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In Episode 139 of Ill Literacy, Tim Benson talks with Ronald C. White, author ofOn Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.
Heartland’s Tim Benson is joined by return guest Ronald C. White, senior fellow at the Trinity Forum, to discuss his new book, On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. They chat about Chamberlain’s early days in Maine, his studying to become a minister, and a how a childhood stutterer ended up being fluent in nine languages. They also discuss his Civil War heroism, his turn as governor of Maine, and how he made a civilian life of meaning after having experienced the extreme highs and lows of war.
Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566059/on-great-fields-by-ronald-c-white/
Show Notes:
C-SPAN: On Great Fields (VIDEO)
HistoryNet: Dave Kindy – “This Son of Maine Was Much More Than a Civil War Hero”
Wall Street Journal: Randall Fuller – “‘On Great Fields’: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Professor and Hero”
Outro music: Aswad, Warrior Charge, War Ina Babylon: An Island Reggae Anthology, 2009
Creators & Guests
Host
Tim Benson
Ill Literacy, the newest podcast from The Heartland Institute, is helmed by Tim Benson, Senior Policy Analyst for Heartland’s Government Relations team. Benson brings on authors of new book releases on topics including politics, culture, and history on the Ill Literacy podcast. Every episode offers listeners the author’s unique analysis of their own book release. Discussions often shift into debate between authors and Benson when ideological differences arise, creating unique commentary that can’t be found anywhere else.
What is Heartland Daily Podcast?
The “fire hose” of all podcasts produced by The Heartland Institute, a national free-market think tank.
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Tim Benson:Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Illiteracy podcast. I'm your host, Tim Benson, a senior policy analyst at the Heartland Institute, a national free market think tank. And this is episode a 130 something of a podcast, so, not a new podcast anymore. But for those of you just tuning in for the first time, basically, what we do here on the podcast is I invite an author on to discuss a book of theirs that's been newly published or recently published on something or someone or some idea or some event, that we think you guys would like to hear a conversation about. And then, hopefully, you know, at the end of the podcast or even in the middle of the podcast, get your job this about you, you go ahead and purchase the book, and then from there, give it a read.
Tim Benson:So if you like this podcast, please consider giving ill illiteracy a 5 star review at Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to the show and also by sharing with your friends because that's the, best way to support programming like this. And my guest today, once again, is doctor Ronald c White, and doctor White is a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum in Washington, DC. And he is also the New York Times best selling author of, among others, a Lincoln, a biography, American Ulysses, a life of Ulysses s Grant, Lincoln's greatest speech, the second inaugural, and the eloquent president, a portrait of Lincoln through his words. He is also a previous guest on this podcast for his book Lincoln in Private, what his most personal reflections tell us about our greatest president. And he is back once more to talk about his newest book, On Great Fields, the life and unlikely heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, which was published last Halloween by Random House.
Tim Benson:So, doctor White, thank you so so much for coming back on the podcast. I appreciate it.
Ronald C. White:Tim, it's wonderful to be with you again. Thank you for your invitation.
Tim Benson:Oh, you're quite welcome. Thank you. So, again, usual first question. You know, what what was the genesis of this book? What what made you wanna write this book?
Tim Benson:How did you decide you wanted to write about, Chamberlain, who is, you know, a name that, you know, all civil war buffs are certainly familiar with and a name that, you know, a lot of people from Maine, I would certainly expect to know as well, but, might be somewhat of an unknown to most people who don't, who don't, you know, who aren't really, like, you know, Sybil or bust like you and I. They might have seen the, you know, they might have read The Killer Angels in which, Chamberlain's character is a, is a Chamberlain is a main character in that novel. And, the movie Gettysburg, where Chamberlain is portrayed rather excellently, I must say, by, by, Jeff Daniels, the great Jeff Daniels in that movie Gettysburg. So they might be familiar with him with the map, but, there's a lot more to Chamberlain than just what happened on July 2, 18 63 at Little Round Top. But, anyway, I'm sort of speechifying here.
Tim Benson:But, so, yeah, what what made you wanna write this book on Chamberlain?
Ronald C. White:Well, Tim, as you suggest, I've written biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses s Grant, well known persons. When you offer a book, often the audience will say, and what is your next book? And so at the Jonathan Club in downtown Los Angeles, that question was asked. And I'm somewhat flippantly, I said, well, I'm not exactly sure. Does anybody have any suggestions?
Ronald C. White:And the gentleman in the back, who I now know is Mark Lipis, literally stood up and shouted, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. So I ran that title by my editor, by my literary agent, the publisher, and so on. Yes. As you suggested also, we focused on on in July 2, 18 63, what I call a zoom lens approach, But I thought it was wonderful now to do what I call a wide angle approach. Yes.
Ronald C. White:Civil War folks know who he is, others do not. So my challenge was to present this person to a wider audience.
Tim Benson:Had you given I mean, before it was, you know, shouted in your face at the that event, had you given any thought at all to, somebody like Chamberlain? Or was that something just sort of completely out of, sort of out of left field and sort of struck your, struck your fancy that way just because it was, you know, something, you know, not not right staring you in the face, basically.
Ronald C. White:It didn't stare me in the face. It was out of the blue. And, but the more I got into it rather quickly, I understood this was a great topic, but also a very prickly topic. Because on the one hand, we've got all these legions of admirers, but also Chamberlain in recent years has had his critics. You know?
Ronald C. White:Did he fabricate? Did he exaggerate what he did? So I knew this wasn't going to be an easy task to present him. That's why I sort of call him an unlikely hero.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. So I guess dispatch tracking a little bit, for the those people out there who are listening who don't know who Chamberlain is, just give us a short why is Chamberlain, why has he become sort of an immortal figure, such a for his actions in the civil war? Where did how did Chamberlain get his fame? Why do we remember Chamberlain today?
Ronald C. White:On the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Chamberlain's 20th main regiment was given the assignment of defending the far left line of the Union Army. He was told to hold that line at all costs. Well, the cost was that his men ran out of ammunition, and they were now being assaulted by regiments from Alabama and Texas, twice the size in number. And so at that dramatic moment, Chamberlain simply offered one word, bayonet, and his men charged down the hill and defeated these larger forces. And they ran, they were captured, they were killed.
Ronald C. White:And in that one day, in that one hour, literally, he became the so called hero of Little Round Top, and that cemented his fame going forward.
Tim Benson:Yeah. So if the if the 20th Maine had faltered on Little Round Top, if Chamberlain had faltered, then the Confederates, the attacking Confederates, most likely, flank the Union, position, take control of the hills, and make the, the rest of the union line, untenable, for the union to occupy. And from there, I mean, who knows what happens? But, but the victory, the signal victory at Gettysburg could not have happened without
Ronald C. White:Chamberlain. Right. The whole strategy, the whole outcome of the battle might have been different.
Tim Benson:Okay. So let's go, you know, to the beginning. Chamberlain, and he's a, main man, Grows up in a little town called Brewer, which is, you know, I guess, right across the river from Portland there. And, so let's talk about his, his childhood and, what so he's born, I believe, in 18/28. What is Maine, like in at this time as well?
