00:00:17
Speaker 1: Pushkin. The men of the twentieth Main were out of ammunition. It was a boiling hot afternoon in the Pennsylvania countryside. The soldiers were standing on a rocky hill. It was dotted with boulders and pine trees, and it marked the far end of the Union army line. The date was July second, eighteen sixty three, and they were at the Battle of Gettysburg, facing a company of Confederate soldiers who were about to run them down. The twentieth Main was led by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. He was tall, with side swept hair and a truly giant mustache, I mean huge. Joshua Chamberlain had never planned to be a soldier. He was going to be a man or a teacher. He was quiet and mild mannered. He loved music and literature. But the choice he made in that moment on a hill called Little Roundtop would make him one of the most famous fighters in the whole Civil War. In front of him, Joshua could see dozens of wounded and dead soldiers from both sides, and beside him he could see his men, the fear in their eyes as they fired the last shots in their rifles. Joshua looked down towards the bottom of the hill where the enemy was waiting, and he knew it was only minutes until the Confederate soldiers came. He had no cards left to play, so he screamed down the line, Mayonnets, I'm j R. Martinez and this is Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States. It's awarded for gallantry and bravery and combat at the risk of life, above and beyond the call of duty. Each candidate must be approved all the way up the chain of command, from the supervisory officer in the field to the White House. This show is about those heroes, what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice. If you're a Civil War buff, and I'm guessing some of you are, you've probably heard the name Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. There has been a lot, and I mean a lot written about Joshua. Have you seen the movie Gettysburg. Jeff Daniels played him extra large mustache, and all every book or movie about Joshua talks about those bayonets they made him famous, and he received a Medal of Honor for that action on Little Roundtime. And while the bayonet moment is pretty epic, I think what makes Joshua really special is something entirely different. His empathy, his compassion. Because he wasn't just a brilliant leader. He thought a lot about why and how he should lead, how he should treat his men and the enemy. And he was fighting for the idea of America. And he didn't want to just stay at home with his good job and his wife and his kids, even though he could have, even though everyone expected him to. He wanted to set an example, not just a bravery, but of kindness. And he was driven by the hope that a broken country commended itself. In eighteen sixty one, when the Civil War began, Joshua Chamberlain was living a quiet, scholarly life way up north in Brunswick, Maine. He was a professor at a small college called Boden. He was a thin, shy guy with the stutter. He had overcome it by learning different languages, and pretty soon he spoke nine of them, and he was super religious. In fact, his original plan was to become a minister or a missionary. He had gone to the seminary, but he was also in love with the girl named Fanny. They were both obsessed with music. They met when he led her church choir. Now we don't have recordings of Joshua's voice, of course, but we have lots and lots of his letters, articles and speeches. So we're going to have our old friend Ben NADAFH Hoffrey read his words for us. Here. Here's a line from one of the love letters he wrote Fanny early on.

00:05:10
Speaker 2: They seem foolish for me to tell you again that I love you more and more every day, But it is becoming so much more true every day that it is really new.

00:05:20
Speaker 1: Fanny didn't want to be a minister's wife, so Joshua took a job at Boden. He and Fanny got married and had two kids, Daisy, a girl, and Willis a boy. Their life was quiet and calm, filled with music and art and prayer. Then in April of eighteen sixty one, shots were fired on Fort Sumter, and Joshua's students at Boden started to join the fight. He noticed the empty chairs, the familiar faces missing from his classroom, and he supported the war. He believed deeply in what the founding fathers had fought for a nation undivided.

00:06:01
Speaker 2: I feel that we are fighting for our country, for our flag, not as so many stars and stripes, but as the emblem of a great and good and powerful nation, fighting to settle the question of whether we are a nation or only a basket of chips.

00:06:17
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure what a basket of chips means, but I like it. By then, Joshua was thirty two, almost ten years older than the average Union soldier. He had a family. Nobody would have judged him for staying at home, but he felt that he had a duty to serve, so in the summer of eighteen sixty two he wrote to the governor of Maine and asked to join the army.

00:06:42
Speaker 2: I fear this war, so costly of blood and treasure, will not cease until the men of the North are willing to leave good positions and sacrifice the dearest personal interests.

