“Today we stand on an awful arena, where character which was the growth of centuries was tested and determined by the issues of a single day. We are compassed about by a cloud of witnesses; not alone the shadowy ranks of those who wrestled here, but the greater parties of the action–they for whom these things were done. Forms of thought rise before us, as in an amphitheatre, circle beyond circle, rank above rank; The State, The Union, The People. And these are One. Let us–from the arena, contemplate them–the spiritual spectators.
“There is an aspect in which the question at issue might seem to be of forms, and not of substance. It was, on its face, a question of government. There was a boastful pretence that each State held in its hands the death-warrant of the Nation; that any State had a right, without show of justification outside of its own caprice, to violate the covenants of the constitution, to break away from the Union, and set up its own little sovereignty as sufficient for all human purposes and ends; thus leaving it to the mere will or whim of any member of our political system to destroy the body and dissolve the soul of the Great People. This was the political question submitted to the arbitrament of arms. But the victory was of great politics over small. It was the right reason, the moral consciousness and solemn resolve of the people rectifying its wavering exterior lines according to the life-lines of its organic being.
“There is a phrase abroad which obscures the legal and moral questions involved in the issue,–indeed, which falsifies history: “The War between the States”. There are here no States outside of the Union. Resolving themselves out of it does not release them. Even were they successful in intrenching themselves in this attitude, they would only relapse into territories of the United States. Indeed several of the States so resolving were never in their own right either States or Colonies; but their territories were purchased by the common treasury of the Union. Underneath this phrase and title,–“The War between the States”–lies the false assumption that our Union is but a compact of States. Were it so, neither party to it could renounce it at his own mere will or caprice. Even on this theory the States remaining true to the terms of their treaty, and loyal to its intent, would have the right to resist force by force, to take up the gage of battle thrown down by the rebellious States, and compel them to return to their duty and their allegiance. The Law of Nations would have accorded the loyal States this right and remedy.
“But this was not our theory, nor our justification. The flag we bore into the field was not that of particular States, no matter how many nor how loyal, arrayed against other States. It was the flag of the Union, the flag of the people, vindicating the right and charged with the duty of preventing any factions, no matter how many nor under what pretence, from breaking up this common Country.
“It was the country of the South as well as of the North. The men who sought to dismember it, belonged to it. Its was a larger life, aloof from the dominance of self-surroundings; but in it their truest interests were interwoven. They suffered themselves to be drawn down from the spiritual ideal by influences of the physical world. There is in man that peril of the double nature. “But I see another law”, says St. Paul. “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind.”
–Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1828-1914)
Perhaps the governors of Texas, Arizona, and several other states whose leaders are supposedly members of the same party of the great man who fought to keep this nation might read Chamberlain’s words and at least give them a passing thought.
If you had to pick one man who probably has done more in one single afternoon than any other to keep this country together, you would about have to pick Joshua Chamberlain (and all the 20th Maine). If confederate troops had succeeded in flanking him at Gettysburg, the war – – and the future of the US – – could well have been entirely different. It was that serious – – — and that close.
The American Civil War, for all we in the South may wrap it in nostalgia, was a truly bitter affair. Yet on many occasions the actions of the fighting men did much to heal the bitterness of the loosing side.
It was at Appomattox and:
[blockquote]Chamberlain was responsible for one of the most poignant scenes of the Civil War at the April 1865 surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House. Gen. Grant placed Chamberlain in charge of receiving the surrender of Confederate weapons and battle flags. As the conquered Confederate soldiers marched down the road to surrender their arms and colors, Chamberlain, without orders or permission, ordered his men to come to attention and “carry arms” as a show of respect. Chamberlain described what happened next:
The gallant John B. Gordon, at the head of the marching column, outdoes us in courtesy. He was riding with downcast eyes and more than pensive look; but at this clatter of arms he raises his eyes and instantly catching the significance, wheels his horse with that superb grace of which he is master, drops the point of his sword to his stirrup, gives a command, at which the great Confederate ensign following him is dipped and his decimated brigades, as they reach our right, respond to the ‘carry’. All the while on our part not a sound of trumpet or drum, not a cheer, nor a word nor motion of man, but awful stillness as if it were the passing of the dead.
