.

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

On this day...
0218 7th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
0352 Liberius begins his reign as Catholic Pope replacing Julius I
0884 St Adrian III begins his reign as Catholic Pope
1527 Pánfilo de Narvaéz departs to explore Florida
1536 Anne Boleyn's 4 "lovers" executed
1544 Scottish Earl Matthew van Lennox signs secret treaty with Henry VIII
1579 Artois/Henegouwen/French-Flanders sign Treaty/Peace of Parma recognizing Spanish duke van Parma as land guardian
1620 1st merry-go-round seen at a fair (Philippapolis, Turkey)
1630 Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi, 1st to see 2 belts on Jupiter surface
1631 Earl Johann Tilly attacks Maagdenburg
1648 Emperor Ferdinand III defeats Maximilian I of Bavaria
1672 Frontenac becomes Governor of New France (Canada)
1673 Louis Joliet & Jacques Marquette begin exploring Mississippi
1733 England passes Molasses Act, putting high tariffs on rum & molasses imported to the colonies from a country other than British possessions
1742 Frederick great (Emperor of Prussia) beats Austrians
1756 Britain declares war on France (7 Years' or French & Indian War)
1787 English slave ship Sisters, from Africa to Cuba, capsizes
1792 24 merchants form New York Stock Exchange at 70 Wall Street
1803 John Hawkins & Richard French patent the Reaping Machine
1804 Lewis & Clark begin exploration of the Louisiana Purchase
1809 Papal States annexed by France
1814 Denmark cedes Norway to Sweden (National Day)
1814 Norwegian constitution passed by constituent assembly at Eidsvoll
1845 Rubber band patents
1846 Saxophone is patents by Antoine Joseph Sax
1862 Battle of Princeton WV, ends, about 128 casualities
1863 Battle of Big Black River Bridge, Mississippi
1864 Battle of Adairsville GA, Union forces Confederates to retreat
1872 Bohemian Club incorporated
1875 1st Kentucky Derby: Oliver Lewis aboard Aristides wins in 2:37.75
1876 7th US Cavalry under Custer leaves Fort Lincoln
1877 Edwin T Holmes installs 1st telephone switchboard burglar alarm
1881 7th Kentucky Derby: Jim McLaughlin aboard Hindoo wins in 2:40
1881 Frederick Douglass appointed recorder of deeds for Washington DC
1881 Revised version of New Testament
1883 Buffalo Bill Cody's 1st wild west show premieres in Omaha
1884 Alaska becomes a US territory
1890 Comic Cuts, 1st weekly comic paper, published in London
1904 Maurice Ravel's "Shéhérazade" premieres in Paris France
1909 White firemen on Georgia RR strike to protest hiring blacks
1915 Cubs George "Zip" Zabel relieves with 2 outs in 1st & winds up with 4-3 19-inning win over Brooklyn in longest relief job ever
1915 National Baptist Convention chartered
1916 British Summer Time (Daylight Savings), 1st introduced
1920 1st De Havilland double-decker flight (London) lands in Schiphol
1920 1st flight by Dutch airlines KLM (Koninklijke-Luchtvaart-Maatschappij)
1923 Fire during closing day ceremonies at Grover Cleveland School (South Carolina)
1924 50th Kentucky Derby: John Mooney aboard Black Gold wins in 2:05.2
1925 Cleveland Indian Tris Speaker gets his 3,000th hit
1926 Chiang Kai-shek is made supreme war lord in Canton
1930 56th Kentucky Derby: Earl Sande aboard Gallant Fox wins in 2:07.6
1932 Congress changes the name "Porto Rico" to "Puerto Rico"
1938 Congress approves Vinson Naval Act, which funds a two-ocean navy
1938 Radio quiz show "Information Please!" debuts on NBC Blue Network
1939 1st sports telecast-Columbia vs Princeton-college baseball
1940 Germany occupies Brussels, Belgium & begins invasion of France
1942 Dutch SS vows loyalty to Hitler
1944 Allied air raid on Surabaja, Java
1944 Chinese/US arm forces take Myitkyina Airport, Burma
1944 General Eisenhower sets D-Day for June 5th
1945 2 US P-47 Thunderbolts bomb Kiushu
1946 KVP Labor/Communists win 1st post-WW2 Dutch parliamentary elections
1946 President Truman seizes control of nation's railroads to delay a strike
1948 Israel liberates Acre, Nebi Yusha & Telel-Kadi
1948 Soviet Union recognized Israel
1949 British government recognizes Republic of Ireland
1953 Yanks & Browns use record 41 players in a game
1954 Supreme Court unanimously rules on Brown v Topeka Board of Education reversed 1896 "separate but equal" Plessy Vs Ferguson decision
1957 Prayer Pilgrimage, biggest civil rights demonstration to date (District of Columbia)
1958 Emergency crisis proclaimed in Algeria
1959 Sam Snead sets PGA record for 36 holes at 122
1960 1st atomic reactor system to be patented, JW Flora, Canoga Park CA
1961 Castro offers to exchange Bay of Pigs prisoners for 500 bulldozers
1963 Bruno Sammartino beats Buddy Rogers in New York, to become WWF champion
1967 Dylan's 1965 UK Tour is released as the film "Don't Look Back"
1969 Baltimore, Cleveland & Pittsburgh agree to go from NFC to the AFC in the NFL
1970 Hank Aaron becomes 9th player to get 3,000 hits
1970 Thor Heyerdahl crosses the Atlantic on reed raft Ra
1971 Stephen Schwartz' musical "Godspell" premieres off-Broadway
1971 Washington State bans sex discrimination
1973 Senate Watergate Committee begins its hearings
1973 Stevie Wonder releases "You are the Sunshine of my Life"
1975 NBC paid $5 million for rights to show "Gone with the Wind" one time
1977 Menahem Begins Likoed-party wins election in Israel
1978 Lee Lacy hits record 3rd consecutive pinch-hit homerun
1979 -12ºF (-11ºC), on top of Mauna Kea HI (state record)
1980 Major race riot in Miami FL - 16 killed, 300 injured
1983 Israel & Lebanon sign a peace treaty
1985 Les Anderson, catches record 97 lb 4 oz Chinook Salmon, off Alaska
1987 USS Stark hit by Iraqi missiles, 37 sailors die
1991 Lupita Jones, 23, of México, crowned 40th Miss Universe
1992 Expos Gary Carter is 3rd to catch 2,000 games (joins Boone & Fisk)
1993 Intel's new Pentium processor is unveiled
2000 Prosecutors in Birmingham, Ala., charged two longtime suspects in the deaths of four little girls in a church bombing in 1963 that became a watershed event in the civil rights movement.

