On Great Fields
The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of A. Lincoln and American Ulysses comes the dramatic and definitive biography of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the history-altering professor turned Civil War hero.
“A vital and vivid portrait of an unlikely military hero who played a key role in the preservation of the Union and therefore in the making of modern America.”—Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of And There Was Light
FINALIST FOR THE GILDER LEHRMAN LINCOLN PRIZE AND THE AMERICAN BATTLEFIELD TRUST BOOK PRIZE FOR HISTORY
Before 1862, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain had rarely left his home state of Maine, where he was a trained minister and mild-mannered professor at Bowdoin College. His colleagues were shocked when he volunteered for the Union army, but he was undeterred and later became known as one of the North’s greatest heroes: On the second day at Gettysburg, after running out of ammunition at Little Round Top, he ordered his men to wield their bayonets in a desperate charge down a rocky slope that routed the Confederate attackers. Despite being wounded at Petersburg—and told by two surgeons he would die—Chamberlain survived the war, going on to be elected governor of Maine four times and serve as president of Bowdoin College.
How did a stuttering young boy come to be fluent in nine languages and even teach speech and rhetoric? How did a trained minister find his way to the battlefield? Award-winning historian Ronald C. White delves into these contradictions in this cradle-to-grave biography of General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, from his upbringing in rural Maine to his tenacious, empathetic military leadership and his influential postwar public service, exploring a question that still plagues so many veterans: How do you make a civilian life of meaning after having experienced the extreme highs and lows of war?
Chamberlain is familiar to millions from Michael Shaara’s now-classic novel of the Civil War, The Killer Angels, and Ken Burns’s timeless miniseries The Civil War, but in this book, White captures the complex and inspiring man behind the hero. Heavily illustrated and featuring nine detailed maps, this gripping, impeccably researched portrait illuminates one of the most admired but least known figures in our nation’s bloodiest conflict.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Biographer White (American Ulysses) provides an admiring portrait of Civil War hero and politician Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1828–1914), whose actions defending Little Round Top during the Battle of Gettysburg earned him widespread acclaim. There, he instructed his outnumbered men to fix bayonets and charge downhill at the Confederates, who surrendered in shock at the assault, turning the tide of the battle and ensuring a Union victory. Born in 1828 in Brewer, Maine, Chamberlain was shaped from his early years, according to White, by "four tributaries": Christian faith, a love of music, an adventuring spirit, and a commitment to education. As a professor at Bowdoin College, he pushed back against the "old-fashioned teaching methods" of the faculty and encouraged critical thinking in his students. As a colonel of the 20th Maine Regiment, Chamberlain was a "master of maps" who dutifully studied the terrain over which his men would fight, playing over a battle's "possibilities and problems in his mind." Chamberlain went on to serve an unprecedented four terms as governor of Maine, eventually returning to Bowdoin as president. By delving deeply into Chamberlain's intellectual and spiritual life, White successfully reconciles his subject's contradictory reputation as both a "bookworm college and seminary student" and a "risk-taking Civil War soldier." Civil War fans and general history readers alike should take note.