Tim Benson:It's a very I mean, even still to this day, Maine is somewhat geographically isolated. But in the in the early 19th century or the mid 19th century, it's a place sort of unto itself. It's very, very geographically isolated from the rest of the country.
Ronald C. White:Well, Tim, one of my convictions in writing the art of biography is that we often skip too quickly over what I call the young person's life. I call it the formative part of a person's life. When I speak to audiences, people might be 40, 60, or 80, but I remind them, and they often readily agree, that those are the years 16, 18, 20, 22 when our values are formed. So I was intrigued to find out what values were formed. As you suggest correctly, Maine was a very isolated place way to the north of the American Republic.
Ronald C. White:Brewer was a town of about a 1000 people. He was born into a family with deep, religious roots. They were almost a 19th century version of Puritanism. Puritanism has suffered a bad rep in recent years. I think sometimes, oh, unfairly, because at its best, it really trumpeted the light of the mind, and this is what his parents gave to him, an intellectual curiosity.
Ronald C. White:So he had combined this religious foundation with an intellectual curiosity. This is the young man who would then leave Brewer and go to Bowdoin College.
Tim Benson:Yeah. And you write, there's basically 4 tributaries that, excuse me, that make up make up the man, make up Chamberlain. You mentioned, 1 is faith, his congregationless faith. 2 would be his love of music, which he seems to dabble with throughout his life. The third is being his spirit of adventure, and the 4th is commitment to education, which again is something that sort of, a commitment to education ties into that congregationalist upbringing.
Ronald C. White:Yes. I I was looking what what are the foundations? And I use the kind of metaphor of the 4 tributaries because those are the tributaries of the great Penobscot River that flew that went right between Bangor and Brewer, Maine. And each of these are really important in this very well rounded person. The the the music, he he he early on, he can't buy a real instrument, so he makes his own kind of bass viol.
Ronald C. White:He has a great spirit of adventure, but yet, here again, it's kind of unusual. I mean, he's a swimmer. He'll he trims across that river, and then to challenge himself, he puts a 25 pound rock under his arm to be able to swim back. He loves horseback riding, and the boys did what was called gunning, that they they used guns, and yet, Chamberlain stood apart from them because he said, well, the one thing I'm not gonna do is to shoot an animal because I don't think I have the right to take another one's life. That set him apart.
Ronald C. White:Then he becomes this great civil war soldier who's gotta fire a gun to be successful.
Tim Benson:It's like Grant. Grant really hated Yes. The sight of injured animals or or blood. Like, blood made Grant queasy. Right.
Tim Benson:Right. Yeah. But the the other thing too about Chamberlain, which I did not know and surprised me considering he becomes, which I did know he did become a professor of rhetoric, at Bowdoin before before the civil war. And he becomes such a renowned public speaker afterwards that, he has a he has a stutter in his childhood. He's a he's a stutter, and it's something that, he works very hard to, master, but it doesn't come easy for him.
Ronald C. White:Yes. He come he goes to college and he's got this great physical disability of stuttering or stammering. And the education of that day was very much an oral education. You had to speak out loud. It's interesting how a book elicits something.
Ronald C. White:A gentleman came to see me on Friday, and he told me that he grew up as a stutterer. Mhmm. And then he was drafted into Vietnam, and then they wanted him to become a radio operator. And he said, I can't do that because I stutter and stammer, and one day, a general flew in on a chapter and said, get on this chapter, and you're gonna be my radio operator. He said, I can't do that.
Ronald C. White:At that very crisis moment as men were dying in Vietnam, the stutterer disappeared. So he said, your book about Chamberlain as a stutterer just struck me.
Speaker 1:In
Ronald C. White:retrospect, I wish I had said more about it because the disability of being a stutterer was an incredible physical intimidating inhibiting presence in his life.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. I've actually heard that, and speaking of stutterers, this is sort of off topic, but a lot of actors and actresses are, I mean, you know, not like a majority or or but, I mean, there's a significant amount of actors and actresses that are, stutterers. Yes. And that they the, the reason that they are attracted or part of the reason they're attracted to that profession is that, playing a character, for some reason, it's just whatever it does to the brain, it it's easy for them to not to or the stutter doesn't take place because how however the brain thinks about it memorizing the lines and being this you know, portraying this other person, it, combats the stutter a lot. So there's, there's something, about that, how that, you know, sort sort of happens with the brain.
Ronald C. White:I like that. I had not heard that story. I understand now what you're telling us. I think I can understand. You get beyond yourself into the life of another person.
Ronald C. White:Yeah.
Tim Benson:Yes.
Ronald C. White:Yeah.
Tim Benson:Alright. So, yeah, so you mentioned, he ends up at, Bowdoin, which is, an institution that he's basically going to spend his life, from this point forward, just being associated with. So but you mentioned a little bit what what kind of, the way that the education, is presented in in this time period. But what kind of institution is Bowdoin like at this time? So when you matriculate to a place like Bowdoin in, you know, the h
Ronald C. White:Well, Bowdoin College is the college that Maine establishes because it's a 5 day horseback ride from Maine to Harvard. And it's it's like many other institutions of that time. It's really based in a classical education. This is well, the the belief was that if we study the principles and the writings of Greece and Rome, This would allow us to understand our own set of values. It's what I call a character based education.
Ronald C. White:It's based on the values of virtue, of truthfulness, of and especially for boys and men of duty in the 19th century. These are the values that will form Chamberlain.
Tim Benson:Yeah. And there's a telling I you have this story in the book, which I think we both think is pretty telling about the sort of the the leader or the officer he's gonna become or or, just or the man he's gonna become in general, and that is the, what's called class tree day. And if you can, why don't you run us through, class tree day, what happens, and what does this show us about Chamberlain's character even as a young man?
Ronald C. White:Well, there was a great deal of hijinks among college students in those days, very boisterous, kind of riotous behavior. And the big hijink annually was to go somewhere away from the town of Brunswick, where Bowden is is located, and to find and literally pirate to dig up a tree, and then to bring it and with a lot of drinking alongside of the roof back to the campus and then to plant that tree. Well, as they're kind of in a riotous way planting the tree, the faculty, who are literally often the policemen of the campus, they see this, and they apprehend the boys, and they wanna know who are the who are the ringleaders of this. And they call up one after another after another after another, the president Leonard Woods, And finally, he calls up Chamberlain, and he said, well, I I I know that you're a very important person here. You've got great moral values.
Ronald C. White:I want you to tell me, who are the ringleaders? And Chambers said, well, I can't do that because that would betray the very values that you've been teaching here at Bowdoin, the values of of of duty and brotherhood. So I said, well, if you don't do this, then I'm going to I'm going to send you home. I'm gonna expel you from the school. Well, he said, I think my father will understand that because I stood up to the values of the school.
Ronald C. White:The boys are very worried that Chamberlain's gonna give them up. But when he comes back and tells the boys, I'm not gonna give you up, this just cements his value to them. And they say, okay. We've all got to step forward now and accept our punishment. We're not gonna allow you alone to accept the punishment for what we did.