00:06:55
Speaker 1: Well it worked. He became a lieutenant colonel with the newly formed twentieth Main Regiment, and this nerdy guy who wore little glasses and didn't drink and wouldn't hunt, learned how to fight. He got really close to his men. They were farmers, lumberjacks, sailors, and merchants. They'd all volunteered to leave their homes across the state of Maine. The regiment started with more than nine hundred and seventy men. One year later they had fewer than four hundred. Joshua led his men in the bloody Battle of Fredericksburg. He watched as they were wounded and killed, and later as they called smallpox or died from sunstroke. Then came the night of July first, eighteen sixty three. The twentieth main were marching through the darkened streets of a little Pennsylvania town. They had been going since early morning, traveling nearly thirty miles on foot in the sweltering heat, carrying packs that weighed more than fifty pounds, drinking the last water from their canteens. Some men had collapsed from exhaustion, and now the unit was marching under a moonlit sky. People came out of the houses to watch as they passed. Women brought the soldiers food and water. Young girls gave them flowers. They sang them patriotic songs. Years later, Joshua wrote about how it felt to be heading into this battle.

00:08:25
Speaker 2: We knew that a great battle was soon to be fought, a desperate and momentous one. But what impressed my mind was the great calm, the uncertainty, and seeming lack of tactical plan. We were aware that other troops were coming up on one side and the other, but we had no means of knowing or judging which side would take the offensive, in which the defensive, or where the battle would begin.

00:08:52
Speaker 1: Finally, the men settled down for the night. It was around one in the morning. Joshua could have asked for a house to stay in, after all, he was an officer, but that wasn't his style. He just slept on the ground with his guys. As he put it in a letter he wrote his wife, I.

00:09:10
Speaker 2: Hate to see a man always on the spring to get the best of everything for himself. I prefer to take things as they come, and I am as well and comfortable as anybody, and no one's the worst for it.

00:09:21
Speaker 1: That kind of sum Joshua up. Maybe it's the main thing, but I think it's more about who he was as a person. As the men tried to fall asleep, they must have been terrified about what was waiting for them. The battle had already begun, and it was only a few miles away in a little town named Gettysburg. They had passed broken carts and dead horses. They heard the artillery booming. It was the sound of two armies converging. The Confederate Army of Northern Virginia had seventy five thousand men. They were confident after two victories at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. They were led by Robert Eedley, who seemed unable to lose a battle. On the Union side. Joshua's side was the Army of the Potomac. It was a hunt than twelve thousand men strong, and it was led by General George Meade, and they would all face off at Gettysburg, a town of twenty four hundred residents surrounded by gently rolling fields and rocky hills. Think of a postcard of a perfect farming town. It would be the site of the biggest battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. On July second, eighteen sixty three. The Union lines at Gettysburg were set up in a configuration that kind of looked like a large, upside down fish hook. The points started in the southeast, and then it went north briefly before hooking down and going straight south. The very end of the Union line was about two miles south of town, a hill that locals called Little Roundtop. Union leaders felt good about this setup, but when their chief engineer looked at Little Roundtop through his binoculars, he realized there weren't any Union soldiers actually on the hill. It's a huge problem. If the Confederates took Little Roundtop first and put their artillery on top of it, they could blast away at the whole Union line. Then he spotted light glinting off the Confederate guns. The assault on the Union's left flank was about to begin. Joshua, Chamberlain and the twentieth Maine were ordered to go to Little Roundtop as fast as they possibly could.

00:11:56
Speaker 2: The bugle sounded to the left at utmost speed down. We pushed at the double quick straight for the strife, not seeking roads or minding roughness of ground, thorn hedges, stone fences, or myrie swamps. The earth was quaking, sky ablaze. The fight was desperate already.

00:12:15
Speaker 1: Joshua's two younger brothers were riding with him. Tom had enlisted in the twentieth Maine at the age of twenty one. John was there too, but not as a fighter. He was a member of the Christian Commission, which supported soldiers. They got to the south side of Little Round Top and headed up the hill.

00:12:34
Speaker 2: It had a rough forbidding face, wrinkled with jagged ledges, bearded with mighty boulders, strewn with fragments of rock like the Battleground of Giants.

00:12:44
Speaker 1: They were midway to the top when the Confederates fired.

00:12:47
Speaker 2: Shells burst overhead and brought down treetops. As hissing fragments fell, shots swept close above our heads.

