Colonel joshua chamberlain biography

His extraordinary Civil War career is much admired today, thanks to books like John J. Pullen’s The Twentieth Maine and Alice R. Trulock’s biography In the Hands of Providence, documentaries like Ken Burns’s The Civil War, and novels like Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels (which was made into the movie Gettysburg, with Jeff Daniels portraying Chamberlain).

From Antietam in 1862 to the triumphal grand review of the armies in May of 1865, Chamberlain saw much of the war in the East, including 24 battles and numerous skirmishes. He was wounded six times — once, almost fatally — and had six horses shot from under him.

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