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Cuba : Agrarian Reform/Peasant Day
Norway : Independence Day/Constitution Day (1814)
US : Armed Forces Day (Saturday)
World Telecommunications Day
National Hospital Week ends
International Pickle Week (Day 2)
Cold Feet Monday
National Tavern Month

Religious Observances
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of St Dunstan, archbp of Canterbury, patron of jewelers
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of St Paschal Baylon, lay brother
Feast of St. John Nepomucenus.
St. Madron Feast Day

Religious History
352 Liberius was elected 36th pope of the Early Church. During this time the dispute between Arius and Athanasius was at its height, and after vacillating earlier, Liberius vindicated himself as a champion of Nicene orthodoxy.
1291 Scottish medieval Franciscan philosopher John Duns Scotus, 25, was ordained. He believed in "divine will" rather than "divine intellect," and founded a scholastic system called Scotism. In the Catholic Church he is known as "the Subtle Doctor."
1844 Birth of Julius Wellhausen, the German biblical scholar who, in his 1878 "History of Israel," first advanced the JEDP Hypothesis, claiming that the Pentateuch (i.e., the first five O.T. books) was a compilation of four earlier, literary sources.
1881 The Revised Version (EV or ERV) of the New Testament was first published in England. The Old Testament was completed in 1885. In 1905 the American Standard Version (ASV) ÀÀ based on the textual foundation of the ERV ÀÀ was published in the U.S.
1947 The Conservative Baptist Association of America (CBAA) was formally established at Atlantic City, NJ, as a breakaway movement from within the American Baptist Convention.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

Thought for the day :
"The reason people blame things on previous generations? There's only one other choice!"

