Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, 1828-1914.
Several people of renown have had the name of Chamberlain over the years - Wilt, Neville and Richard come readily to mind. But in Maine there can be only one - Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Civil War hero, who died ninety-five years ago today.
Not only did Chamberlain receive the Medal of Honor for his leadership at Gettysburg, he also served the state of Maine for four terms as governor, not to mention being president of his alma mater, Bowdoin College. Remarkably, he had been nearly forgotten until Ken Burns's documentary on the Civil War caused a vast surge of interest. His house in Brunswick, Maine, which had been saved from demolition in the early 1980s, is now a museum.
There are a number of JLC tributes on YouTube, most of them slide shows with stirring music in the background. I picked this one for the stirring music in the background - it's the "Little Round Top" piece from the soundtrack to Gettysburg.
I also liked this, a reenactment of Chamberlain's last trip to Gettysburg, less than a year before his death. The letter that's being read was one that Chamberlain actually received from a member of the 15th Alabama, which he mentioned frequently in later years.
"I thought he was that," Chamberlain recalled, "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."
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