00:12:55
Speaker 1: Joshua immediately sent Tom to the back of the line and john Ford to help him with the wounded. He knew that if they all died together, it would be too hard for his mother to take. Then it got weirdly silent. The thunder of Confederate artillery had stopped. Joshua knew this could only mean one thing. The enemy was about to attack Little Round Top, and their artillery men didn't want to risk hitting their own troops. Soldiers in gray uniforms suddenly began appearing below them.

00:13:27
Speaker 3: Joshua tried to get a better look. I sprang forward, mounted a great rock. Thick groups in gray were pushing up to gain our left flank. There was no mistaking this. How many were coming we could not know.

00:13:41
Speaker 1: Joshua had been told to hold the hill at all costs, because the men from Maine were protecting the entire Union line.

00:13:49
Speaker 2: If a strong force should gain our rear, our brigade would be caught, as if by a mighty shear's blade, and be cut and crushed. That front had to be held, and that rear covered. Something must be done quickly.

00:14:02
Speaker 1: He couldn't have known it, but they were fighting, the fifteenth Alabama Regiment, led by Colonel William Oates. They were seasoned fighters, They were fierce, and to Joshua it looked like they had twice as many men as he did.

00:14:17
Speaker 2: The fierce assault lasted with increasing fury, for an intense hour. The edge of conflict swayed to and fro. At times I saw around me more of the enemy than of my own men. All around was a strange mingled roar, shouts of defiance, rally and desperation, And underneath stifled moans, gasping prayers, and whispers of loved names. Everywhere men were torn and broken, staggering.

00:14:47
Speaker 1: The twentieth Maine hit back with concentrated firepower. For a moment, it worked.

00:14:53
Speaker 2: We had held the ground at all costs. But now that the smoke dissolved, we saw our dead and wounded all out in front of us, mingled with more of the enemy. They were scattered all the way down to the very feet of the hostile line, now rallying in the low shrubbery for a nuance at They knew our weakness now, and they were gathering force.

00:15:16
Speaker 1: And then the Confederates came.

00:15:19
Speaker 2: We were enveloped in fire and sure to be overwhelmed when the great surge struck us. Already I could see the bold flankers on their right darting out and creeping and crawling under the smoke to gain our left.

00:15:31
Speaker 1: In those days, someone always held the flag of the regiment, and this was no different. The color sergeant for the twentieth Man held their flag in one hand and his rifle in the other. As bullets snapped the arrow around him. The regiment's ammunition began to run low. Men grabbed bullets from the boxes of fallen friends or even enemies.

00:15:52
Speaker 2: Our fire was slackening, our last rounds of shot had been fired, and what I had sent for could not get to us. I saw the faces of my men, one after another when they had fired their last cartridge, turn anxiously toward mine for a moment, then square to the front, again to the front of them laid deaf.

00:16:14
Speaker 1: There are conflicting reports about the actual size of the Alabama regiment. At the time, it was believed that they had roughly six hundred and fifty men, twice the size of the twentieth Main. Later William Mote said he had fewer than four hundred. I don't think it really matters. Joshua and his men were out of bullets, and the Confederates just kept on coming. So Joshua, in an instant, made a crazy decision.

00:16:43
Speaker 2: Desperate as the chances were, there was nothing for it but to take the offensive. The men turned towards me. One word was enough bayonet. It caught like fire and swept along the ranks.

00:16:58
Speaker 1: Civil War bayonets were sharpened steel blades that fit over the end of a rifle. Soldiers rarely used them unless they were desperate. Well, they were desperate now. I remember when I was an Ira we had bayonets on our guns, and let me tell you the idea of having to use them, or having to stab someone, is way different than shooting at them. It's more personal, more daunting. But that's exactly what Joshua ordered his men to do. Using their bayonets, they pushed the Confederates back down that hill. Some of the enemy fled, more surrendered. The Battle of Little Round Top was over. Years later, Joshua was humble about his victory and complimented his foes.

00:17:48
Speaker 2: Had we not used up our ammunition, and had we continued to meet the enemy musket to musket, this give and take would soon have finished us by reason of the enemy's superior numbers. It was a psychological success, a miracle in the scheme of military science. Those brave Alabama fellows, none braver or better in either army, were victims of a surprise.

00:18:14
Speaker 1: I think surprise is right because Chamberlain basically brought a knife to a gunfight and it worked. Any celebration was brief. The dead and the wounded were scattered everywhere. The twentieth Main suffered one hundred and thirty casualties, about one third of the regiment. Amazingly, Joshua's brothers Tom and John both survived. Joshua wrote to Fanny, what.