Ronald C. White:So this cemented this kinda quiet speaking boy with his comrades there at the at Bowdoin College, the his fellow students.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Yeah. He's a very he's sort of a, a nod duck for the period. I mean, like, he's you mentioned the drinking that goes along with these sort of things, but he wasn't I mean, he wasn't a teetotaler, but, at the time, you know, he's not, into, you know, drunken riot is fun. He's sort of a straight arrow, you know, very serious, very studious boy.
Tim Benson:So that sets him apart from his classmates, but they recognize something in him. And, they he seems to be I don't know if if you go as far as say beloved, but, there's a respect his classmates have for him even if he is a little different from them and he doesn't, you know, go out and carouse and do the usual things 19, 20, 21 year old boys will do when they are, you know, at college. But, but there's something about him that, people seem to he just commands sort of respect from people.
Ronald C. White:Well said. Yeah. That's a this episode is a great illustration how he wins their respect. Yes.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. So it's also, oh, actually, before we get to before we get to his wife, another thing is he's a a he he is a lover of languages. And I think in the book, you said he's he basically becomes fluent in, 9 or 10 languages. I mean, not just Latin and Greek, which is the, sort of the you know, what is drilled into every student, at that time, but and not just the Romance languages like, you know, French and Italian and Spanish, but, German, which is a very hard language to learn, Arabic, Syriac. I think that's, but he's he's, maybe that's another, almost a tributary that makes him up, but he's a very, he is a a love for language and, a love of of learning languages and, you know, of reading, literature and history in, in its native tongue.
Tim Benson:And that's something that's actually gonna take him in surprising places after the war. I'll get to that later. But, but, yeah, it's his, his love of languages.
Ronald C. White:Well, and I think when we when we hear this, that he learned a lot of languages, we may think only or narrowly that this is some sort of linguistic skill. But I think that for Chamberlain, he understood that the languages opened up the culture. Mhmm. Languages were really the the the entree to the whole history and culture of Spain or Germany or Italy, all of these different countries. And and and as you will as we will see together here in a few minutes, this allowed him then, years later, to really enter into those worlds.
Ronald C. White:And so I think, often, today, students who kinda maybe chafe at learning a a second language don't fully appreciate how these languages can open up a culture to
Tim Benson:them. Right. Right. Each each each language has its own unique universe, you know?
Ronald C. White:Yes. Yes, it is. Yeah.
Tim Benson:And I don't know who said this originally, but I think there's some truth to it. You know, if, if you really wanna know people, quote, unquote people, you know, read it read their poetry. Or, I mean, read their poetry in their language. And that's
Ronald C. White:Yes.
Tim Benson:How you will get to the the the soul of the people more so than reading its, its history or its or its literature or something like that. But Very well said. Yeah. I can't remember. I did not say that.
Tim Benson:But someone much smarter than me someone much smarter than me a long time ago said that. But, anyway, so I think it's also in this period, where he's going to meet his eventual wife, Fannie Adams. Why don't we talk a little bit about her? I was a little surprised because I didn't really know anything about her going into this book that the relationship well, we don't really know a lot about it just because, so many letters of just aren't there. There's not a lot of documentation on it.
Tim Benson:But it had its very trying periods, and it's not the there's a scene that that that, sequel or prequel to, the Gettysburg movie that was the name of it. Gods and Generals or something like that. It's not very good. Or Gettysburg is very good, but the Gods and Generals movie is not that good. But there's a scene with Chamberlain and Fanny, I think, before he's leaving to go, after he's enlisted.
Tim Benson:And it's very flowery. And, you know, they're, they're reading poetry to each other or reciting poetry to each other. And, you know, it's a very loving scene. I mean, that surely could have been the case, especially in those early years, but there's gonna be some trying periods in the relationship. But, so who is, Fannie Adams?
Tim Benson:What is she like? What is his personality and, her personality? And, how does she what is their relationship, like or at least at this at this this early point?
Ronald C. White:Well, Tim, her story is a very unusual story in many different ways. First of all, she is born into a family in Boston, where she is the 7th child in the family. Her father is 50 years old, old enough in one sense to be her grandfather. And he and his wife do what we would suspect that we would think would be a very unusual thing. They decide that they're too old to be their her parents and have too many children, so they give her.
Ronald C. White:They literally give her to his younger cousin, George Adams, who is the pastor of the First Parish Church in Brunswick, who's in his late twenties with his wife. So at age 4, she becomes having another set of parents. And I'm always looking, Tim, to try to figure out the character of a person. And if I may, I think this story captures her character. She's a high school student now at Brunswick High School.
Ronald C. White:She obviously is a person with a spirit and a sense of humor, and she's been given an assignment by her teacher, mister Alfred Pike, who has exposed a paper using verbs ending in f y. And knowing that mister Pike did not entirely approve of her humor, she wrote, this is to certify, notify, exemplify, testify, and signify my obedient disposition. And I hope that it will gratify, satisfy, beautify, and edify my teacher and pacify, modify, and nullify his feelings of dissatisfaction towards me. Please do not exclaim, oh, fine, when reading this paper. So from an early age, we get the sense that this is a very spirited young woman, talented.
Ronald C. White:She's talented in art, painting, talented in music, and yet and yet her father, her new father, who kept kept a remarkable diary, will refer to her several different times as poor Fanny. Poor Fanny. By that, he meant she struggled with depression. So, yes, she marries char Lawrence, his parents called him Lawrence. She was 3 years older than him, which was very unusual at that time.
Ronald C. White:Usually, the men would be 6 years older than the woman that they would marry, and they start off with this remarkably romantic and passionate marriage. But he's away at the civil war, then he's away afterwards, and something happens in that marriage, which is not fully explained explained where there is some tension, some difficulty, and as you suggest, unfortunately, people in the 19th century often burn some of their correspondence. So some of the correspondence is missing to fully understand what took place in their marriage.
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Tim Benson:Yeah. I mean, understandable. At the same time, I mean, you know, a lot of I'm sure, you know, I don't know if she ever thought she would be having a biography about her husband or anything like that. But I'm sure you don't want, you know, some dirty laundry or embarrassing, things being, you know, broadcast to the
Ronald C. White:Right.
Tim Benson:To the world. So, it seems but, yeah, it's, and she also has a, a medical condition with her eyes that are gonna cause her a lot of pain. And, you know, probably being a depressive or as they would call, as they would call it back then, a melancholic, you know, that having that that eye situation would obviously not help.
Ronald C. White:Yes. From a very as a very young person, she had trouble with her eyes. And, ultimately, later in life as an older woman, she would go blind. So this was a problem that just afflicted her all the way through her life. It's, again, hard.
Ronald C. White:You have to take this into account when you try to appreciate her mental stability. Yeah.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Okay. Back to Chamberlain. So right before, before we get to the war itself, one more thing about his, his youth, I guess, and young adulthood. So after he, graduates from, Bowden, he decides to attend the the Bangor Theological Seminary, because he's not sure if he wants to be a minister at this point.
Tim Benson:So, he goes goes to school there. So how key is are his years at this theological seminary, to the formation of Chamberlain's beliefs, of his values, of the, of the man of the man and the leader he's gonna become, or he's gonna show, not too far down the line.
