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Stand Firm Ye Boys from Maine: The 20th Maine and the Gettysburg Campaign
Fought amid rocks and trees, in thick blinding smoke, and under exceedingly stressful conditions, the battle for the southern slope of Little Round Top on July 2, 1863 stands among the most famous and crucial military actions in American history, one of the key engagements that led to the
North's victory at Gettysburg.
In this powerfully narrated history, Maine historian Tom Desjardin tells the story of the 20th Maine Regiment, the soldiers who fought and won the battle of Little Round Top. This engaging work is the culmination of years of detailed research on the experiences of the soldiers in that regiment,
telling the complete story of the unit in the Gettysburg Campaign, from June 21 through July 10, 1863. Desjardin uses more than seventy first-hand accounts to tell the story of this campaign in critical detail. He brings the personal experiences of the soldiers to life, relating the story from both
sides and revealing the actions and feelings of the men from Alabama who tried, in vain, to seize Little Round Top. Indeed, ranging from the lowest ranking private to the highest officers, this book explores the terrible experiences of war and their tragic effect. Following the regiment through the
campaign enables readers to understand fully the soldiers' feelings towards the enemy, towards citizens of both North and South, and towards the commanders of the two armies. In addition, this book traces the development of the legend of Gettysburg, as veterans of the fight struggle to remember,
grasp, and memorialize their part in the largest battle ever fought on the continent.
With a new preface and updated maps and illustrations, Stand Firm Ye Boys of Maine offers a compelling account of one of the most crucial small engagements of the Civil War.
North's victory at Gettysburg.
In this powerfully narrated history, Maine historian Tom Desjardin tells the story of the 20th Maine Regiment, the soldiers who fought and won the battle of Little Round Top. This engaging work is the culmination of years of detailed research on the experiences of the soldiers in that regiment,
telling the complete story of the unit in the Gettysburg Campaign, from June 21 through July 10, 1863. Desjardin uses more than seventy first-hand accounts to tell the story of this campaign in critical detail. He brings the personal experiences of the soldiers to life, relating the story from both
sides and revealing the actions and feelings of the men from Alabama who tried, in vain, to seize Little Round Top. Indeed, ranging from the lowest ranking private to the highest officers, this book explores the terrible experiences of war and their tragic effect. Following the regiment through the
campaign enables readers to understand fully the soldiers' feelings towards the enemy, towards citizens of both North and South, and towards the commanders of the two armies. In addition, this book traces the development of the legend of Gettysburg, as veterans of the fight struggle to remember,
grasp, and memorialize their part in the largest battle ever fought on the continent.
With a new preface and updated maps and illustrations, Stand Firm Ye Boys of Maine offers a compelling account of one of the most crucial small engagements of the Civil War.
256 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
July 31, 2022
Standing atop that rocky hill in Pennsylvania on July 2, 1863, those five hundred Union soldiers from Maine must have felt as if their world was ending. Under the command of Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment held the southern slope of Little Round Top, the extreme left end of the Union line. The 15th Alabama Regiment, commanded by Confederate Colonel William C. Oates, was charging up the hill, hoping to take the hill and fold up the entire Union line. The Mainers’ stand seemed impossible, and yet somehow they held. Such is the story that Thomas A. Desjardin tells in Stand Firm Ye Boys from Maine.
Desjardin, a Mainer and a Gettysburg resident who has led a number of National Park Service programs on Gettysburg, seems ideally situated to tell the story of The 20th Maine and the Gettysburg Campaign (the book’s subtitle). The book provides an excellent regiment-level look at a crucial moment from the Civil War’s Pennsylvania Campaign, and Desjardin is careful to acknowledge his debt to John Pullen’s classic study The Twentieth Maine: A Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War (1957).
