The Twentieth Maine

John J. Pullen

Description

This is the fascinating story of Joshua Chamberlain and his volunteer regiment, the Twentieth Maine. This classic and highly acclaimed book tells how Chamberlain and his men fought at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville on their way to the pivotal battle of Gettysburg. There, on July 2, 1863, at Little Round Top, they heroically saved the left flank of the Union battle line. The Twentieth Maine's remarkable story ends with the surrender of Lee's troops at Appomattox. Considered by Civil War historians to be one of the best regimental histories ever written, this beloved standard of American history includes maps, photographs, and drawings from the original edition.

Sujets

• Civil War Period
• Histoire
• United States
• History

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 21 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456611088
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Twentieth Maine
John J. Pullen
Copyright © 1957, John J. Pullen Renewed 1985
To my parents
CONTENTS
         Copyright
         Illustrations
Chapter
   1.   How D’Ye Do, Colonel
   2.   Dan, Dan, Dan, Butterfield, Butterfield
   3.   Never and Forever
   4.   Stuck in the Mud
   5.   Sunstroke, Sore Feet and Stuart
   6.   Unhooked, Unhinged, and Almost Undone
   7.   A Hard Day for Mother
   8.   So Nobly Advanced
   9.   Living in Awful Times
10.   River of No-Return
11.   On the Grinding Wheel
12.   Woodchuck Warfare
13.   The Winds of March
14.   Hungry Victory
15.   The Last Review
         Acknowledgments
         Bibliography
         Notes
ILLUSTRATIONS
Photographs grouped in this order are found in Chapter 9
Joshua L. Chamberlain, wearing brigadier general’s star
Adelbert Ames, Brevet Major General, U.S.A.
A sergeant of the 20th Maine, William H. Owen
A corporal of the 20th Maine, William T. Livermore
A private of the 20th Maine, John F. Linnekin
Company G of the 20th Maine
The 2nd Maine Regiment on Christmas Day, 1861
Marye’s Heights, as seen from Fredericksburg
Fredericksburg, as seen across the Rappahannock
A few of the dead at Little Round Top
Woods of the Wilderness
Typical fieldworks, near the North Anna
Bombproof shelters at Petersburg
Thirteen-inch mortar, “Dictator”
Part of the Union line at Petersburg
Gouverneur K. Warren, Brevet Major General, U.S.A.
Charles Griffin, Brevet Major General, U.S.A.
MAPS
Theater of War for the 20th Maine in 1862 and 1863
Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862
Gettysburg about 4 P.M. , July 2, 1863
Infantry Positions at Little Round Top
Theater of War for the 20th Maine in 1864 and 1865
A part of the Wilderness on the Afternoon of May 5, 1864
Movements of the 20th Maine … Petersburg 1864 and 1865
Weldon Railroad, August 21, 1864
Warren’s erroneous diagram for the attack at Five Forks
True situation, and the attack as it actually took place
DRAWINGS
Butterfield’s Brigade Call
Exhausted by the March
The Mud March
General Sickles Being Carried from the Field
Laid Out for Burial
Execution of Deserters at Beverly Ford
Crossing the Rapidan
Returning to Camp
CHAPTER ONE
How D’Ye Do, Colonel
W hen, in August of 1862, Colonel Adelbert Ames went to Portland, Maine, to take command of a new volunteer infantry regiment, he was a little more than fourteen months out of West Point and a year out of the first battle of Bull Run, where he had received a painful wound. Thus it had been impressed upon him in two ways–one theoretical and the other practical–that discipline is a mighty good thing to have among your soldiers when the shooting starts. And therefore Colonel Ames was disgusted and horrified when he arrived at Camp Mason, near Portland, and got his first look at the troops gathering there for the 20th Regiment Infantry, Maine Volunteers.
Instead of saluting, a man would say, “How d’ye do, Colonel!” often as not leaning against a wall or tree with legs crossed, for a Maine man will not ordinarily waste energy holding himself erect if there is an inanimate object handy to do that for him. The military posture of one man, standing in ranks, was so abdominally atrocious that Colonel Ames roared at him, “For God’s sake, draw up your bowels!”
The men wanted to act like soldiers but obviously none of them had the slightest notion of military affairs. They had no uniforms or arms and little equipment. Yet they had organized a guard and were trying to hold formations. At one guard mount, the Officer of the Day was clad in a brown cutaway, striped trousers and silk hat. He carried a ramrod for a sword.
Both the officers and the men seemed to think that a regiment should be run something like a town meeting. Orders consisted of long explanations, then there would be conferences and discussions and, finally, agreements between the officers and enlisted men. True, the agreements seemed to be carried out; the men themselves took a great deal of responsibility for this, and in cases of disobedience the offender was likely to be knocked down and perhaps kicked if the offense was of a particularly flagrant nature.
Colonel Ames, not a mild-tempered man to begin with–and with so much to be done, the Union to be saved, a brigadier generalship to be won, and all that–found himself losing what patience he had. He barked, “This is a hell of a regiment!” Then he straightaway set about putting the 20th Maine into some semblance of a military organization.