Actual Newspaper Headlines...
Enfields Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide

Why did the Chicken cross the Road...
Louis Farrakkan:
It wasn't one chicken, you lying white devils! It was TEN MILLION chickens!

Fun things to do when driving...
Look behind you frequently, with a very paranoid look.

What The Company Really Means...
"SEEKING CANDIDATES WITH A WIDE VARIETY OF EXPERIENCE:"
You'll need it to replace three people who just left.

Just someting I ran across. Some interesting stuff.
TOM CHAMBERLAIN:
"MY BRAVE YOUNG BROTHER"
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/TomCh4.html

by Rosemary Pardoe

Chapter Four:
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/TomCh4.html

"My brave young brother" - After the War

Soon after the Grand Review of the Armies in Washington on May 23, in which the First Division staff, "Colonel Spear, Major Fowler, Tom Chamberlain, my brave young brother...",(1) marched in their appropriate place, much of the 20th Maine was mustered out. But "by special order of Genl Meade" (as Lawrence told Sae), Tom was retained as the Division's Assistant Commissary of Musters, while the remnant of the regiment was enlarged by the inclusion of residues from other Maine units, the 16th and the 1st Sharpshooters.(2) Unintentionally, he thwarted the ambitions of his friend, Captain Holman Melcher, who wrote to his brother early in June: "I do not expect the position of a Field Officer in the new organization, for Col. Spear remains and Captain Chamberlain, who is my senior in rank."(3)

That month, Tom was brevetted to Lieutenant Colonel (mustered in June 20) for bravery at Five Forks, and later to Colonel of U.S. Volunteers.(4) When the last of the 20th was finally mustered out on July 16, he was second-in-command to Colonel (brevet Brigadier General) Ellis Spear, and almost sorry to be going home. He wrote to sister Sae: "...if there was a Foreign War, I would enlist tomorrow morning as a private if I couldn't get anything better"; and added, "I shall bring home my Nigger who will always take care of my things hereafter."(5) In March of the following year, Ellis Spear had occasion to describe Tom's service to General J.L. Hodsdon, Maine's Adjutant-General. The young man had, he said, risen "by force of his own character from the ranks, and filled a variety of difficult positions with marked ability and success."(6) This was a glowing testimonial indeed from Spear, who was not given to offering praise unless it was due.

Sadly, however, although Thomas had been a first class soldier and officer, all was not well. Back in February 1865, after Tom's return to Maine on leave, father Joshua had written to Lawrence with some concerns about his sibling. Lawrence did his best to offer reassurances:

"I...was sorry to hear, both from you & from Mother, that Thomas was so restless & roving while at home. However, I think you need have no fears of his indulging any incorrect habits whatever.
"He annoys me chiefly by being too sensitive, & allowing a few cowardly fellows disturb his peace of mind. It is more creditable and more safe to have such men enemies than friends, & in my opinion it will be a good thing for him to have to stand his hand among men just as they come [sic]."(7)

The fact was that Tom had apparently started drinking heavily, and this seems to have got worse when he attempted to build a peacetime life for himself. In 1866 he went to Brooklyn, New York, and kept the books for his brother John, as well as earning very good money as a tobacco inspector; but John had been ailing since his Gettysburg adventures and by early 1867 he was on the point of death, having suffered several pulmonary haemorrhages.(8) Tom wrote to Lawrence on January 16 that he and his sister-in-law, Delia, had spent six sleepless nights sitting up with John until their sister, Sae, arrived to relieve them, "but still we all stay up with him. Every night." He added that "Poor John does not yet know that in all probability he will never go to his office again & still he enquires after his business all the time... You had better come right over if it is possible any way - for he could not die without seeing you - I think you had better start at once." Sae told Lawrence the doctor thought there was "one chance in a hundred for John to rise from this bed."(9) Nevertheless, he rallied slightly and lingered for a few more months until finally succumbing to lung disease (like brother Horace), on August 11.(10)