The book is well-written and well-illustrated. Desjardin writes clearly and economically – the book is just 167 pages long, not counting appendices – and captures the drama and sweep of the engagement well, as in this passage regarding the Alabama infantry’s attack on the hill:
When the assault finally reached its goal, it was, thanks to the confusing approach maneuvers, ‘en echelon,’ meaning that it struck a point and then rolled toward its right. It was like a wave on the Maine coastline, thundering toward the flank as it broke along the rocks. The enemy struck first in the brigade’s center, squarely on the 44th New York. The wave, breaking slowly past the 83rd Pennsylvania, came crashing in on the Maine men and, before long, they were awash in the fight. (p. 50)
Yet Desjardin makes sure not to draw a gloss of romanticism over the violence and brutality of Civil War combat. A chapter titled “Seared by the Horrors of War” captures in a moving and powerful manner the emotional trauma experienced by the soldiers of the 20th Maine who defended Little Round Top; even if they had the good fortune to come away from that little rocky hill alive and uninjured, they came away scarred by the sights they had seen – putrefying bodies of men and horses, too numerous to count; wounded soldiers who had crawled into a barn for shelter, only to burn to death when the barn caught fire. The term “post-traumatic stress disorder” did not exist in 1863, or for a long time afterward, but it is clear that plenty of the brave soldiers of the 20th Maine came out of Little Round Top with PTSD.
And later in the book, when Desjardin compares the postwar perspectives of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain – who emphasized the heroic elements of Little Round Top in a manner that Desjardin finds romanticized – and his subordinate Ellis Spear, who saw war as pure horror and felt endless guilt at the knowledge that soldiers whom he had recruited had died at Little Round Top – the comparison is not to Chamberlain’s advantage.
I appreciated the careful way in which Desjardin arranged information throughout the book. When Desjardin mentions a specific soldier of the 20th Maine, he provides a photograph of the soldier right away, in a photograph embedded within the text. When he wants to talk about a key moment from the engagement on Little Round Top, he provides a map right then and there – rather than sticking all the photographs and all the maps between, say, pages 152 and 153, by which time many readers will have forgotten the significance of said photograph or map.
At the same time, a key part of the goal of Desjardin’s book seems to be demythologizing the 20th Maine’s stand at Little Round Top, particularly in terms of Michael Shaara’s novel The Killer Angels (1974) and Ronald Maxwell’s film adaptation Gettysburg (1993). As Desjardin sees it, both Shaara’s novel and Maxwell’s film, seeking to give Americans a hero for the modern age, depicted Colonel Chamberlain in a role that captured his heroism, and did engage the imaginations of thousands of Americans, but did so in a manner that might not be historically accurate.
While reading this book on a trip to Maine, I passed through a number of cities and towns that were home to members of the illustrious regiment – Portland, Brunswick, Thomaston, Waldoboro, Rockland. Passing through those towns, on U.S. Route 1 or Maine Route 9, I imagined those young Mainers leaving their beautiful little towns, bound for terrors they could not have imagined, and for the experience - glorious for some, deadly or traumatizing for others, life-changing for all - of being part of the regiment that is described in Ken Burns’s documentary The Civil War (1990) as having, perhaps, saved the Union at Gettysburg. Desjardin would find that assessment excessive, just as he admires Chamberlain’s heroism for its vulnerable, human qualities, rather than as part of a romantic, larger-than-life tableau. His depiction of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg is thorough, thoughtful, and persuasive.
Desjardin, a Mainer and a Gettysburg resident who has led a number of National Park Service programs on Gettysburg, seems ideally situated to tell the story of The 20th Maine and the Gettysburg Campaign (the book’s subtitle). The book provides an excellent regiment-level look at a crucial moment from the Civil War’s Pennsylvania Campaign, and Desjardin is careful to acknowledge his debt to John Pullen’s classic study The Twentieth Maine: A Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War (1957).