After a little preliminary drilling, the Colonel attempted to hold a parade, so that he could get the 20th Maine lined up and see what he had for soldiers. This was interrupted, noisily. In their martial ardor the men had organized a fife and drum corps in which the fifers and drummers all seemed to fife and drum independently but with great power. Just as the Colonel took his place in front of the drawn-up troops, the fife and drum corps suddenly and prematurely moved from its position and came tweetling and thundering down the line, making an appalling racket. To the company commander nearest him Colonel Ames shouted, “Captain Bangs, stop that damned drumming!” Captain Isaac S. Bangs couldn’t hear him for the noise, nor could anyone else. In a rage, Colonel Ames charged the drum corps with his sword and scattered it sufficiently to make himself audible.
If Ames had been asked to pick a regiment that was earmarked for great deeds, he certainly wouldn’t have picked the 20th Maine in that August of 1862 as having any date with Destiny. Yet in numbers, at least, Ames could see that he had a regiment that conformed to the table of organization prescribed by law. The Civil War volunteer regiment consisted of ten companies, each having from sixty-four to eighty-two privates, thirteen non-commissioned officers, a wagoner, two musicians, a captain and two lieutenants. The regiment was commanded by a colonel, aided by a lieutenant colonel, a major, and a small regimental staff of commissioned and non-commissioned officers.
All these positions had been filled by individuals with varying degrees of competence. Starting at the top there was Ames himself–a West Pointer and a Maine man, thus both able and eligible to command the regiment. Ames had already made a distinguished record for bravery and what Maine people would call “stick-to-it-iveness.” Serving with a battery at the first battle of Bull Run, he had taken a Minié ball through the thigh, but had refused to leave the field, being lifted on and off a caisson as the battery changed position, and continuing to give fire commands until his boot ran full of blood and he keeled over from exhaustion. Able, intelligent, intensely ambitious, Ames had been mentioned in official reports and marked as a young officer who was on the way up. For his performance at Bull Run he would later be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
The lieutenant colonel of the regiment was a man worth looking at twice. This was Joshua L. Chamberlain, age thirty-three, a graceful, erect gentleman of medium but strong build, with a finely shaped head, a classic forehead and nose, a moustache that swept back with a distinguished flair, a resonant and pleasing voice. To Chamberlain the war would be a great adventure. He was destined to become one of the most remarkable officers in the history of the United States–a veritable knight with plumes and shining armor. He came of English and Norman stock; his people had been among the earliest settlers; and he combined a great deal of solid strength and common sense with dash and gallantry that may well have come to him from the French roots of the family tree. Chamberlain also had a talent for doing the impossible which seems to have been encouraged by his childhood training. One of the tenets of this training was that if something was said to be impossible, a man was supposed immediately to go at it, and do it. Clearing stones from the family farm in Brewer, when Joshua and his brothers reported to their father that they’d left a rock on the field because it was too heavy to move, the elder Chamberlain would say simply, “Move it,” and the boys would go back and move it. (One of these brothers, Thomas, was also in the 20th Maine as a sergeant.) As another instance of this unwonted perseverance, when young Joshua wanted to learn to play the bass viol but couldn’t afford to buy the instrument, he made a crude viol and bow, and sawed away until he could play tunes. And when he desired to learn Greek, he shut himself up in the attic and studied from morning until night, until he had learned the complete grammar textbook by heart.
After graduating from Bowdoin, Joshua had taken a three-year course at the Bangor Theological Seminary, meanwhile teaching German language and literature to classes of young ladies, serving as supervisor of schools in Brewer, running a Sunday school, and leading a church choir. Later he had joined the faculty of Bowdoin College, where he had taught rhetoric, oratory and modern languages. The college had not wanted Professor Chamberlain to go to war, so he had taken a two years’ leave of absence for the purpose of visiting Europe and had instead visited the state capital in Augusta, where he secured a commission as lieutenant colonel of volunteers. The Governor had wished to make him a colonel and give him a regiment, but he’d said no, he’d start a little lower and learn the business first.
Although trained to be a minister of the Gospel, Chamberlain seemed to show a most un-Christian aptitude for military affairs, and Ames thought he might do well.
The major, Charles D. Gilmore, had seen service as a captain in the 7th Maine, a regiment that went into the field in 1861. Gilmore was evidently a man of some managerial ability. He had contrived to get himself a transfer back to Maine, a leave of absence and a promotion to major in the 20th Maine all at one stroke. For