Ronald C. White:In writing a biography, Tim, I'm always asking myself at the beginning, well, is there going to be an episode or a story that's going to surprise us? Maybe something that's really not been fully explained in previous biographies. And those 3 years at Bangor Seminary, when he graduated from college, his father wanted him to go to West Point. There'd been a lot of military men in that family. His mother wanted him to be a missionary or minister.
Ronald C. White:So he goes to Bangor Theological Seminary, but because he does not become a minister. That story of those 3 years has gotten this before this biography, only 2 sentences. Well, I thought, well, if he's got 3 years there, there must be much more there. This is part of his formation.
Tim Benson:Sure.
Ronald C. White:My problem was that the seminary, which was founded in 18/14, went out of business in 2013. Where were the records? Fortunately for me, I arrived at the Maine Historical Society, and they had just gotten the records. They just catalog them, and so I devote a full chapter to his 3 years there. When he graduated, he actually had invitations to serve 2 churches and may have done so.
Ronald C. White:But, at that very moment, he was invited to offer an address at Bowdoin's commencement, which would then award him a master of arts degree. And, evidently, the address was so outstanding that the very next day, they offered him a teaching position, which he accepted.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. And what kind of teacher was he like?
Ronald C. White:He was a teacher who, although he revered his own education, he felt that it was too much, kind of a rote learning education, memorize, say it back. He wanted to inculcate in his students what today we would call critical thinking. He wanted them to think for themselves. These were not just boys. They were young in age, but they were young men who should learn how to think for themselves.
Ronald C. White:So, often, therefore, when they would do an assignment, for example, write a paper, he would give it back to them and say, well, this is good, but there's no such thing as good writing. There's only good rewriting. So he said, I want you to rethink this paper. I want you to re rewrite it. And they grew to really appreciate that because he took seriously their intellectual curiosity along with his own intellectual curiosity to sort of push them to think for themselves.
Tim Benson:Right. Okay. So the civil war comes. Finally, here we are at the civil war. But he doesn't enlist right away after Fort Sumter in that, that sort of rush, that mad rush of patriotic enthusiasm, which, we see north and south after that.
Tim Benson:He waits. So why why did Chamberlain wait? Why did he not why did he because duty seems such a important part of, of his character, of being dubious. Why did he wait, and why does he choose to enlist when he does?
Ronald C. White:Yes. The war breaks out with the attack at Fort Sumter in April of 18/61. Immediately, many of the Bowdoin students sign up. There were no electives really at that time. So, both so he would have taught literally every student who then signs up for the Union Army.
Ronald C. White:They correspond with him. He knows that some are captured. Several are killed. But as you say, he does not sign up himself. He's he's 33 years old.
Ronald C. White:He has 2 young children. No one would have disagreed with him not signing up. But then in 1862, the summer, Lincoln offers a proclamation we need 300,000 more men. And he says writes this to himself, it it has this war cannot simply be fought by boys. It has to be fought by men of stature who were willing to give up everything they have for the cause of the union.
Ronald C. White:So he writes a letter to the governor of Maine volunteering his service. And the governor is delighted because the governor is looking all the governors of the states were looking for men of of, of eminence who could then have the ability to recruit a thousand man regiment. So the governor is pleased to receive Chamberlain's enlistment.
Tim Benson:And, you know, people sort of think of Chamberlain as just this, you know, just sort of bookish professor who basically, you know, sort of self teaches himself how to be, a good officer. And to a and to a point, that's true. He doesn't have much of a military education. But, soldiery is something that is in his blood. I mean, his father, his grandfather.
Tim Benson:I mean, it's not like, you know, it's not like Chamberlain is coming entirely out of the, out of the field with the with this. I mean, it's something that, you know, the Chamberlains, you know, had in their family history.
Ronald C. White:He has it in the family history, and and the governor Chamberlain is already a well known person in Maine, so the governor says, well, I'm going to make you colonel. That's the leader of the of 1,000 man regiment. And I think must have been to the governor's surprise, Chamberlain says, well, no. Don't do that. I I don't really deserve that rank.
Ronald C. White:Make me something less. I'll start at a lower rank, and then he offers these words, and I will learn and earn my way to a higher command. So he starts as the second in command. He is the lieutenant colonel, not the leader of the 20th Maine at its outset.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. And, what kind of officer is he? You know, obviously, he's sort of learning as he goes his his first months in the army. But, what does he quickly, get a reputation for with his men?
Ronald C. White:Well, the leader of the 20th Maine is actually another Mainer, a 26 year old Adelbert Haynes, who is a West Pointer, but he is very much disliked by the men. Some of them say they hope he will be the first casualty in the war because he's a strict disciplinarian. But Chamberlain is willing to learn from this man 7 years younger than he, and so he becomes a person who understands discipline. But to your point, he really he he he he evinces this great respect and appreciation, affection for the men under his command. As the war goes forward, I mean, they will talk about him almost as their father.
Ronald C. White:They just have this incredible love for this man. So military cohesion is based on trust, and he earns the trust of these men as they start forward into what will be ultimately the battle at Gettysburg and Petersburg and beyond. Yeah. Mhmm.
Tim Benson:So luckily, for 20th Maine, they miss out on Antietam, which is a good which a good it's a good day to, you know, not have to go in. But, they will take part in their first major battle at, Fredericksburg a few months later. Mhmm. And, what is that experience like for Chamberlain?
Ronald C. White:Well, as you suggest, they had, up to this point, they'd only been involved in what you might call skirmishes, not really a battle. And finally, they're sort of put into Fredericksburg, not all the way in, but suddenly, men are dying around them. They're trapped, really. They're sleeping in the cold at night. Chamberlain is actually lying next to a man who suddenly realizes he's dead.
Ronald C. White:And it's it's a very difficult moment. And so this is a learning experience for them. War is horrible. War is terrible, and Chamberlain struggles with how to communicate this, not all of its horrors back to Fanny in his correspondence to her. So this is the beginning of their understanding of the terror of war.
Ronald C. White:They're very idealistic about the union, about the Christian faith, but the idealism now meets the reality.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. And so, they also miss out on, like, luckily for them, basically, like, the entire regiment gets smallpox. And Yes. And they miss out on Chancellorsville, which again is another, you know, good couple days for the Union Army to, you know, for the regiment not to be involved, that sort of stuff. So so, really, when we get to Gettysburg.
Tim Benson:The the regiment really hasn't been tested that much. And, Chamberlain, during this period, he is actually promoted, to be the colonel of the 20th Maine, to lead the 20th Maine, I believe in May of that year. So he's new, new to the command of this regiment, which is now undersized because of all the sickness and, with the the smallpox and just from the campaigning of, in the previous half a year. So they get to Gettysburg. They're undersized.
Tim Benson:They really haven't fought. They're untested. Chamberlain's untested. And they, are put in this situation, or led to the situation where it doesn't it's not totally down to them, but, you know, it's the end of the line. There's no, as, Vincent basically tells Chamberlain, like, you can't you can't retreat from this spot.