Tom then tried to set up his own business in New York. In 1869 he asked for help from Lawrence to acquire an office, but the older man could not take time away from his schedule in Augusta as Governor of Maine, and he also had his own money worries. He replied to Tom on June 5, in the didactic tone which he often took with his family and others, no doubt to their irritation:

"I declare I would not have an office, if I were you, which requires so much 'fixing up'...
"I am under bother enough as I am, but I don't have to beg anybody to favor me & I hate to have you do it. I will do everything I can to have your matters go well & had hoped to go to N.Y. before this...
"I don't see now how I can take time & go there before July. You must make the best of the situation, & with the backers you have...
"I am sorry to disappoint you, but can't help it."(11)

Perhaps realising that he had been rather hard, he finished the letter on a more conciliatory note: "If things get too blue, you must let me know because I can manage to come on a case of life & death." On the back of the letter, Tom scrawled a memo to himself: "I wrote L. today not to think of coming for me, as I was O.K. and not to trouble himself one bit for me as I could get along without him by paying 100$ to a man I know."(12)

But Tom soon found 'getting along' on his own difficult again. In 1872, Lawrence commented on his lack of self-reliance, putting it down to an "excess of a good quality, viz. modesty." By 1873, he was being sent money by the family. Lawrence gave him $100 and told his father, on May 16, that he would try to get Tom "the fitting out of the ship Bombay now due at Boston, though that will be a little awkward. It can be done I suppose. I own an eighth of her." Nothing seems to have come of this, and Tom set himself up as a stationer on State Street in Bangor, selling newspapers and periodicals, while living in the Brewer family home.(13) He also served as a deputy marshal, before obtaining a position as a clerk in the Washington D.C. pension office. He was there from 1879 to 1886, but they were not happy years and little opportunity for advancement offered itself.(14) At least in the army, he wrote Lawrence in 1879, "a man stands a chance of promotion - somebody will get killed"; he though he might try the post office instead. When Tom returned to Maine in 1886, Sae told Lawrence: "If he has no money he is in a very dangerous way, in short on the highway to ruin. I have more fears about Tom than I wish to express here." She asked whether Lawrence could find work for him in Florida.(15)

Lawrence, who had interests in a land development syndicate in Florida, arranged for Tom to go into partnership with one of his associates, Captain A.E. Willard. Tom ran their store in Homosassa, on the state's west coast, while Willard provided the capital. But soon Willard was complaining about Tom's failure to keep the books accurately or to pay for his board. There was talk of his "strange and unbusinesslike behavior" and "laziness". In Maine, the family worried increasingly about his dissipation and inebriation. His sister-in-law, Fanny, told her daughter that Tom reminded her of one of her (Fanny's) brothers, Sam Adams, who had similar problems, but "is a much truer man than Tom, although not making so good an outside appearance."(16)

Tom's one salvation was his wife, Delia Farley [Jarvis] Chamberlain, John's widow. They had become close when both of them looked after John during his final illness in 1867, but romance did not blossom until 1869. That April, Tom wrote to Sae, enquiring after her new son ("I take considerable interest in babies some how lately...") and asking a curious question: "I want to know how old Delia is - Can you tell me?" By November he was telling his mother that he was soon going to be married (although he did not say to whom) and that he would then be able to look after her in her old age. "We will all be happy," he said, but old Mrs Chamberlain was sceptical: "Poor boy they hope his anticipations may be realized but fear not." To Delia, Tom poured out all his woes. She wrote to Lawrence that, "He seems to feel that he was born to be unlucky... I cannot blame him for feeling very much discouraged." Delia and Tom were married in Boston on December 14, 1870.(17)