The book is well-written and well-illustrated. Desjardin writes clearly and economically – the book is just 167 pages long, not counting appendices – and captures the drama and sweep of the engagement well, as in this passage regarding the Alabama infantry’s attack on the hill:
When the assault finally reached its goal, it was, thanks to the confusing approach maneuvers, ‘en echelon,’ meaning that it struck a point and then rolled toward its right. It was like a wave on the Maine coastline, thundering toward the flank as it broke along the rocks. The enemy struck first in the brigade’s center, squarely on the 44th New York. The wave, breaking slowly past the 83rd Pennsylvania, came crashing in on the Maine men and, before long, they were awash in the fight. (p. 50)
Yet Desjardin makes sure not to draw a gloss of romanticism over the violence and brutality of Civil War combat. A chapter titled “Seared by the Horrors of War” captures in a moving and powerful manner the emotional trauma experienced by the soldiers of the 20th Maine who defended Little Round Top; even if they had the good fortune to come away from that little rocky hill alive and uninjured, they came away scarred by the sights they had seen – putrefying bodies of men and horses, too numerous to count; wounded soldiers who had crawled into a barn for shelter, only to burn to death when the barn caught fire. The term “post-traumatic stress disorder” did not exist in 1863, or for a long time afterward, but it is clear that plenty of the brave soldiers of the 20th Maine came out of Little Round Top with PTSD.
And later in the book, when Desjardin compares the postwar perspectives of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain – who emphasized the heroic elements of Little Round Top in a manner that Desjardin finds romanticized – and his subordinate Ellis Spear, who saw war as pure horror and felt endless guilt at the knowledge that soldiers whom he had recruited had died at Little Round Top – the comparison is not to Chamberlain’s advantage.
I appreciated the careful way in which Desjardin arranged information throughout the book. When Desjardin mentions a specific soldier of the 20th Maine, he provides a photograph of the soldier right away, in a photograph embedded within the text. When he wants to talk about a key moment from the engagement on Little Round Top, he provides a map right then and there – rather than sticking all the photographs and all the maps between, say, pages 152 and 153, by which time many readers will have forgotten the significance of said photograph or map.
At the same time, a key part of the goal of Desjardin’s book seems to be demythologizing the 20th Maine’s stand at Little Round Top, particularly in terms of Michael Shaara’s novel The Killer Angels (1974) and Ronald Maxwell’s film adaptation Gettysburg (1993). As Desjardin sees it, both Shaara’s novel and Maxwell’s film, seeking to give Americans a hero for the modern age, depicted Colonel Chamberlain in a role that captured his heroism, and did engage the imaginations of thousands of Americans, but did so in a manner that might not be historically accurate.
While reading this book on a trip to Maine, I passed through a number of cities and towns that were home to members of the illustrious regiment – Portland, Brunswick, Thomaston, Waldoboro, Rockland. Passing through those towns, on U.S. Route 1 or Maine Route 9, I imagined those young Mainers leaving their beautiful little towns, bound for terrors they could not have imagined, and for the experience - glorious for some, deadly or traumatizing for others, life-changing for all - of being part of the regiment that is described in Ken Burns’s documentary The Civil War (1990) as having, perhaps, saved the Union at Gettysburg. Desjardin would find that assessment excessive, just as he admires Chamberlain’s heroism for its vulnerable, human qualities, rather than as part of a romantic, larger-than-life tableau. His depiction of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg is thorough, thoughtful, and persuasive.
August 28, 2013
Fact meets legend. A very thorough and well balanced account of the epic fight that's maybe not so epic. Desjardin tells the whole story of the 20th Maine before the battle and afterwards as well. He also covers the 15th Alabama with equal thoroughness and evenhandedness. Maps and pictures as well as very detailed appendices are all here. We learn much more about the men to include the XO of the regiment, Ellis Spear, who after Chamberlain left the regiment, served a cowardly and absent CO. Spear did all the work and became a defacto commander without the pay and honors. A PA regiment refused to attack the Big Round Top so after their defense of the Little Round Top, the 20th Maine pressed on for that too. Desjardin was an advisor for the film Gettysburg and talks at length how the book Killer Angels and the movie have brought this fight to the public's attention. The last chapter talks all about the iconization of this fight.
August 2, 2014
Standing atop that rocky hill in Pennsylvania on July 2, 1863, those five hundred Union soldiers from Maine must have felt as if their world was ending. Under the command of Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment held the southern slope of Little Round Top, the extreme left end of the Union line. The 15th Alabama Regiment, commanded by Confederate Colonel William C. Oates, was charging up the hill, hoping to take the hill and fold up the entire Union line. The Mainers’ stand seemed impossible, and yet somehow they held. Such is the story that Thomas A. Desjardin tells in Stand Firm Ye Boys from Maine.