Tim Benson:You have to hold this to the last. And, you know, whatever you do, you cannot move from here. And, you know, the regiment and Chamberlain himself, earns their, their immortality, their, lasting renown by their, performance at Little Round Top. It's not it's not an all day fight. It's basically just a hour, hour and a half, little back and forth, slugfest.
Tim Benson:And as you mentioned before, the the famous bayonet charge and, but it's, but it's just, it's interesting when things like that happen. We we think of, I'm sort of rambling here, but I'm getting to the point, of fate and destiny. And to think of those things and how Chamberlain seemed to be exactly the right person. Like, everything up into his life, you know, that happened in his life beforehand sort of led him to that exact spot at that exact moment. And for him to be sort of the just the absolutely, like, right person to be there.
Tim Benson:And, we think of the chances of that and how slim they are and whether there's some sort of, you know, divine plan or purpose. But then we also think of all the places in battles where there aren't a chamberlain or, you know, where they could have used the Chamberlain with there, but there aren't. And it's really, just the more you think about Round Top and, Chamberlain and and what happened that day, the more it it never seems to get any less remarkable. I guess that's
Ronald C. White:I completely agree. And and what your suggest Chamberlain would have believed that in a providential god that somehow all of his previous, learnings, all of his previous experiences had prepared him for that day. And, and the fact that his men were instantly willing to follow his command said something about what he had built up over time, and I like your suggestion to remind us that he'd only become the colonel of May. So he you didn't have a lot of long time leadership of this event, the of these men, but at the critical moment, he became the leader.
Tim Benson:Yeah. It's just a, a fascinating story. And, again, it's something that's been immortalized, in fiction and in in film. And, I I it's been a while since I've seen it, but that, that Gettysburg movie does a really, really good job of I mean, I'm not entirely sure how, you know, quite historically accurate. I mean, I'm sure there's some, some fictions in there somewhere or some bendings of truths or, you know, streamlining of of events to make it, you know, more filmable.
Tim Benson:But, it does a really good job of capturing the, the gravity of that moment and, of capturing, like I said I said earlier, Jeff Daniels does a, really remarkable job, with Chamberlain, in that film. I feel like he really I feel like he really got Chamberlain. I don't know there was something about the performance that was very, it just it just seems very accurate. You know? Like, it just seemed that he seemed to embody that character.
Tim Benson:He really did.
Ronald C. White:Well, I'm told that that some years after that film, Jeff Daniels, when asked about his own acting, said that that was the most enjoyable, most meaningful role he had ever played.
Tim Benson:Mhmm.
Ronald C. White:So I think I completely agree with you. He got it, and he really embodied who Chamberlain was at that moment.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. One thing I didn't know, and I, I do know a lot about Gettysburg. But one thing I didn't know, I know, obviously, his brother Tom his younger brother Tom was, in the 20th Maine. He's lieutenant 20th Maine. So, obviously, he was there at Little Round Top with Lawrence.
Tim Benson:I did not know that their other brother, John, was also at Little Round Top at the time. He wasn't in, the army. He was in the, The Christian commission. Christian commission. But he was, basically like a stretcher bearer
Ronald C. White:Yes.
Tim Benson:Or on. So he was actually there and Right. A witness to a witness to this as well.
Ronald C. White:Yeah. That's amazing. All 3 were there.
Tim Benson:Mhmm.
Ronald C. White:And they're all 3 riding up up towards the top of Little Round Top when the bullets begin to fly. And Chamberlain says, I think we better get away from each other or mother's gonna be in a very difficult place. Yeah. Right.
Tim Benson:Yeah. So it's, so his actions on Little Round Top essentially earned him the medal of honor. It's not he's not gonna be awarded it for another 30 years, but, he is awarded the medal of honor for his actions that day. And it also eventually is gonna earn him a promotion to, head of the entire 3rd Brigade Right. Of of, that division of the 5th corps.
Tim Benson:But before we get to, that a little bit, you write in the the book that Chamberlain, he's a, I think you call him a scientific warrior. Want you, could you just expand a little bit on that? What do you what do you mean when you say he's a a scientific worrier?
Ronald C. White:Well, this was actually a description of him by someone else.
Tim Benson:Oh, pardon me.
Ronald C. White:But it's the point that, the the professor is it really thinks out all the the terrain, all the maps. He's not just charging into the battle. And in in a in a one sense, he's also a worrier because he recognizes what could happen against them, what what what the other what the enemy, what the confederates bring to the battle. So he he thinks sometimes almost maybe overthinks, and yet at the critical moment, he acts. But but so he he's a thoughtful person in his leadership.
Ronald C. White:He brings something to the field that most of the other people did not, even those who were West Point, graduates.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Okay. Well, skipping ahead a little bit to the following year, he's gonna grant excuse me. Chamberlain is going to be, participating in the campaign around Petersburg and the battles there. And he's going to be seriously, seriously wounded in 18/64, on the battlefield in, at Petersburg.
Tim Benson:And to the point where just about everyone thinks he's gonna die, that the wound is is mortal. He's basically shot through shot through both hips, essentially, and, does some a lot of internal damage, in that region as well. And, so he's basically given a battlefield promotion to brigadier general just because, you know, they think he's gonna die anyway. So might as well. But, but he actually he is going to survive, this this wound much to everyone's surprise.
Tim Benson:But this wound is going to, it's going to afflict him, basically for, the rest of his life. People I don't think people, when they meet Chamberlain and see him out and about, you know, in the years after this after the war, sort of understand how difficult, you know, just going about day to day life is for him just because of the, the nature of this wound and just the the sort of constant pain he's in, from this for pretty much every day forward for the rest of his life.
Ronald C. White:Yes. He is hit by a mini ball as he's leading a charge at Petersburg. It enters his left hip, severs some blood vessels, scrapes his urethra and bladder, and stays inside his body on at the right hip. And so 2 2 surgeons come to him and tell him he will die. Modern physicians would say he had about a 10% chance of survival.
Ronald C. White:And what I found remarkable at that moment, Tim, was that he wrote this letter to his wife, Vannie. Mhmm. And if I could read just a little of this letter. My darling wife, I am lying mortally wounded, the doctors think, but my mind and heart are at peace. Jesus Christ is my all sufficient savior.
Ronald C. White:I go to him. God bless and comfort you, precious one. You have been a precious wife to me. To know and love you makes life and death beautiful. Cherish the darlings, his 2 younger children, and give my love to all the dear ones.
Ronald C. White:Do not grieve too much for me. We shall all soon meet. Live for the children.
Tim Benson:It's
Ronald C. White:just amazing that he's able to write this letter at this moment. Well, what happens is his younger brother, Tom, rushes over to the 20th Maine and finds 2 surgeons well respected. They come to find Chamberlain. They extract the bullet, And, Chamberlain then does survive, but he survives with what modern scholars call internal wounds. People who know the civil war well are familiar with the amputations that were the external wounds, the soldiers whose legs and arms are amputations.
Tim Benson:The visible wounds. Yeah.
Ronald C. White:The visible wounds. That's a good way to say it. But this is an invisible wound. So many people, even years later, one of the men from the 20th Maine comes upon him and says, I didn't know that you were so deathly wounded. My goodness.
