Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain...

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who won distinction both as a soldier and as a citizen, for the State of Maine, and for the whole country, was born in Brewer, Maine, September 8, 1828. His parental lineage is traced back to England, but on the mother's side he is descended from Jean Dupuis, who came, in 1685, with other Huguenots, from La Rochelle to Boston. Young Chamberlain was brought up in the country district of Brewer. As Greek was not included in the curriculum of the school where he prepare

History is written for the most part from the outside. Truth often suffers distortion by reason of the point of view of the narrator, some pre-occupation of his judgment or fancy not only as to relative merits but even as to facts in their real relations. An interior view may not be without some personal coloring. But it must be of interest, especially in important transactions, to know how things appeared to those actually engaged in them. Action and passion on such a scale must bear some thoug

It was a dreamy camp along the lines investing Petersburg in the winter following the “All-summer” campaign of 1864,— that never-to-be-forgotten, most dismal of years. Although shadowed at the very beginning by melancholy tokens of futile endeavor and grievous losses,— consolidations of commands which obliterated the place and name of proud and beloved corps and divisions,flags made sacred by heroic service and sacrifice of noble manhood now folded away with tender reverence, or perhaps by speci

Grant's general plan involved an alternative: to cut Lee's communications or turn the right flank of his entrenched line, and in case of the success of either, to take Petersburg by direct front attack. To carry out this plan he appointed Sheridan with the cavalry of the Army of the Shenandoah, Two divisions, under General Merritt, and the Cavalry division now commanded by General Crook, formerly belonging to the Army of the Potomac. He was to have the Fifth Corps as infantry support, to be foll

With customary cognizance of our purposes and plans, Lee had on the 28th of March ordered General Fitzhugh Lee with his division of cavalry— about 1300 strong— from the extreme left of his lines near Hanover Court House, to the extreme right in the vicinity of Five Forks, this being Four or Five miles beyond Lee's entrenched right, at which point it was thought Sheridan would attempt to break up the Southside Railroad. Longstreet had admonished him that the next move would be on his communicatio

After such a day and night as that of the 31st of March, 1865, the morning of April 1st found the men of the Fifth Corps strangely glad they were alive. They had experienced a kaleidoscopic regeneration. They were ready for the next new turn-whether of Fortunatus or Torquemada. The tests of ordinary probation had been passed. All the effects of “Humiliation, fasting, and prayer,” believed to sink the body and exalt the spirit, had been fully wrought in them. At the weird midnight trumpet-call th

The victory at Five Forks had swept away a flying buttress of the enemy's stronghold. We had broken down the guard of a tactical movement to hold their threatened communications and cover their entrenched lines. We may be said to have virtually turned the right of the defenses of Petersburg and broken the Confederate hold upon Virginia. It was, indeed, a brilliant overture, giving courage to our hearts and stimulus to our energies. Immediately on learning of Sheridan's victory at Five Forks, Gra

The darkest hours before the dawn of April 9, 1865, shrouded the Fifth Corps sunk in feverish sleep by the roadside Six miles away from Appomattox Station on the Southside Road. Scarcely is the First broken dream begun when a cavalryman comes splashing down the road and vigorously dismounts, pulling from his jacket-front a crumpled note. The sentinel standing watch by his commander, worn in body but alert in every sense, touches your shoulder. “Orders, sir, I think.”You rise on elbow, strike a m

Although fraught with deepest interest and filled with occupations of great variety, our sojourn at Appomattox Court House was a hard experience. We had raced to that point in lightest marching order; there was no superfluity of equipage. The packs were slender; overcoats and blankets had proved too heavy for those Thirty-mile marches. The shelter-tent cloths had to serve for these, and for towels also, which they most resembled. The rations reduced to sediment in the haversacks smelt of lead an

Many circumstances tended to make our camp on Arlington Heights an ideal One. We well knew that its material existence was to be brief; but its image in thought was to hold for us the traces of momentous history and to remain the most visible token of the probation under which our personal characters had been moulded. We took therefore a certain pride in this last encampment; we looked upon this as the graduation day of our Alma Mater. The disturbing incidents which had forbidden us ever to make

It was now the morning of May 23d, 1865, the day appointed for the final grand review of the Army of the Potomac, to extend from the Capitol to the White House along Pennsylvania Avenue in the city of Washington. It is with deep emotion that I attempt to tell the story of my last vision of that army,— the vision of its march out of momentous action into glorious dream. This is not an essay in composition-military, historic, or artistic. I seek to hold fast the image which passed before my eyes.

The day after the review of our Second and Fifth Corps of the Army of the Potomac was appointed for a review on the same ground of Sherman's famous Army of the West. A feeling of comradeship and admiration rather than anything of jealousy or disposition for invidious comparison took many of us over to witness that grand spectacle. It was well worth a day's devotion to see the men who had fought those tremendous battles of the West and had marched nearly Two thousand miles, cutting through the mi

The last days of our encampment before Washington gave us plenty of work, especially for the officers, making up returns of government property: arms, clothing, tents, supplies of all kinds, for which they were responsible and must give satisfactory account before they could be honorably discharged. For the most part the men were to take their equipments with them, as a matter of courtesy, I suppose, as these belonged to the United States. It was fair that these veterans should be allowed to tak