Desjardin, a Mainer and a Gettysburg resident who has led National Park Service programs on Gettysburg, seems ideally situated to tell the story of The 20th Maine and the Gettysburg Campaign (the book’s subtitle). The book provides an excellent regiment-level look at a crucial moment from the Civil War’s Pennsylvania Campaign, and Desjardin is careful to acknowledge his debt to John Pullen’s classic study The Twentieth Maine: A Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War (1957).
The book is well-written and well-illustrated. Desjardin writes clearly and economically – the book is just 167 pages long, not counting appendices – and captures the drama and sweep of the engagement well, as in this passage regarding the Alabama infantry’s attack on the hill: “When the assault finally reached its goal, it was, thanks to the confusing approach maneuvers, ‘en echelon,’ meaning that it struck a point and then rolled toward its right. It was like a wave on the Maine coastline, thundering toward the flank as it broke along the rocks. The enemy struck first in the brigade’s center, squarely on the 44th New York. The wave, breaking slowly past the 83rd Pennsylvania, came crashing in on the Maine men and, before long, they were awash in the fight” (p. 50).
Yet Desjardin makes sure not to draw a gloss of romanticism over the violence and brutality of Civil War combat. A chapter titled “Seared by the Horrors of War” captures in a moving and powerful manner the emotional trauma experienced by the soldiers of the 20th Maine who defended Little Round Top; even if they had the good fortune to come away from that little rocky hill alive and uninjured, they came away scarred by the sights they had seen – putrefying bodies of men and horses, too numerous to count; wounded soldiers who had crawled into a barn for shelter, only to burn to death when the barn caught fire. The term “post-traumatic stress disorder” did not exist in 1863, or for a long time afterward, but it is clear that plenty of the brave soldiers of the 20th Maine came out of Little Round Top with PTSD. Late in the book, when Desjardin compares the postwar perspectives of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain – who emphasized the heroic elements of Little Round Top in a manner that Desjardin finds romanticized – and his subordinate Ellis Spear, who saw war as pure horror and felt endless guilt at the knowledge that soldiers whom he had recruited had died at Little Round Top – the comparison is not to Chamberlain’s advantage.
I appreciated the careful way in which Desjardin arranged information throughout the book. When Desjardin mentions a specific soldier of the 20th Maine, he provides a photograph of the soldier right away, in a photograph embedded within the text. When he wants to talk about a key moment from the engagement on Little Round Top, he provides a map right then and there – rather than sticking all the photographs and all the maps between, say, pages 152 and 153, by which time many readers will have forgotten the significance of said photograph or map.
At the same time, a key part of the goal of Desjardin’s book seems to be demythologizing the 20th Maine’s stand at Little Round Top, particularly in terms of Michael Shaara’s novel The Killer Angels (1974) and Ronald Maxwell’s film adaptation Gettysburg (1993). As Desjardin sees it, both Shaara’s novel and Maxwell’s film, seeking to give Americans a hero for the modern age, depicted Colonel Chamberlain in a role that captured his heroism, and did engage the imaginations of thousands of Americans, but did so in a manner that might not be historically accurate.
While reading this book on a trip to Maine, I passed through a number of cities and towns that were home to members of the illustrious regiment – Portland, Brunswick, Thomaston, Waldoboro, Rockland. Passing through those towns, on U.S. Route 1 or Maine Route 9, I imagined those young Mainers leaving their beautiful little towns, bound for terrors they could not have imagined, and for the experience - glorious for some, deadly or traumatizing for others, life-changing for all - of being part of the regiment that is described in Ken Burns’s documentary The Civil War (1990) as having, perhaps, saved the Union at Gettysburg. Desjardin would find that assessment excessive, just as he admires Chamberlain’s heroism for its vulnerable, human qualities, rather than as part of a romantic, larger-than-life tableau. His depiction of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg is thorough, thoughtful, and persuasive.
Desjardin, a Mainer and a Gettysburg resident who has led National Park Service programs on Gettysburg, seems ideally situated to tell the story of The 20th Maine and the Gettysburg Campaign (the book’s subtitle). The book provides an excellent regiment-level look at a crucial moment from the Civil War’s Pennsylvania Campaign, and Desjardin is careful to acknowledge his debt to John Pullen’s classic study The Twentieth Maine: A Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War (1957).