Ronald C. White:Well, Chamberlain never complained. That was not who he was. I spoke, in Brunswick, Maine as a part of a book tour in November, and we visited the Chamberlain house. And there in his house, he had a couch. He often could not even sit up straight in a chair.
Ronald C. White:He would lie upon the couch to do his duties as then president of the college. So this invisible wound was really terrible. He had 3 surgeries to try to repair it, but he really could never have it repaired.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Excuse me. Well, he will recover excuse me. He will recover in time, to sort of get back to active duty and participate in the the sort of the last little campaign, after Lee retreats from, Petersburg, on the way to Appomattox. And then, the other and he will take part in the other, moment, which sort of, why he just gained civil war immortality in a way.
Tim Benson:And he will, basically preside over the surrender ceremony of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox. And, this is something where the details of what happened are have become sort of hotly contested. But it seems that, just from what we can tell, from, witnesses on both sides, participants, I should say, that the the the gist of Chamberlain's story of what happened at Appomattox, during the surrender ceremony, is true.
Ronald C. White:I want to test out, was it true? So I went to Appomattox Court House, and I wanna give great credit to Patrick Schroeder, the park historian who has been there for 25 years and who really is as, looked very carefully into all of this and shared with me some of his research to find that this is not simply the words of Chamberlain saying, I led the surrender, but it's attested to in various newspaper reports and reports of people who were there. So, yes, the command is given to Chamberlain. It's not a written command, and that's part of the dilemma of this, but my teacher, the great civil war historian, Jim McPherson from Princeton, says not everything was written down in the last days of the war as things were moving so quickly. So Chamberlain, I think I think knowledge of knowledge of the way Grant had offered this magnanimous surrender to Lee is thinking what can he do as, the Confederate troops come forward, John Brown Gordon leading them.
Ronald C. White:And as they come almost 3 to 4 yards apart from each other, he suddenly switches his the way he's compare using his weapon and does what is called a marching salute. He literally salutes the Confederate soldiers. Very important to understand, he's not similar he's not saluting the cause. He's not saluting the Confederacy. He's saluting the courage of the Confederate soldiers.
Tim Benson:Right. Yeah. And they, in turn, salute back in the the Yes. The Confederate general who is sort of overseeing the surrender, John Gordon, he basically will second what Chamberlain he writes he sort of writes independently about what happened that day.
Ronald C. White:Yes. He does.
Tim Benson:And someone comes up to him and is like, well, you know, you had you didn't written any write anything about this until Chamberlain did. So is your event, you know, is your recollection, colored in your memory by what Chamberlain wrote? And he was like, honestly, I wasn't even aware of, you know, aware of his writings. And Yes. Chamberlain was not aware of of Gordon's.
Tim Benson:And, so whatever did happens, clearly, there was something, some demonstration that that both men recognized as heartwarming or uplifting or respectful.
Ronald C. White:Respect is a good word. Yes. Yeah.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Anyway, so that happens. The war is over. So now Chamberlain has to decide, you know, what he wants to what is he gonna do for his career? And does he does he wanna stay in the army, or does he wanna go?
Tim Benson:And, he basically, Bowden has told him throughout the war that, you know, whenever it's over or whenever you wanna come back, your your spot here as a professor, as an instructor is open to you. So he has that option. So, what does what does he decide to do? What does he think, is the or is the what does the family decide that is the best move for Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain at the at this point?
Ronald C. White:Well, Tim, what came through to me in writing this biography was the fact that these men who fought in the civil war or perhaps men who fought in World War 2, this is the highest moment of their life. They may be only in their twenties or Chamberlain in his early thirties. So what is he gonna do now? Well, when he returns to be a professor at Bowdoin College, this this doesn't seem very challenging anymore. This doesn't seem to measure up to what he's experienced in the war.
Ronald C. White:So then the Republicans in Maine decide that, my goodness, here's the hero of Little Round Top, and they wanna make him their candidate for governor. And so he's elected governor of Maine, and they have an unusual constitution where the terms are just 1 year. And I looked into it. The average governor would serve 1 and a half terms.
Tim Benson:Yeah. I mean, you basically have to sorry to interrupt, but it yeah. You basically once you you get an you swear the oath and, you're inaugurated, you have to start running your reelection campaign.
Ronald C. White:Yeah. You're right. You can start your campaign. So he's elected once, twice, 3 times, 4 times. Very, very unusual, which again tells you not only that he his success as a governor, but he remains the hero of Little Round Top.
Ronald C. White:I mean, people don't even call him governor. They call him general. Mhmm. This is who he is, basically, for the people of of of Maine. Yeah.
Tim Benson:Yeah. So what kind of, clearly, he's successful, with the populace. I mean, to get reelected 4 times. You you know, you have to be popular, obviously. But what kind of, what kind of executive is he?
Tim Benson:Is he a successful, executive, on his terms?
Ronald C. White:Well, he understood that, that the Republicans of the 19th century were those who believe there was an active role for government. It was the Democrats of the 19th century who believed that this should only be, a rather, passive government, and the power should be in the states. So he can't really in invoke a kind of a civil rights reconstruction, but what he does is have an economic reconstruction. For the first time, the government begins giving bonds to the railroads. He recognizes that for Maine to expand, the railroads must expand.
Ronald C. White:So he sees a more activist role for government, and it's an economic role that he wants to push.
Tim Benson:Yeah. The funny thing this is probably the most, surprising story to me in this. He's sort of, again, as you said, these veterans, the civil war and, you know, and other wars, especially World War 2, you know, that the war that that was the great crusade of their life. Right? And, so nothing really will hold the same sort of meaning for them.
Tim Benson:And they there's sort of a loss. You know, they're sort of saddened that, that they're, that those times are over. Chamberlain, this is amusing, while he is still governor of Maine. Right? So this is during the Franco Prussian War in 18/70.
Tim Benson:He writes to the Prussian government and basically offers himself up as a volunteer, because he's a fluent German speaker, and basically says, hey. Here are my qualifications.
Ronald C. White:You know?
Speaker 1:If
Tim Benson:you need if you need somebody to, you know, if you need a a hand, let me know. I'll come over and, you know, I'll come over and serve under, you know, under the Kaiser. But that was just, like, so sort of, like, completely out of, completely out of left field. I don't know. I mean, it seems like he was very serious about it, but just so strange.
Tim Benson:I mean, he's the sitting governor of the state, and he's just like, hey. If, you know, need some help, I can I can pitch in?
Ronald C. White:You're right. This is out of left field. I mean, there's no there's no record of the response from the other side.
Tim Benson:Mhmm.
Ronald C. White:Why did he serve on the Prussian side, people have asked me, as opposed to the French side. Well, the Prussian side was the German reformation, and so he's a protestant. So whether he thought about it or not, he's gonna serve on the, so to speak, the protestant side of this war.
Tim Benson:Sure.
Ronald C. White:Here he is 18 70. You know? He's a little past his prime, but he's gonna offer his service in the Prussia Franklin Prussia Franklin war Franco war. An an interesting story about Chamberlain.
