Chamberlain Joshua Chamberlain Question

Chamberlain was lucky not to have been KIA at Petersburg and he suffered from his wounds the rest of his life. Yes it is disappointing to see ACW veterans who had no need whatsoever to embellish their heroism still couldn't resist doing so post war. There is a reason Historians cast a jaded eye at autobiographical works.
 
Chamberlain was lucky not to have been KIA at Petersburg and he suffered from his wounds the rest of his life. Yes it is disappointing to see ACW veterans who had no need whatsoever to embellish their heroism still couldn't resist doing so post war. There is a reason Historians cast a jaded eye at autobiographical works.

Sour grapes. To deny him his right is wrong. I salute the Colonel and all the men of his regiment. The President and Congress gives me that honor and that right.
 
Sour grapes. To deny him his right is wrong. I salute the Colonel and all the men of his regiment. The President and Congress gives me that honor and that right.

And where did I deny Chamberlain recognition for his heroism? My post was not to disparage the man's war record far from it I have admired the man since I first read about him. Chamberlain was not the only ACW hero who tended to toot his own horn and extoll details post war. Perhaps such things are embedded in our very being I don't know. My point regarding many historians general take/skepticism on autobiographical works stands.

The main point of my post is that men Like Colonel Chamberlain and or General John Gordon didn't need to stretch, enhance, or attempt to draw attention to anything in their war records but yet they did.
 
And where did I deny Chamberlain recognition for his heroism? My post was not to disparage the man's war record far from it I have admired the man since I first read about him. Chamberlain was not the only ACW hero who tended to toot his own horn and extoll details post war. Perhaps such things are embedded in our very being I don't know. My point regarding many historians general take/skepticism on autobiographical works stands.

The main point of my post is that men Like Colonel Chamberlain and or General John Gordon didn't need to stretch, enhance, or attempt to draw attention to anything in their war records but yet they did.

Same thing. Just an indirect approach.
 
I liked, Desjardin's book. He states that the memories of the war were haunting for Spear, "... not of glory and honor, but death and misery." He goes on to say that Spear became "disenchanted with veterans who took part in glorifying the war." I guess a romantic style of writing such as Chamberlains would have irritated such a man, but I don't remember reading that Spear and Chamberlain had any kind of serious fallout. In fairness to Chamberlain he took issue with editors who added a great deal of sensationalism to his accounts of the battle before printing them.

I asked Desjardin, he says a handful of Spear's letters were taken way out of context
By 1915, Spear was irascible, suffering from physical (and likely mental) maladies and living in Florida in hopes of some relief. These last few letters do not reflect his opinion of JLC over the previous decades.
I left out a lot of what he said because I'm not sure he wanted me to share it, but he did say,
If someone is keen enough to ask about the "controversy" during my live C-SPAN speech on June 30 at Gettysburg, I'll get to tell this story to a wide television audience.

He did admit that Spear was likely an author of this,
http://www.joshualawrencechamberlain.com/20me3.php
But the accuracy of that, we seem to be disagreeing on.

To balance out all the books suggested in this thread, I would like to suggest "Fanny and Joshua" by Diane M. Smith. She has a lot of good research in this book and it also touches on the Spear Chamberlain relationship. I think a lot of people overlook the book because it covers Chamberlain's marriage and his love letters, but she covers all of Chamberlain's life and her research is impressive.
 
If someone is keen enough to ask about the "controversy" during my live C-SPAN speech on June 30 at Gettysburg, I'll get to tell this story to a wide television audience.
Someone took my advise and asked Tom Desjardin about the Spear Chamberlain controversy. Here's the link:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Joshua

He referenced a lot of the things I sent him. For example http://www.joshualawrencechamberlain.com/wight.php I can't be 100% sure he hadn't seen it before I sent it to him, but I don't think he had.

He mentions Rufus Plummer. I'm kinda confused who Rufus Plummer is, I know there is a reenactor who plays Dr. Shaw by the name of Charles Plummer.
 
I am part way thru Guezlo's Gettysburg Really good read. He has a paragraph on Chamberlain, roughly to the effect that Chamberlain was lucky enough to be the only commanding officer to survive LRT. Strong Vincent, O'Rourke, whole bunch of other participants didn't survive to the end of July, let alone to the end of the war. And while Oates was governor and senator he wasn't nearly the kind of writer (IMHO) Chamberlain was.
 
Nope - that's book number 2 I got from this site. Thank you so much.

I think you will like it. Did you know Chamberlain met Jefferson Davis before the war & actually liked him (before the war)? Did you know Oates visited a spiritual medium to prove she was a fraud? He was attacked by her angry father after discovering her trick & hit the man with a piece of wood... Thinking he killed the man, Oates ran from the law, ended up drinking, gambling, fighting & womanizing until his brother found him & told him he wasn't wanted for murder after all. He returned to Alabama, became a lawyer & pillar of the community... His life got even more interesting when the war broke out :smile:
 
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Many of you have probably seen this before but Garry Adelman did a 4 part series on gettysburgdaily.com called "The Myth of Little Round Top." He debunks the importance of LRT in the overall terms of the battle and basically argues that even if the Confederates would have taken it, they would not have been able to hold it or do much with it. It was a little bit of a bummer for me, because that part of the story was one of my favorite stories of the war. That being said, like many have commented on, Chamberlain, his men, and the surrounding regiments from Pennsylvania and Michigan were extremely brave and deserve to be remembered. Here is the link to Garry Adelman's series just in case anyone was interested.