The book is well-written and well-illustrated. Desjardin writes clearly and economically – the book is just 167 pages long, not counting appendices – and captures the drama and sweep of the engagement well, as in this passage regarding the Alabama infantry’s attack on the hill: “When the assault finally reached its goal, it was, thanks to the confusing approach maneuvers, ‘en echelon,’ meaning that it struck a point and then rolled toward its right. It was like a wave on the Maine coastline, thundering toward the flank as it broke along the rocks. The enemy struck first in the brigade’s center, squarely on the 44th New York. The wave, breaking slowly past the 83rd Pennsylvania, came crashing in on the Maine men and, before long, they were awash in the fight” (p. 50).
Yet Desjardin makes sure not to draw a gloss of romanticism over the violence and brutality of Civil War combat. A chapter titled “Seared by the Horrors of War” captures in a moving and powerful manner the emotional trauma experienced by the soldiers of the 20th Maine who defended Little Round Top; even if they had the good fortune to come away from that little rocky hill alive and uninjured, they came away scarred by the sights they had seen – putrefying bodies of men and horses, too numerous to count; wounded soldiers who had crawled into a barn for shelter, only to burn to death when the barn caught fire. The term “post-traumatic stress disorder” did not exist in 1863, or for a long time afterward, but it is clear that plenty of the brave soldiers of the 20th Maine came out of Little Round Top with PTSD. Late in the book, when Desjardin compares the postwar perspectives of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain – who emphasized the heroic elements of Little Round Top in a manner that Desjardin finds romanticized – and his subordinate Ellis Spear, who saw war as pure horror and felt endless guilt at the knowledge that soldiers whom he had recruited had died at Little Round Top – the comparison is not to Chamberlain’s advantage.
I appreciated the careful way in which Desjardin arranged information throughout the book. When Desjardin mentions a specific soldier of the 20th Maine, he provides a photograph of the soldier right away, in a photograph embedded within the text. When he wants to talk about a key moment from the engagement on Little Round Top, he provides a map right then and there – rather than sticking all the photographs and all the maps between, say, pages 152 and 153, by which time many readers will have forgotten the significance of said photograph or map.
At the same time, a key part of the goal of Desjardin’s book seems to be demythologizing the 20th Maine’s stand at Little Round Top, particularly in terms of Michael Shaara’s novel The Killer Angels (1974) and Ronald Maxwell’s film adaptation Gettysburg (1993). As Desjardin sees it, both Shaara’s novel and Maxwell’s film, seeking to give Americans a hero for the modern age, depicted Colonel Chamberlain in a role that captured his heroism, and did engage the imaginations of thousands of Americans, but did so in a manner that might not be historically accurate.
While reading this book on a trip to Maine, I passed through a number of cities and towns that were home to members of the illustrious regiment – Portland, Brunswick, Thomaston, Waldoboro, Rockland. Passing through those towns, on U.S. Route 1 or Maine Route 9, I imagined those young Mainers leaving their beautiful little towns, bound for terrors they could not have imagined, and for the experience - glorious for some, deadly or traumatizing for others, life-changing for all - of being part of the regiment that is described in Ken Burns’s documentary The Civil War (1990) as having, perhaps, saved the Union at Gettysburg. Desjardin would find that assessment excessive, just as he admires Chamberlain’s heroism for its vulnerable, human qualities, rather than as part of a romantic, larger-than-life tableau. His depiction of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg is thorough, thoughtful, and persuasive.
December 31, 2010
If you're a Civil War buff this is a great read and offers remarkable insights into the legendary 20th Maine.
If you're a resident of Maine, from here or from "away" this is essential to understanding the rugged individualism and fierce independent spirit of our state.
If you're a resident of Maine, from here or from "away" this is essential to understanding the rugged individualism and fierce independent spirit of our state.