Tim Benson:Yeah. It's just, I actually I actually laughed when I when I came up. It was just very, it just threw me for a complete loop. But, anyway, so, so I guess luckily for us, well, they didn't really need his help anyway, the Prussians, because that's, they they handled the French pretty quickly in in that war. So they, either they turn him down or they just don't respond.
Tim Benson:But anyway, so he finishes out his 4th term as governor, and then it's back to Bowdoin for him. He becomes president of the college, and, he will remain so for a good dozen years, the next dozen years of his life. But it seems like it's a job he's never really happy, doing. He offers his resignation at least 3 times as far as we know, and it's and it's rejected a few times by the the board of the of the uniform. But so what is he, how is he as a college president?
Tim Benson:What is he trying to accomplish as in his presidency beyond just, you know, making sure that they have enough money to operate and they're growing the student body. But, what is he, what is he trying to turn Bowdoin into an institution? He's trying to essentially almost revolutionize the the university and and sort of changed it remarkably from from the Bowdoin, that he went to not that long ago.
Ronald C. White:Well, Chamberlain recognizes that in post civil war America, everything is changing. These colleges were founded by mostly Protestant denominations, but he offers these words in his inaugural address. The times had shot past the college. Left out of the current of living sympathies, she stood still while the world at full flood and flushed with new life swept on. The college had touched bottom.
Ronald C. White:I'm sure the alumni didn't weren't too pleased to hear that. But then he asked the question, how to rise again and how to begin? Well, he said the first answer is we might confine our shepherds chiefly to holding our own, strengthening the things that remain, and feel our way by cautious and imperceptible degrees. The second, we might accept at once the challenge of our times, advance boldly to the key point of the position, and begin in right earnest to entrench before we had force enough to hold it at all, should the college conquer or should it die? Well, the way he thought the college should move forward was to embrace science, that this was the great intellectual current of the last third of the 19th century, and along with it, the social sciences, sociology, and psychology.
Ronald C. White:So he wanted to establish a full department of science, but here's where he began to meet opposition from within his own faculty as well as from donors and alumni. And after 2 years, he resigns, believing that he can't if they don't wanna do this, that perhaps they don't really want him as president. He serves 3 more years and resigns again, but both times, the trustees and overseers, there were 2 boards, refused to accept his resignation. So he is a what I we would call a progressive educator at his memorial service at his death. The then president said, what Chamberlain advocated way back there in the 18 seventies is what we now take for granted.
Ronald C. White:Unfortunately, we didn't understand or appreciate, but he was way ahead of his times.
Tim Benson:Mhmm. Okay. And, it's actually, I believe while he's still president of the college that you there's an event takes place that you, say in the book might actually be considered not, you know, his finest hour, not not Little Round Top, which takes place in, you know, takes place sort of, so quickly that you don't really have time to think. You know, it's just everything sort of instinctual. But there's a situation in Maine, called the great count out, and it has to deal with, basically, the results of an election and who is going to become the governor of Maine.
Tim Benson:And there's some sort of shenanigans going on, not unlike our current day. But, anyway, so Chamberlain is called in to sort of make sure that, this situation is gonna be handled peaceably without any sort of monkey business or, you know, potential cruise, anything. So tell us about this, this event, which I did not know anything about, this great count out, and how Chamberlain is going to, maneuver, maneuver his way through this over the course of almost a you know, almost 2 weeks and is gonna maneuver the the government of Maine, basically, through, through the situation successfully without any bloodshed or or violence.
Ronald C. White:Well, sometimes, something that happens in the past has an amazing contemporary reference. We've gone through the last 4 years, the struggle over the peaceful transfer of power, and we've been told this has never ever happened before, and a challenge to the peaceful transfer of power. Actually, it had happened before, not at the national level, but at the state level. So in 18/79, the fall of 18/79, the Republicans seemingly win the governorship, the house of representatives, and the senate. But then what happens is called the great countout.
Ronald C. White:The secretary of state, who's a democrat, begins to count out the votes that are taking place in various towns. In one town, 5 representatives and 1 senator lost their seats because the results were not signed in an open town meeting. In another, 5 representatives were eliminated because the candidates' names were listed with initials, not their full names. In one town, the vote the representative was disqualified because the ballot was printed in 2 columns rather than 1. In another town, 2 representatives were counted out because of the misspelling of their names.
Ronald C. White:Well, now the Republicans are furious because they're going from 1st to 3rd. It was actually a greenback party. And one of the Republican newspaper's headline was the conspiracy. Revolution actually afoot, only awaiting the final act. Will they dare to commit the monstrous crime?
Ronald C. White:Well, at this moment, and it sounds somewhat similar to January 6th, men begin marching to Augusta armed to the teeth, and the Democratic governor sends to the armory in, Bangor 20 for 20,000 rounds of ammunition to defend the state capital. Because the state constitution, rather, has this provide provision that if there is a dispute, the Republicans did win the ballot, but not 50%, that the house of representatives will decide on the 2 leading candidates, and the senate will vote on the 1. Well, as these men are marching to Augusta, the Democratic governor believes there's only one man who can take over and steal the quagmire. It's Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. So he calls him from the president's office.
Ronald C. White:He comes to Augusta. He tries to be an impartial observer, but he begins to be attacked. Men threaten that he will be kidnapped. There's even a threat that he will be killed. And, Tim, on a very dramatic afternoon, as men are rushing the capital, Chamberlain steps forward and offers these words, Men, you wish to kill me.
Ronald C. White:Killing is no new thing to me. I've offered myself to be killed many times when I no more deserved it than I do now. Some of you, I think, have been with me in those days. You understand what you want, do you? I'm here to preserve the peace and honor of this state until the right government is seated.
Ronald C. White:Whichever it may be, it's not for me to say, but it is for me to see that the laws of this state are put into effect without fraud, without force, but with calm thought and sincere purpose. I'm here for that, and I shall do it. If anybody wants to kill me for it, here I am. Let him kill. And with that, he opens his coat and steps forward to the mob.
Ronald C. White:This is just a remarkable scene. It's like out of a Hollywood western movie. Mhmm.
Tim Benson:Yeah. Absolutely. Calling the bluff.
Ronald C. White:Calling calling the bluff. And at that moment, Nelson Dingley, who was a former governor who's observing the scene said there was a breathless silence for a moment until a veteran calls out, by god, old general, the first man that dares to lay a hand on you, I'll kill him on the spot. And and the crowd drifted away. Well, I argue that he'd given 100 of speeches in recent in the decades of the seventies eighties, but this was his greatest speech. And in a sense, I'm arguing it's even greater than little Roundtop because he had to do this over a period of 12 days, manage this crisis.
Ronald C. White:He actually writes to Fannie the day after he gives the speech. This was a second little round top. So what happens? The state supreme court meets. They restore all the votes.
Ronald C. White:The Republicans win the governorship, they win the house, and they win the senate. And Chamberlain is the hero once again as people write letters from all over the country to commend his heroism. Yeah.
Tim Benson:That's a that's a great story. Alright. Well, I already kept you a little long. Sorry about that. Just wrap up, I guess, on his later life.
