Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,937

This is the grave of Joshua Chamberlain.

Born in Brewer, Maine in 1828, Chamberlain came from old New England stock. His father was a colonel in the War of 1812 and a shipbuilder. His father then wanted his oldest son to be a military man himself, so young Joshua went to a military academy in Ellsworth, Maine. He learned Greek on his own so he could pass the exams to get into Bowdoin College, which happened in 1848. He was also exceedingly religious, which came from his mother, who wanted him to be a minister. He was basically an old-school Calvinist and would remain staunchly Calvinist through the many troubles of his long life. He spent the three years after his graduation at the Bangor Theological Seminary, studying to be a minister. After an exceedingly long courtship due to her father thinking Chamberlain wasn’t good enough for his daughter, he married Fanny Adams in 1855. They would have epically complicated relationship.

That same year of 1855, Chamberlain began teaching at Bowdoin. He taught just about everything there over his life. Interestingly, when Chamberlain went to join the Union Army after the Civil War started, Bowdoin administration was furious, saying he owed it to them to stay and teach. He did not think so. In fact, he was basically proselytizing in his classes for his students to join the military anyway. He volunteered in 1862 without telling his family, I think including Fanny. He was appointed as a lieutenant colonel of the 20th Maine. One of his first actions was at Fredericksburg. In his diary, Chamberlain wrote of being stuck on the field overnight. He used the dead as a barrier so he wouldn’t be shot and another dead person as a pillow. Such was life in the Civil War.

Of course, the 20th Maine and Chamberlain himself rose to fame at Gettysburg. It was he and his men who defended Little Round Top. They were just getting hammered out there. Casualties were high, but they fought tough. Finally, Chamberlain ordered a bayonet charge, hoping to turn back the 15th Alabama entirely. This worked brilliantly. They killed and captured about 100 traitors and saved the left flank of the Union lines. This was probably the most famous battle maneuver in Civil War history. And no, I do not discuss it when I teach the Civil War course because in the end, who really cares, as it explains nothing about the larger social and political issues in the war. The North won and that’s all you need to know. Yes, I spent about 3 minutes on Gettysburg in that class.

The thing less known here is that Chamberlain had malaria during the battle and was given rest to recover after it. But he was back for Petersburg. More interesting to me and more central to my class is the wound he suffered there. It was bad. He was shot through the hip and groin. He never really recovered. You could run a damn stick through that thing. He had to deal with the pain for the rest of his life and boy did he. He should have died. In fact, it was the wound that probably killed him a half-century later. There are entire academic articles about this wound, both by historians and by medical researchers. As the abstract to the linked article states, “Hope for recovery was nonexistent as urine was seen exiting the lower wound postoperatively. This genitourinary injury required 4 subsequent repairs during Chamberlain’s lifetime and ultimately left him with a draining urethrocutaneous fistula at the penoscrotal junction.” Ow. There was of course no way to treat wounds at the time other than booze and opium. The rest of his life basically sucked, though he made the best of it.

Though hardly recovered, Chamberlain was named the general designated to supervise the parade of the Confederate infantry as they surrendered at Appomattox. Chamberlain was already happy to play te conciliatory “those are good honorable boys wearing gray” thing that would dominate Civil War memory, something he would later play up big time in his memoir. He ordered his own men to stand at arms as a sign of respect as they passed. He later said too that this was not so popular. I bet it wasn’t!

Upon the end of the war, Chamberlain, a certified Union hero, ran for governor of Maine. He won. These were one-year terms and he won four of them, none of which were particularly close. Maine was a super Republican state after all. He wasn’t always super popular. For one, he thought the state’s prohibition law was dumb and he refused to sign a bill to create a police force to enforce it. For another, he supported capital punishment. Both of these positions made him unpopular with the reformist class of the time.

Chamberlain then became president of Bowdoin College and did that from 1871-83, when he resigned because his heath was so bad from his horrible wounds. By 1884, he was wearing a catheter full time. He did continue to make money though, engaging in both the law and real estate, as well as securing a sweet patronage position as Surveyor of the Port of Portland. His marriage was pretty well disastrous during these years, with Fanny nearly divorcing him, an almost totally unknown thing about the wealthy. Her health later declined, she became blind, and died in 1905. It was not a happy set of decades for either of them.

In 1893, Congress awarded Chamberlain the Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg. There was some dispute over whether he really ordered the charge that turned the tide, but these things were impossible to verify so everyone mostly let it go. In 1898, when the U.S. decided to declare war on Spain for reasons of naked imperialist aggression, one of so many extremely gross and violent incidents in this nation’s horrorshow of history, Chamberlain volunteered to lead forces. He was 70 years old and in bad health, yet President McKinley supported the idea. But the military itself did not. But you know who did get named brigadier general of volunteers? William Oates, who was the chief officer leading the Confederate fight at Little Round Top. That’ll bring America back together–which in fact was a big part of the rhetoric around the Spanish-American War. He also wrote a book in 1898 called Ethics and Politics of the Spanish War. In fact, he became quite an author later in life, writing or editing a half-dozen books. Another was Property: Its Office and Sanction. That must be a fun read from a cranky old Gilded Age Republican.

Chamberlain was heavily involved in his later years in Civil War memory and bringing the two sides together to declare what a grand ol’ time it was back in the old days when we were killing each other over slavery. He did a lot of work for the 50th anniversary commemoration at Gettysburg, doing a bunch of trips there in early 1913. But his health began its final decline in the late spring of that year. He was unable to attend the reunion and he died in 1914. He was 85 years old. He might be the next to last Civil War veteran to die of his wounds, though given that the known last person is General Galusha Pennypacker (quality name!), this is almost certainly ignoring enlisted men, as was common. Chamberlain’s final book came out after he died. That was The Passing of the Armies, in 1915, his memoir of the Civil War.

Joshua Chamberlain is buried in Pine Grove Cemetery, Brunswick, Maine.

If you would like this series to visit other Civil War generals, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Galusha Pennypacker is in Philadelphia and William Oates is in Montgomery, Alabama. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.