Chamberlain’s salute to the Confederate soldiers was unpopular with many in the north, but he defended his action in his memoirs, The Passing of the Armies. Many years later, Gordon, in his own memoirs, called Chamberlain “one of the knightliest soldiers of the Federal Army.”[/blockquote]http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Joshua_Chamberlain_-_Incident_at_Appomattox/id/5194722
A professor or teacher, I am thinking. Right?
Chamberlain was a professor of rhetoric and natural and revealed religions at Bowdoin College. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Chamberlain
He had no military training and learned on the job.
He was terribly wounded during the Siege of Petersberg and promoted to brigadier general when he was expected to die of those wounds. He was later elected Governor of Maine four times.
Jeff Daniels plays him in the movies: Gods and Generals and Gettysburg.
Oh, I might add that the fight of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg is still studied as an example of small unit cohesion in battle.
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain……Professor of Revealed Religion and Rhetoric, Brevet Major General, U.S. Army, holder of the Medal of Honor for his regiment’s heroic defense of Little Round Top at Gettysburg, President of Bowdoin College, and four-term Governor of Maine, was also a frequent speaker at veterans’ reunions until his death in 1914 from wounds received during the war.
one of my prize possessions from my enormous collection of stuff that very few others are interested in is a photo of General/Governor/Professor Chamberlain on horseback in August, Maine in the 1890’s.
One of the most distinguished of the graduates of my alma mater of whom I always think on this day, who did one of the great deeds in U.S. history at the end of that terrible war. I don’t think you can get past the Civil War if you take July 4 the way it is meant to be, they go together, as Ken Burns and others recognized. We are a broken people, whom God has graciously used.
I can’t think of one without the other. They are intertwined.
Chamberlain has been underrated; it was only because of Jeff Daniels’ portrayal of him in the movie that he has been “remembered” again. My husband and I found a West Point instructor at Gettysburg, carrying the book “Killer Angels” (on which the movie “Gettysburg” [not the one listed above] was based) and studying it and Chamberlain’s tactics to take back to the college. He pointed out to us that that particular battle was a turning point for several reasons not the least of which was the fact that troops fought with a technique that had not been used before (the flanking idea, I think.)
We can certainly give thanks for God’s man, Joshua Chamberlain, on this Fourth–oh, yes, wasn’t Gettysburg fought over this holiday?
Yes, the battle ended on the afternoon of the 4th…….a coincidence not lost on General Lee.
No, no. It ended on the afternoon of the 3d. As to Chamberlain, two things: 1. Chamberlain was a National Guardsman; 2. If a West Pointer had been on Little Round Top, he would NEVER have ordered a bayonet charge, and the Battle of Gettysburg would have been won by Lee. My belief is the South would still have lost the war, but it would have been prolonged.
Chamberlain is a hero and deserves accolade, most especially for his service in ’64 and ’65. The cost he bore to his person and the cost his wife and marraige bore were tremendous and should remind us during this time of war to recognize the heros among us now who are accepting similar responsibilities and dealing with similar costs to body and spirit and kin.
That said, all y’all should take a look at Norton’s “Attack and Defense of Little Round Top.” The 20th Maine was part of a whole.
13, actually the National Guard was created in 1903. Chamberlain was a member of a regiment of volunteers. The states raised these units in response to Lincolns call for troops. They had no military training at first. Both sides tried to train these troops as rapidly as possible. The only thing roughly equivalent to today’s National Guard were the various state militias. The National Guard is a component of the Army of the United States.
An honorable fellow, even if he was a Yankee general, but he was wrong about the War.