00:18:43
Speaker 2: Fighting that was? A thousand dead horses lay on fields torn by shells, and half as many men. I left thirty two noble fellows dead. Gathered them all and laid them side by side in the grave.

00:18:59
Speaker 1: Joshua would go down in history for a little roundtop, but the bravery that came next was every bit as heroic, and honestly, maybe even harder. After Gettysburg, Joshua Chamberlain was broken down physically and mentally. He wrote to his army doctor.

00:19:33
Speaker 2: I am convinced that I can no longer continue these duties without the most serious consequences.

00:19:40
Speaker 1: He went home to his family and recovered, and then he raced back to the front. He just couldn't stay away from the battlefield. But three months after he returned to action, he was out again. This time he had malaria. He was lucky to survive. During the war, malaria caused ten thousand deaths. Once again, Joshua got back to combat as quickly as he could. On June eighteenth, he was leading his men at the Battle of Petersburg outside of Richmond, Virginia, and he was shot at first, he wasn't quite sure where he was hit.

00:20:18
Speaker 2: In the hiss and roar and blinding flying earth, I felt a sharp, hot flush that seemed to cut the spinal narrow out of my backbone. My thought was that I had been shot in the back, and the shame of it was worse than death. To be shot in the back in the face of the enemy, this was worse than refusing to attack. I was lost, dead or alive, and better dead.

00:20:44
Speaker 1: To be clear, the way he viewed it, if he was shot in the back, people might have thought he was running away, so he tried to stay upright, bracing himself on his sword. He watched as his men went past him, looking at him with pity.

00:21:01
Speaker 2: But then I looked down for the first time I saw the blood spurting out of my right hip side, not shot in the back. Then I do not think I was ever so happy in my life.

00:21:12
Speaker 1: He lay on the ground in a pool of blood. When one of his men tried to pull him out of danger, Joshua refused. He didn't want to take a single soldier off the battlefield.

00:21:23
Speaker 2: I would not let him try to get me away. It would not be worth the cost. I told them it was no good. I was not worth it. Begging pardon, they said, but you are not in command now.

00:21:36
Speaker 1: When they finally got him off the field, the surgeon told Joshua that he would die. He rode to Fanny and his kids to say, goodbye.

00:21:45
Speaker 2: My darling wife. I am lying mortally wounded, the doctors think, but my mind and heart are at peace. God bless and keep and comfort you, precious one. You have been a precious wife to me. To know and love you makes life it in death beautiful. Cherish the darlings, and do not grieve too much for me. Live for the children.

00:22:11
Speaker 1: Doesn't that just make you melt? The bullet had done major internal damage, and yet somehow Joshua lived. In those days before antiseptics and antibiotics. It was pretty much a miracle. And what did a miracle signify to a man of God that he should go back to war? Of course, by November, just five months after he was wounded, Joshua was at the front. He couldn't even get on a horse or walk one hundred yards. Nobody would have expected him to be there, but he felt it was his duty. He had to show bravery and honor. Given how brave and honorable his men had been. He wrote to his parents to try to explain it.

00:22:58
Speaker 2: I owe the country three years service. It is a time when every man should stand by his guns, and I am not scared or hurt enough yet to be willing to face the rear when other men are marked to the front.

00:23:13
Speaker 1: He fought in the battles of Five Forks and at Quaker Road. The Union troops were victorious in both, and the end of the war was coming. All the while, reporters were there watching Joshua ride in about his heroism in the North. He was becoming a household name. And finally, on April ninth, eighteen sixty five, Robert ed Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Joshua was there, and he was asked to lead the surrender ceremonies. Even though he had fought the Confederate forces for so long and lost so many of his men and friends, he was determined to make the ceremonies honorable, respectful, even kind. The two armies met on the battlefield one last time. Joshua was at the front of the Union troops. The men of the twentieth Main were beside him, and then the Confederate units came one by one and laid down their arms. Joshua looked at the ragged Southern troops and his heart went out to them. He saw their humanity, so he had his soldiers salute them. The first Confederate general to approach realize what Joshua's men were doing, and he dipped his sword in a bow of.

00:24:30
Speaker 2: Things on our part, not a sound of trumpet more, nor a roll of drum, not a cheer, but an odd stillness and breath holding, as if it were the passing of the dead.