December 15, 2019
I really enjoyed this book, but I might be partial since I am from Maine. I recommend this book to anyone interested in Civil War History, Maine History, or the Gettysburg Battle History. It provided a very interesting look int0 the men and campaigns of the 2oth Maine during the Civil War.
July 6, 2017
A ground level view of the Gettysburg campaign as witnessed by the 20th Maine. A chapter about recruiting and the regiment's march from Virginia to Gettysburg in the week before the battle; a wonderfully written, page-turning account of the July 2 battle n Little Round Top; an account of a seldom mentioned nighttime skirmish on the slopes of Big Round Top; a distant report of Pickett's Charge, a half mile away from the 20th's position; leaving Gettysburg amid the death and devastation of the battle; the final skirmish and causalities of the campaign; the battle in memory and writings of its participants; memorializing the Maine and Alabama regiments at Gettysburg; the battle in the longer historic view; the romanticizing of Killer Angels. Detailed muster of the 20th Maine and causality lists for 20th Maine, 15th and 47th Alabama.
A fantastically researched and well-written work; exceptionally moving.
A fantastically researched and well-written work; exceptionally moving.
November 4, 2019
A book of great research and detail. Well written about many aspects of the 20th Maine from the days before it's actual existence with details of recruitment during that time frame of the Civil War to the appointment and assignment of Officers to the very end of the conflict very a vast amount of details in every aspect in between. I'm sure that there was enough left out by the author to fill multiple volumes as some details are less appealing to the larger audience and some details are of more interest to historians that thrive on the minutiae of these types of details. A well written book that's of interest to any students of history at all levels of expertise and especially of American and Military History.
May 12, 2023
This is an excellent and accurate account of the attack and defense at Little Round Top in the Gettysburg campaign of the American Civil War on July 2, 1863. This is from the perspective of the commander of the 20th Maine, LTC Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. The Confederate regiment, the 15th Alabama Infantry, was commanded by LTC Isaac Ball Feagin, my great grandfather! Chamberlain went on many other battles and was present at the Confederate surrender at Appomattox. My great grand father was wounded in the battle, lost his leg and was interred by the Union army for almost a year before being exchanged in June 1864. John Feagin, Mountain Brook, AL
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April 6, 2021I will start off by saying that i have not read a lot about the American Civil War. This book was a great introduction for the events that the 20th Maine took part of in the Battle of Gettysburg. I read the paperback version of the book. The maps were good and the illustrations and photos were plentiful. If you have only seen the movie "Gettysburg", this is a good place to start your reading about the battle and clears up a lot that the movie left out.
August 14, 2025
Great read on the actions at Vincent's Spur, Little Round Top. The author tells the story of how the regiment comes to Gettysburg, the actions of it and its adversary. The action continues with the evening events on the bigger hill and the final days of the campaign.
The story continues with how the battle affected the participants on both sides, it telling by them and the legacy it left.
Some pictures are included and a few key maps to illustrate the authors text.
The story continues with how the battle affected the participants on both sides, it telling by them and the legacy it left.
Some pictures are included and a few key maps to illustrate the authors text.
May 5, 2017
A very intimate account of the role of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg. Having a life long interest in the battle at Gettysburg, this book added a very human dimension to the fight especially at Little Round Top.
June 25, 2023
well researched history far from being dry dusty history,if you wish to follow up on the battle that took part between the 1st of july to the third of July , you can get copy of Ken Burns series the civil war and or the three volumes of Shelby Foote , the battles of the civil war.
June 9, 2025
Excellent discussion of not just 20th Maine at Gettysburg, but the 15th & 47th Alabama as well.
Good review and analysis of the regimets' actions.
An explanation of why different combatants remembered the action differently.
Good review and analysis of the regimets' actions.
An explanation of why different combatants remembered the action differently.
March 7, 2019
Good book, kinda shatters the myth which I;d rather believe in than have disputed
January 25, 2020
Amazing read
May 19, 2020
A scholarly work that could have used a bit more editing. A good addition if you are already familiar with the civil war battle in Gettysburg.
December 16, 2020
Review to come
March 31, 2021
Very well researched and very well written. This book makes any Mainer proud to be from Maine!
January 5, 2022
One of my interests is the Battle of Gettysburg, and most especially, the stand on Little Round Top by the 20th Maine.
