Killer angels civil war book
Killer angels civil war bookChamberlain
Entering Bowdoin College , Chamberlain studied the
traditional classical curriculum and showed particular skill
at languages. But first Chamberlain took his Bowdoin A. B.
degree, in the Class of 1852, and returned north for three
more years of study. Turning down the opportunity to become
a minister or missionary, he accepted a position at Bowdoin
teaching rhetoric. A good scholar, he was also an orthodox
Congregationalist, an important factor to his Bowdoin
colleagues, for the College was embroiled in the
denominational quarrels of the day.
Chamberlain knew little of soldiering despite a short
time as a boy at a military school at Ellsworth. When the
sectional crisis led to civil war in 1861, Chamberlain felt
a strong urge to fight to save the union. Although
sympathetic to the plight of the slaves, he is not known to
have been an abolitionist and showed little interest, after
the war, in the cause of the freedmen. But the college was
reluctant to lose his services. Offered a year's travel with
pay in Europe in 1862 to study languages, Chamberlain
instead volunteered his military services to Maine's
governor. He was soon made lieutenant colonel of the 20th
Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
He is best remembered for two great events: the action
at Little Round Top, on the second day of Gettysburg (2 July
1863), when then-Colonel Chamberlain and the 20th Maine held
the extreme left flank of the Union line against a fierce
rebel attack, and the surrender of Lee's Army of Northern
Virginia at Appomattox, when Grant chose Chamberlain to
receive the formal surrender of weapons and colors (12 April
1865). Always a chivalrous man, Chamberlain had his men
salute the defeated Confederates as they marched by,
evidence of his admiration of their valor and of Grant's
wish to encourage the rebel armies still in the field to
accept the peace.
Although never forgotten in Maine, Chamberlain largely
faded from national view for most of the 20th century. No
statue of him was ever erected at Gettysburg; few historians
studied his campaigns. But amid the surge of interest in the
Civil War in the 1990s he has re-emerged as an exemplary
figure among the Union generals, the very model of the
citizen-soldier.
Longstreet
James Longstreet at age forty-two was the dean of corps
commanders at Gettysburg; he had been in corps command twice
as long as anybody else on either side. It was he who would
command of the Army of Northern Virginia if Lee were
incapacitated. He was a man who studied the averages and
calculated the odds carefully. Never one to force his
chances, he preferred to wait for a situation like the one
at Fredericksburg, where he could prepare his defenses on
advantageous terrain and wait for the enemy to shatter
himself against them. If the odds were not in his favor,...
To view the complete essay, you be registered.