Tim Benson:You mentioned, the greatest speech this the speech he gives during the great count out is probably the best one. You know? At least the most important one he he gives. But, he, basically, he's very well known, throughout the late 19th century, even in the earliest 20th century as as an orator, as a public speaker about mostly about the Civil War, but about other topics. And it's something he really enjoys doing, and we have a lot of his speeches and talks, that are you know, that have made it, you know, made it down to us at this time.
Tim Benson:But just talk a little about that, how, how popular he was as a as an order, how in demand he was, at this time. You know, he's very, maybe out of all the, the officers or, you know, the heroes of the war, may be the most, in demand out of all of them, the most, or the most sought after as a speaker just because of his his his sort of innate talent for it.
Ronald C. White:Well, Tim, this is another area where I felt we haven't given him full credit. Remember, he is professor of rhetoric. This is not who chamber who Grant is for sure, not, Sherman, not Sheridan. They are after dinner speakers, but they speak basically about just the battles that they fought, whereas Chamberlain brings into his speeches passages from the Bible, illusions of Greece and Rome, quotations from Dante and Goethe, And when the Society of the Potomac, the great army of the Potomac, first is established in 18/69, they have their initial meeting in New York, who will be what they call the orator. They select Chamberlain.
Ronald C. White:So already within just 4 years, not a West Point graduate, he becomes the most sought after speaker. He he speaks in Boston. He speaks in New York. He speaks in Philadelphia. So I devote again a whole chapter to this and talk about how his speeches are so compelling.
Ronald C. White:He's really asking the question, what does it mean to be America and to be Americans now in the last 3rd of 19th century after the civil war?
Tim Benson:Yeah. And, nice little coda, or I don't know if you call it CODA, but, pleasantly surprised as a Floridian, to find out that, he made a go at it down here as an entrepreneur. It didn't work out, you know, but, it doesn't work out for a lot of people. But I was surprised and, pleasantly surprised to see that he spent, you know, a lot of time down here in Florida even if it was on the other coast. But, you know, because we don't get a lot of surprisingly, I'm on the East Coast.
Tim Benson:We don't get a lot of, Mainers down here, it seems like. I mean, lots of Massachusetts, obviously, lots of Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, and, you know, Connecticut, those places, and lots of lots of people from Canada and other places in the south and, you know, few Midwesterners here and there, though the Midwest is mostly in the they usually go on the other side of the state. But it just seems like we don't really get a lot of Maine, main Mainers down here in Florida. So, I don't know. Maybe they just go to other parts of Florida where I don't live, but I just I I feel like I rarely meet, like, someone from Maine or receive, like, a Maine license plate down here.
Tim Benson:But, so it was nice to have you know, nice to see Chamberlain enjoying all the, all the wonders and the the the bounty of of, the sunshine state for a little bit. So
Ronald C. White:anyway The Maine was being opened up in the 18 eighties, and they were looking for, Northerners who had titles, who had, eminence to head up their companies, the real estate company. So they invited Chamberlain to do this. Remember, he had only a small military pension, no pension as governor, no pension as president of a college, so he's this is the way he's going to make money for he and Fannie. And then I laugh where at the end of the century, he has not been successful. And his son, Willie's, writes a letter to Fannie and says, well, I think I've discovered what you've known all along.
Ronald C. White:Our man cannot be successful in everything. And the problem is, he said, he he doesn't look out for himself, but he's always looking out for the other fellow. So it's kind of a I I wanna tell that part of it. He's not successful in every part of his life, and he's not successful in his Florida adventure.
Tim Benson:No. No. He's not. That, but, we'll just wrap it up. You you know, just, sort of surprising to I'm sure to him and maybe surprising to his family, but but who knew the extent of his injuries.
Tim Benson:Even though he he he really did keep that from his family as well, how much, pain and and suffering he went through every day. I mean, he lives an extremely long I think he dies at the age of 84. 80 84, 85, something. Yeah. Around there.
Ronald C. White:So Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Benson:So he dies in 1914. He almost makes it to the in, February 1914. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Benson:So that's, especially for that time period too. That's a, that's a very long life. It's a very long
Ronald C. White:life. Yes. It is.
Tim Benson:Especially for someone with this sort of debilitations, you know, physically.
Ronald C. White:Yeah. Yeah.
Tim Benson:Anyway alright. So, we bidded you to, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the hero of, Little Round Top and other places. But, anyway, so the exit question again, that I ask everybody on here that you've you've gotten it before, for the Lincoln book. But, yeah, just, you know, what would you like the audience to, get out of this, get out of this book? Or, you know, what's the one thing you'd wanna read or taking away from having having read it?
Tim Benson:Well, you
Ronald C. White:know, I started this book, the research for Tim, in 2017, the summer of 2,000 17, and I thought I was writing a civil war biography or a 19th century biography, but my audience has said back to me in the tumult that we continue to experience. What you're really talking about is is what it means to be a leader. Not simply a hero, but what it means to be a leader. What values does a leader need to have? What what are the foundations of those values?
Ronald C. White:What are the circumstances? So recognizing that he's a basically, a 19th century person, I found people finding that he really speaks to us today about the kind of person that we want to be a leader and the values that that leader should have. And I think that's why his story is so compelling to modern audiences.
Tim Benson:Alright. Great. Well, once again, the name of the book is On Great Fields, the Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, another fantastic book. It's gonna earn a spot along with the rest of your books, which are off camera, but right over here, I'm pointing the there's a shelf full of the rest of your books. So it'll happily reside there with its, its siblings.
Tim Benson:It's a fantastic book. Highly, highly recommend it. Very, just Chamberlain's just a very interesting person. So not to discredit your skill as a writer or historian, but, it it's kinda hard to tell a bad story about, yeah, Chamberlain.
Ronald C. White:You know?
Tim Benson:It just it gives you gives you a lot to work with. But so it's a, fantastic biography of a really interesting man and a man who, without which the, you can literally say without which the United States of America might not exist in its present form without. And, so we owe him a debt of gratitude, for for what he did for us. And we owe you a debt of gratitude for, you know, writing this book and and letting us enjoy the, you know, the fruits of your labors and and letting us enjoy, the finished product. So, thank you again so, so much for coming on the podcast, and, thank you again for, you know, writing
Ronald C. White:the book for us. You're welcome, Tim. Thank you for inviting me. Delighted to be with you and your audience.
Tim Benson:Oh, thank you very much. And, again, if you like this podcast, please consider leaving us a 5 star review and sharing with your friends. And if you, have any questions or comments or if there's any, books or any suggestions you'd like to see, you know, featured on the show, feel free to reach out to me at tbenson@heartland.org. That's tbenson@heartland.org. And for more general information about the Heartland, you can just go to heartland.org, and we too have our Twitter x Twitter.
Tim Benson:Let's just call it Twitter. I'm never I don't think anyone's ever really gonna call it x. I don't think that's ever gonna take, whichever Twitter account for the, for the podcast. You can reach out to us there as well. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to send us a DM.
Tim Benson:Give us a follow at illbooks@illbooks. So make sure you check that out. And that's, that's pretty much it. So thanks for listening everybody. We'll see you guys next time.
Tim Benson:Take care. Love you, Robbie. Love you, mom. Bye bye.