September 5, 2022
Wow! This is an amazing book describing the lead up, the chaos & carnage of battle, and the aftermath of the fighting at Gettysburg for the 20th Maine.
September 9, 2022
Well done. Needs more maps.
January 12, 2015
Sergeant Major Johnson, in Halo, says "Folks need heroes." This has always, and I suspect will always, be true. Recent decades have turned Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain into such a larger-than-life figure, but in order to gain a better and more well-rounded appreciation for the man and his (to use his words) "great deeds," it's important to confront something of the real man, warts and all. And what better way to do that than through a narrative that sets him into the context of his unit, the men they fought, and the growth of the 20th Maine/Chamberlain legend during and after the men's lives?
I make no secret of the fact that Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is one of my heroes-- he's proof that you should "never underestimate your professor," I tell my students and friends. I've heard it said "never meet your heroes," but I think that reading Stand Firm has been important in bringing more of the man's flaws to my attention, and contrasting his take on the battle with other participants' recollections.
I still consider Chamberlain a personal hero, but Stand Firm has tempered my admiration with a useful dose of historical analysis. I highly recommend it!
I make no secret of the fact that Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is one of my heroes-- he's proof that you should "never underestimate your professor," I tell my students and friends. I've heard it said "never meet your heroes," but I think that reading Stand Firm has been important in bringing more of the man's flaws to my attention, and contrasting his take on the battle with other participants' recollections.
I still consider Chamberlain a personal hero, but Stand Firm has tempered my admiration with a useful dose of historical analysis. I highly recommend it!
March 20, 2012
Hands down my all time favorite book! It was a quick read but very informitive. I was born and raised in Maine, a few miles from Chamberlains home and final resting place so it is in my blood to begin with. However I am a life long student of The American Civil War, so the first hand accounts collected in this book gave me a slightly different perspective of what occurred on Little Round Top that July afternoon in 1863. Basically those who saw the movie Gettysburg, or read The Killer Angels think they have a good idea about what happened. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is the events as they happened directly from the pens of those who were there.
July 31, 2009
If you are a fan of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain/
Killer Angels
/Gettysburg(movie)/Ken Burns, you need to read this account of the battle for Little Round Top at Gettysburg. It will dubunk some treasured myths (ordered a bayonet charge?); however, Desjardin gives a readable, succinct account that honors the bravery of all involved in the battle. His research is thorough and his conclusions are objective.
September 8, 2013
From Fredericksburg to Appomattox, the 20th Main regiment fought in many of the famous (and infamous) battles of the Civil War. But their part in the battle of Gettysburg has become the stuff of legend. The author tells of their part in Gettysburg, with a lot of supporting documentation, not only from the boys of the 20th, but from the Alabaman regiments that fought them. Having recently read about the 20th's part of the battle in Killing Angels, I was interested in knowing more, and this book "satisfied that itch." Recommended.
May 22, 2012
Absolutely fantastic! Definitely one of the best civil war books I've ever read.
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For those looking for another great book, try "A Stillness At Appomattox" by Bruce Catton. A fantastic account of the final days and hours of the Civil War with extensive background information, written like a poem.
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For those looking for another great book, try "A Stillness At Appomattox" by Bruce Catton. A fantastic account of the final days and hours of the Civil War with extensive background information, written like a poem.
August 27, 2013
Enjoyed reading this book with it's referral to actual correspondence, documents and other first hand recordances of the battle of Gettysburg. It really stimulated my desire to revisit the site and see for myself the scale of the area. on paper ina book or on a map, it is just tough to really fully comprehend the actions of those units in the pitched battle around Little Round Top.
December 8, 2013
Again, too detailed, even for me but fascinating as a description of a small-unit action. The stand on the left flank of the Union line at Gettysburg may have been overdone by fiction but it still stands as a work of courage and devotion.
September 15, 2010
A very balanced and easily read discussion of the 20th Maine at Little Round top. If you want to know Joshua Chamberlain, this is the best place to start.
June 14, 2012
If you are a 20th Maine buff or just a Civil War buff, this is an excellent and well written piece of work.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews