Books shed more light on Chamberlain’s life

THE GRAND OLD MAN OF MAINE: SELECTED LETTERS OF JOSHUA LAWRENCE CHAMBERLAIN, 1865-1914, edited by Jeremiah E. Goulka, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, N.C., 335 pages, $39.95.

CHAMBERLAIN AT PETERSBURG: THE CHARGE AT FORT HELL, JUNE 18, 1864, edited by Diane Monroe Smith, Thomas Publications, Gettysburg, Pa., 112 pages, $14.95.

For the Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain fan who has everything, two more books have appeared this fall to provide a fuller understanding of Maine’s premier Civil War idol.

One of them, a volume of Chamberlain’s personal letters after the war, edited by Jeremiah E. Goulka, a Washington, D.C., lawyer and fellow Bowdoin graduate, offers glimpses of Chamberlain’s long, eventful civilian life.

The other is a detailed look at his role at Petersburg, Va., centered on an unpublished essay he wrote on the disastrous “charge at Fort Hell.” It is amply introduced and annotated by Diane Monroe Smith of Bangor, the author of the well-received “Fanny and Joshua: The Enigmatic Lives of Frances Caroline Adams and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.”

Goulka’s introduction and the foreword supplied by James M. McPherson are the best summary of Chamberlain’s life and legend I have read. Always a hero in Maine after the war, Chamberlain devotees have Michael Shaara and Ken Burns to thank for bringing him back to life in modern times. There are probably plenty of people today who know more about Chamberlain thanabout Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

Chamberlain was wounded six times

and had five horses shot out from under him. After such an eventful war experience, he spent the rest of his life trying to live up to the glory – “the defining moments” – he experienced. “Chamberlain made them his benchmarks for his personal expectations and aspirations,” writes Goulka. “For this he would suffer.”

The “Hero of Round Top” and “The Grand Old Man of Maine” would experience frustration and boredom as he sought to apply his military skills and Victorian ideals to his new roles as Maine governor, Bowdoin College president, businessman and federal bureaucrat. Political thickets seemed to be constantly ensnaring him, from his troubles with Republican Party bosses to the imbroglio at Bowdoin over mandatory military drill.

Maintaining his married life was one of his greatest challenges. The most interesting letters in Goulka’s book are those from Chamberlain to his wife as he tried to salvage their troubled marriage.

The most poignant missive is the last he wrote to her, apparently the same day she died. Tear-stained and nearly incoherent at times, it is a sad testimonial. “These stains upon the paper alone can tell you what I could not say,” wrote the old soldier in 1905.

Gettysburg was the turning point of the war and the pivotal moment in the Chamberlain legend, but Petersburg was a major turning point in his personal life. He was reported dead after the “charge at Fort Hell,” having received a ghastly wound through the hips that would affect him for the rest of his life, including his marriage, and eventually kill him in old age.

The best part of Smith’s book for the casual, non-Joshua-doting reader is the 30 pages (less if you count the photos and the footnotes) devoted to Chamberlain’s personal account of the charge. I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to say that the professor of classics had picked up something from his many readings of Greek and Latin works. He was a fine writer whose words take on a Homeric clarity and grandeur when combined with the circumstances of war. Plus his writing exhibits a disarming candor, humility and sense of humor not usually associated with the memoirs of elderly generals.

Diane Monroe Smith’s thorough introduction and footnotes provide plenty of background for the Chamberlain student who wants to know everything, but the essay by Chamberlain is the spark that brings this book to life.

The night before the charge, Chamberlain had “oppressive, unbearable” premonitions that he would die. He offered veiled goodbyes to friends and informed his commanding officer, who may have thought he was losing his mind. The details of his wounding and rescue from the field of battle are riveting.

Afterward, a doctor told him he would die before morning and a New York newspaper reported his death. But Chamberlain would recover and return to the battlefield to be wounded again and receive another newspaper death notice.

These two books touch on a few of the events in the incredible life of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, but there are other books, including one by Smith describing his career more thoroughly. These books have added important information for avid Chamberlain fans, but they are not the place to start for readers who have only little or moderate knowledge of the famous general.

Wayne E. Reilly has edited two books of Civil War era diaries and letters including “The Diaries of Sarah Jane and Emma Ann Foster: A Year in Maine During the Civil War.” He can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.