http://www.gettysburgdaily.com/?p=7132
 
Whether it's historical fiction or even a history or biography, best bet is to doubt everything. Check the author's sources and come up with your own conclusions. It's more exiting to prove something true for yourself than to be discouraged to find an author has lead you wrong. Authors are not trying to mislead, sometimes they simply did not have all the facts.
Authors who think they are smarter than other authors often make the most mistakes. :D
 
Chamberlain was a good soldier, wounded several times but one of the victors, he could tell the stories anyway he wanted to, with political clout to back him up....An influential man but are they all accurate....
 
Chamberlain was a good soldier, wounder several times but one of the victors, he could tell the stories anyway he wanted to, with political clout to back him up....An influential man but are they all accurate....

I'm not so sure about the political clout, his soldiers remained loyal to him, but after serving 4 years as governor his party abandoned him, deciding he was too much of a southern sympathiser. William Oates did better politically than Chamberlain did, rising to the House of Representatives. Chamberlain even had to abandon his roll as President of Bowdoin because he had so many political rivals that he felt they would hurt the college if he remained.

As for accuracy, it depends what story you are referring. I'm finding newspaper interviews appallingly inaccurate while most writings and speeches are much more accurate. If you mean Gettysburg specifically, the main source of info is from "Through Blood and Fire" an article he wrote for Hearst Magazine, a company known for altering and romanticizing stories. We do know that Chamberlain was unhappy with the alterations done to this account, but we don't have the unaltered version. Chamberlain put a lot of time into researching the things he did write and most historians find him a reliable source. Two other members of the 20th who wrote accounts weren't even at the Battle of Gettysburg, and Ellis Spear's accounts change so drastically over the years that historians can pick and choose which statements they want to believe; even Oates backpedals on a few statements. But don't take my word for it, you should read the accounts for yourself and decide.
 
Many of you have probably seen this before but Garry Adelman did a 4 part series on gettysburgdaily.com called "The Myth of Little Round Top." He debunks the importance of LRT in the overall terms of the battle and basically argues that even if the Confederates would have taken it, they would not have been able to hold it or do much with it. It was a little bit of a bummer for me, because that part of the story was one of my favorite stories of the war. That being said, like many have commented on, Chamberlain, his men, and the surrounding regiments from Pennsylvania and Michigan were extremely brave and deserve to be remembered. Here is the link to Garry Adelman's series just in case anyone was interested.

http://www.gettysburgdaily.com/?p=7132

I would take Adelman with a grain of salt, too. What would have happened had the 20th ME not held is all total speculation, no matter who is saying it. I'd save the word "debunk" for pointing out factual inaccuracies, not "what if" opinions. Adelman's opinion is just his opinion and shouldn't be a bummer for you.
 
Many of you have probably seen this before but Garry Adelman did a 4 part series on gettysburgdaily.com called "The Myth of Little Round Top." He debunks the importance of LRT in the overall terms of the battle and basically argues that even if the Confederates would have taken it, they would not have been able to hold it or do much with it. It was a little bit of a bummer for me, because that part of the story was one of my favorite stories of the war. That being said, like many have commented on, Chamberlain, his men, and the surrounding regiments from Pennsylvania and Michigan were extremely brave and deserve to be remembered. Here is the link to Garry Adelman's series just in case anyone was interested.
http://www.gettysburgdaily.com/?p=7132

I have been pondering Historiography as of late and came across this:
Counterfactual history, also sometimes referred to as virtual history, is a form of historiography that attempts to answer "what if" questions known as counterfactuals. It seeks to explore history and historical incidents by means of extrapolating a timeline in which certain key historical events did not happen or had an outcome which was different from that which did in fact occur.
Most historians regard counterfactual history as perhaps entertaining, but not meeting the standards of mainstream historical research due to its speculative nature. Advocates of counterfactual history often respond that all statements about causality in history contain implicit counterfactual claims—for example, the claim that a certain military decision helped a country win a war presumes that if that decision had not been made, the war would have been less likely to be won, or would have been longer.

Since counterfactual history is such a recent development, a serious, systematic critique of its uses and methodologies has yet to be made, as the movement itself is still working out those methods and frameworks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_history

I had not heard of that school of thought before. As soon as I read that I remembered this thread.

Garry Adelman rocks by the way, And he makes a lot of good points in those videos.
But there are a lot of good reasons to like Chamberlain and no one should feel bad for doing so.
 
Chamberlain is like any other prominate figure in the Civil War, people make him a man above the norm, but in reallity he was no different than any other major player. They all had their strenths and weaknesses. I honor them all as they were not perfect as am I not perfect. The common thread is we are all men.
 
Here in Germany people hear scarcely anything about JLC. And hadn't I seen Jeff Daniels representing Chamberlain (which he did brilliantly in "Gettysburg" and pretty well in "Gods and Generals"), I wouldn't have known him either. But now I admire him very much, not only for his action but also for his writing. Look for his writings on www.archive.org - he wrote some wonderful things, especially about the surrender at Appomattox Court House.
 
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