In the spring of 1865, Union hero Joshua Lawrence
Chamberlain, the "Lion of Little Round Top," mustered out. His
bayonet charge at Gettysburg had etched him into legend, but a wound suffered
at Petersburg in 1864 , a Minié ball that shattered his pelvis, left him in
chronic agony.
Returning to Maine, Chamberlain's entered politics.
Elected governor in 1866, he served four one-year terms, championing veterans'
aid, education reform, and Black civil rights amid Ku Klux Klan threats. A
moderate Republican, he navigated partisan strife, finally earning the Medal of
Honor in 1893 for his actions at Gettysburg.
Chamberlain’s
marriage was complex and sometimes strained.
Modern biographers often describe their relationship as: deeply loving but mismatched, shaped by 19th‑century expectations of
gender, duty, and sacrifice, and a
casualty of war, in its own way.
In 1871, Chamberlain became president of Bowdoin
College where he had once been a professor of rhetoric and oratory. There, the former professor modernized
curricula, boosted enrollment, and fostered intellectual rigor. In 1880, Chamberlain commanded the militia to
restore order during a disputed Maine election.
In 1898, Chamberlain at the age of 70,
volunteered to command US Army forces in the Spanish American War. He was
passed over due to health issues.
He died in 1914 at the age of eighty-five. His memoirs The Passing of the Armies
were published posthumously in 1915.
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