00:24:45
Speaker 1: Accepting their surrender with empathy was the only way he knew how to act. Towards the end, Joshua heard a Confederate general shouting at his troops. Joshua approached him, hoping to say something supportive, but that general said, quote, you may forgive us, but we won't be forgiven. We hate you, sir. Joshua was stunned, because that's not how we thought about it. He saw past the fighting to what they were fighting for, and he hoped that all of the bloodshed could lead to something better for everyone.

00:25:22
Speaker 2: The whole country will be drawn together under the law of its larger life, its deepest convictions, its highest aims.

00:25:33
Speaker 1: After the war, Joshua Chamberlain returned to Maine. He was thirty six, and he was famous. He thought about the war all the time. He covered his house with Civil War memorabilia. He went on speaking engagements across the country talking about his experiences. He loved being with Fanny and the kids, but he struggled with depression, in part because he was in constant pain from his bullet wound. He had more surgeries to try to fix it, but the damage would never fully heal. As a Civil War hero, he became a symbol of patriotism and leadership. Eighteen sixty six, he was elected governor of Maine, even though he had no political experience back then it was just a one year gig. He supported civil rights in public education. He welcomed immigrants to his state. He was elected three more times. He then became president of Voting College, where he used to teach. After that, he tried his hand at real estate and other businesses in Florida and New York City. His fame got him in the door, but none of his business ventures really worked, and nothing felt as good to him as talking about the war. In eighteen ninety three, Joshua was finally awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg. Many Civil War heroes got their decorations around this time. They were starting to die of illnesses or of old age, and Congress wanted to make sure they were honored while they were still alive. His citation noted his quote daring heroism and great tenacity and holding his position on little round Top against repeated assaults. His beloved Fanny died in nineteen oh five, just six weeks shy of their fiftieth wedding anniversary, and Joshua passed in nineteen fourteen at the age of eighty five. It was almost fifty years since he had been wounded, but he was still being treated by the same doctor who had saved his life at Petersburg. Whether it was a medical fact or just a symbolic gesture, the doctor listed Joshua's war wound as the cause of his death, and so he became one of the very last Civil War soldiers to die of his wounds. Like so many of the people we talk about here and so many people who served, Joshua Chamberlain was completely transformed by his time at war. He went into it as a shy, quiet man of God. He came out as a famous hero, but what never changed was his belief in the essential goodness of people. He didn't see the sides of the war as winners or losers. He saw them as Americans, all worthy of empathy and care, and he deeply believed that we owed kindness to each other, starting from the top down. He felt the president or any leader should set an example for the country.

00:28:42
Speaker 2: The heroes of history are not self seekers. They are saviors. They give their strength to the weak, the wrong of the imperiled, suffering and sacrifice they take on themselves. Summoned by troubles, they have brought more than peace, they have brought understanding.

00:29:20
Speaker 1: Thank you all for listening and supporting our show. Over the past year, we've gotten emails from some of you sharing some great stories of courage. You want to shout out Megan Hahan for sharing the stories of Private First Class Frank Gafney and Private Charles Sanscreen. She said, Private Gaffney's heroism closely rivals Sergeant Alvin York's, which we've covered, and Private Sanscreen received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle of Atlanta as part of the Union Army during the Civil War. Thank you Megan for sharing. If you have stories or people you would like to highlight, email us at Medal of Honor at Pushkin dot fm. Please follow the show, share it with a friend, or leave a review. These are all zero calls. Ways to support us find us on social media at Pushkin pods or find me at I Am Jr. Martinez Medal of Honor. Stories of Courage is written by Meredith Rollins and produced by Meredith Rollins and Ryan Schwikert. Voiceover in this episode by benn adaf Hoffrey. Our editor is Lydia Jane Kott. Sound designed by Jake Gorsky. Our executive producer is Constanza Gayadovo. Fact checking by Arthur Gomperts. Original music by Eric Phillips. Special thanks to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. If you want to learn more about this story, take a look at our show notes, where we list some of the resources we use to put this episode together. Thank you for listening. I'm your host, JR. Martinez. We hear you. You want to listen to the episode, not the ads. If you're ready to lose the interruptions and hear the full season of Medal of Honor right now. Join Pushkin Plus. You'll get our entire network, including Medal of Honor, Revisionist History, and Heavyweight, completely ad free. You'll be supporting our small independent team. Sign up and save on the Medal of Honor show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm, slash Plus. Use the code MOH twenty five for twenty five percent often annual subscription