[Spok]

Chamberlain's biography is called "In the Hands of Providence" but I don't know if that's the book.

[dinoparty]

You are asking for it, LOL. There will be some neo-confeds out to rip you to shreds for saying Chamberlain is somehow praiseworthy. Just warning you.

[larryjohnson]

Took Maine grandson to Gettysburg to see where LJC fought.

[Robe]

20th Maine would have lost the left flank at Little Round Top

Well then, I guess we really coulda gone to the riiiight !!!!

[IronJack]

I think it's oversimplying to say that the loss of the left flank would have cost the Union Gettysburg, or even conceding that, that the loss of Gettysburg would have turned the tide for the Confederacy. There are just too many other factors to consider.

However, it is likely that a loss at Gettysburg would have made the Union even MORE cautious; the reticence of its commanders had already allowed Lee to run circles around the Army of the Potomac.

Logistically, and Gettysburg notwithstanding, the South could never have won that war.

[VOA]

I don't know how rigorous your fact-checking needs to be, but it appears
in an article online.

Scroll down about 3/4 of the page to this heading:

"MY LIFE HANGS ON AN IMPULSE"

http://www.gdg.org/Research/People/Cross/blodfire.html

[Wings-n-Wind]

"The Traveler's Gift"
BY contemporary speaker Andy Andrews (andyandrews.com)
Would be a good secondary resource...

TG Has chapters and narratives about Chamberlain's brave stand at Little Round Top.

Andrews' work is a morality fiction wrapped around many historical encounters -- Andy is quite a student of Chamberlain -- and mentions this letter in the discourse of the lead character and Col. Chamberlain.

The bibliography cites all the accurate historical data and quoted works...

Hope this helps...

[Ironclad]

It's definitely in the literature; I've read it in one of the numerous books I have about TBOG, LRT, and JHC. Will try to find it tonight. I think it's in one of the 19th Century books, which automatically makes the story unreliable. People "remembered" all kinds of things that subsequent scholarship found to be untrue - and Chamberlain had one of the worst memories of them all in hindsight.

[zarf]

Chamberlain is simply one of the greatest Americans who ever lived. His accomplishments in war and in life are astounding.

He gets my vote as the most singularly underrated American citizen....ever.

[LS]

Chamberlain, in his bio, claimed that as he advanced downhill, a Confederate officer had him dead-on in his pistol sights, but was out of ammo.

[mware]

My favorite Chamberlain.

[HereInTheHeartland]

Google works. Just put a quote like that in Google and see what comes up.

"I rested my gun on the rock and took steady aim. I started to pull the trigger"

equals these results: ttp://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=%22I+rested+my+gun+on+the+rock+and+took+steady+aim.+I+started+to+pull+the+trigger%22&btnG=Google+Search




"http://www.gdg.org/Research/People/Cross/blodfire.html

[Stonewall Jackson]

As for myself, so far I had escaped. How close an escape I had I did not know till afterwards. I think I may mention here, as a psychological incident, that some years after the war, I received a letter written in a homely but manly style by one subscribing himself "a member of the Fifteenth Alabama," in these words: Dear Sir: I want to tell you of a little passage in the battle of Round Top, Gettysburg, concerning you and me, which I am now glad of. Twice in that fight I had your life in my hands. I got a safe place between two big rocks, and drew bead fair and square on you. You were standing in the open behind the center of your line, full exposed. I knew your rank by your uniform and your actions, and I thought it a mighty good thing to put you out of the way. I rested my gun on the rock and took steady aim. I started to pull the trigger, but some queer notion stopped me. Then I got ashamed of my weakness and went through the same motions again. I had you, perfectly certain. But that same queer something shut right down on me. I couldn't pull the trigger, and gave it up, that is, your life. I am glad of it now, and hope you are.

Yours truly.

I thought he was that, and answered him accordingly, asking him to come up North and see whether I was worth what he missed. But my answer never found him, nor could I afterwards.

While I do not have the book Through Blood and Fire, I do have copies of In the Hands of Providence and The Twentieth Maine (which is considered to be one of the finest regimental histories written about the Civil War), and both books mention this incident.

[thiscouldbemoreconfusing]

"As for myself, so far I had escaped. How close an escape I had I did not know till afterwards. I think I may mention here, as a psychological incident, that some years after the war, I received a letter written in a homely but manly style by one subscribing himself "a member of the Fifteenth Alabama," in these words:

Dear Sir: I want to tell you of a little passage in the battle of Round Top, Gettysburg, concerning you and me, which I am now glad of. Twice in that fight I had your life in my hands. I got a safe place between two big rocks, and drew bead fair and square on you. You were standing in the open behind the center of your line, full exposed. I knew your rank by your uniform and your actions, and I thought it a mighty good thing to put you out of the way. I rested my gun on the rock and took steady aim. I started to pull the trigger, but some queer notion stopped me. Then I got ashamed of my weakness and went through the same motions again. I had you, perfectly certain. But that same queer something shut right down on me. I couldn't pull the trigger, and gave it up, that is, your life. I am glad of it now, and hope you are.

Yours truly.

I thought he was that, and answered him accordingly, asking him to come up North and see whether I was worth what he missed. But my answer never found him, nor could I afterwards.

http://www.gdg.org/Research/People/Cross/blodfire.html

[Dawggie]

Nothing much would have happened. Reinforcements were on the march to Little Round top. Had the confederates turned the union flank; the confederats would have been quickly sweapt away. Not to take away from Chamberlain, he was a great leader, but the fight on Little Roundtop was amplified to create a hero.

[tomcorn]

While Gettysburg is a grand drama, full of sturm und drang and derring do, in any strategic sense it pales in comparison to Vicksburg.

While Lee was brilliant tactically, he was devoid of strategic sense. He had the capacity to make the war long and bloody but no realistic chance of winning.As each day passed after Chancellorsville the CSA got weaker and the Union got stronger.

In functional terms the worse enemies of the South were RE Lee and John Wilkes Booth. Lee because of his tactical brilliance but strategic blindness and Booth becasue he killed the only man standing between The South and A Brutual Reconstruction scheme.

[kalee]

ping