For a brief while all went well for Tom, although the children he wished for never came. Delia used her own money to help his business, and Lawrence paid them a visit in 1871, reporting that they were "happy as gulls on a rock". By 1872, however, they were back in Maine, and when Tom went to work in the Washington pension office, Delia remained behind. Nevertheless, she stuck with him until the end, even when, in the winter of 1885/86, Tom left her penniless and needing to beg money for her board from her mother-in-law, Sarah Chamberlain. There seems to have been nothing malicious in his actions. When Sae found out what had happened, she wrote him "some plain if not wholesome advice, which he received with the utmost courtesy[,] admitted his deficiencies, and pledged himself to do better." He even repaid an old bill owed to her husband. Sae commented that "I feel sure if Tom had any money he would have sent Delia enough for necessary expenses."(18)

Old Mrs Chamberlain died in November 1888, and Tom, home in Bangor again, was able to pay off some outstanding debts. But his health, which had been poor for some time, was failing. The bronchitis he contracted on the Weldon Railroad raid, back in 1864, had worsened progressively, exacerbated no doubt by his alcoholism and by the family's apparent propensity to chest ailments. By 1890 he was suffering from severe lung and heart disease, and applied for an invalid pension, stating that: "I was unable to do anything but light work, as the exertion produced a cough, when I was first discharged... and I have not been able to do a days manual labor since discharge but have grown gradually worse; had several hemorrhages from right lung." He had, he said, supplemented the treatment of Dr E.F. Sanger, his physician in Bangor since 1865, with "probably half a barrel of Winchesters Hypophospites and Extract of Malt. Also lots of different kinds of medicine." Tom told the examining doctor that he sometimes lost his voice for a month at a time.

The doctor's physical examination revealed: "Loud, rough sonorous rales throughout left lung. Inspiratory murmur very feeble throughout the left lung, almost totally absent in apex, with pleuritic adhesions over the lower lobe of right lung... Heart...irregular in rhythm..." He recommended that Tom be granted a pension with a "total rating for the disability caused by disease of lungs, ½ for that caused by disease of heart."(19)

But Tom was not yet finished. Indeed, at the end of 1891 his nephew Wyllys wrote that, "He had a time of it here for a year, but all is going well with him now." Tom was fond of Wyllys, Lawrence's son, partly perhaps because he had no children of his own, and partly because they were similar characters in many ways. Wyllys told his mother that Tom "...is very kind to me. Knows how it is himself to be out of health and out of work at the same time." Tom had set up as a pension and insurance agent in Bangor, first on his own, and then with lawyer Harry Chapman under the name of "Chamberlain & Chapman". Chapman, as a Justice of the Peace, signed one of the forms for Tom's 1890 pension application; and, in 1893, the firm handled Lawrence's claim for an increase in his payments.(20)

It was only a matter of time before Tom's constitution broke down completely, and the inevitable happened in the summer of 1896. Sae and Delia nursed him through his last, desperate illness, and, on July 30, Sae wrote to Lawrence: "I don't know how he can live thro' so much misery. The Dr. says his constitution is like iron... Poor Tom, he told Delia the other day he should not live a month & he didn't want to."(21) He died two weeks later, in the early hours of Wednesday, August 12. It happened so soon after midnight that the devastated Delia at first thought he had gone from her on August 11, the twenty-ninth anniversary of the death of her first husband, John Chamberlain.(22)

After the funeral service on August 14, Tom's body was taken from Bangor to be buried, the following day, in the Jarvis family plot in the cemetery at Castine, Maine.(23) It is a lovely spot, on a hill overlooking a beautiful view of the bay. His simple, grey marble gravestone bears the inscription:

THOMAS D. CHAMBERLAIN
DIED
August 12, 1896
Aged 55 years
Lieut. Col. 20th Maine Vols.
Brevet Col. U.S.V.

A faithful and distinguished
soldier of his Country

Two of Tom's elder siblings outlived him by many years: Lawrence was finally conquered by his old Petersburg wound in 1914, and Sae survived until 1921. Delia must have retained loving memories of her second husband, despite his failings. She never remarried, and when she died on July 24, 1923, "well known and highly esteemed in the community", she left $200 to the Brewer Public Library in his memory.(24)

Poor Tom. The times in his life when he was truly contented or successful always seemed fated to be short-lived. Possibly he was happiest during his years in the army. Yet despite his honourable service in twenty-five battles and skirmishes, he rarely went to regimental reunions, and was not present at the dedication of the 20th Maine monuments at Gettysburg in 1889, where Lawrence gave a memorable oration.(25) Perhaps he felt overwhelmed by the larger-than-life presence of his brother, or perhaps in some way he blamed the War for his later comparative lack of success. But if Tom was a victim of the War, he was far more a victim of himself.

To conclude his story, it is interesting to consider the way Tom Chamberlain has been viewed in the century or so since his death. For most of the time he was universally forgotten, although this started to change slightly with the appearance of John Pullen's book The Twentieth Maine in 1957, which also put Lawrence right back into the historical spotlight. But it was Tom's appearances in Michael Shaara's novel The Killer Angels (1974), and Ken Burns' 1990 TV documentary series The Civil War (where he was quoted, not always accurately), which really began to bring him to public attention, albeit in a limited way. Then, in 1993, came Ron Maxwell's movie Gettysburg, based on The Killer Angels. Tom's central role as an innocent, swept up in and almost overwhelmed by the horrors that surround him as the Battle of Gettysburg raged, seems to have appealed to audiences, causing many of them to wonder whether he survived the War and what he did afterwards. The film also created a few myths about him which some have accepted as fact. Primarily, and in one of the most memorable scenes, it portrays him comforting the fatally wounded Confederate General Lewis Armistead after Pickett's Charge. In fact, Tom was well over half a mile away from that part of the battlefield on July 3; as was his brother, so the final scene, where Tom and Lawrence hug amid the bodies near the Bloody Angle, is entirely fictional. It works, and may arguably have been justified, as an emotional climax to the movie, but it has been taken much too literally. Thomas A. Desjardin, in his instructive 2003 volume These Honored Dead, where he debunks many of the myths of Gettysburg, gives an example of this:

"... a few years after the film's release, a group of schoolchildren were among those who left tributes to the Chamberlains at the Bloody Angle, where Pickett's Charge ebbed. Naively believing they were standing at the spot where the brothers hugged, these children left a ceremonial shrine, complete with a small flag, candles, and words of thanks to men who were nowhere near that spot in 1863."(26)

Another false belief has grown out of Gettysburg's clever use of Winslow Homer's painting, "Prisoners from the Front". It appears in the title sequence, and later forms the inspiration for a scene where Tom talks to some Confederate prisoners, captured in the railroad cut west of the town on the first day of the fight. People have jumped to the conclusion that Homer's 1866 painting depicts Tom. In reality, the Federal officer in the painting is Homer's friend and distant relative, General Francis Barlow (the Brigadier's star can be clearly seen on his shoulder strap), and it records an event that took place not at Gettysburg but near Petersburg in June 1864.

Since the movie, Tom has acquired a female following (admittedly small when compared with his brother's), which insists on hearing nothing bad about him. At the same time, his life after the War seems to have given him a sorry reputation in some quarters. In a 2003 edition of the Civil War News newspaper, a letter complained about an interview that the letter-writer (apparently one of those aforementioned fans) had read elsewhere, with C. Thomas Howell who played Tom both in Gettysburg and its 2003 prequel, Gods and Generals. In it, Howell described Tom as "something of a drunk and a womanizer" in later life; "the reenactors and other actors... would say things, joke around ('you're only going to be a drunk anyway')," he added.(27) The "womanizer" accusation seems to stem solely from claims that Tom fathered a child out of wedlock, although the child's modern descendants have never yet been able to offer anything more than family tradition to support their belief. The "drunk" idea, as I have shown, has some basis in truth, but fails to take account of the periods when he held down perfectly respectable jobs for several years at a time, while his health was improved and his drinking controlled.(28)

It does not do any favours to Tom's memory either to blacken his name unthinkingly, even turning him cruelly into an object of hilarity, or to see him as some sort of suffering, flawless saint.