Customer Reviews

Stand Firm Ye Boys from Maine: The 20th Maine and the Gettysburg Campaign

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We take our heroes very seriously in the State of Maine. Major General (and Governor) Joshua Chamberlain appears on everything from t-shirts to beer bottles; he has become nearly mythical in our eyes. "Stand Firm" provides an honest account of the 20th Maine regiment in the Battle of Gettysburg; it is grounded in thorough research and reflects careful analysis by its author. It is very readable, with maps and notes included to promote greater understanding of the information. I offer it to my high school students for both the content and as an example of the process of analyzing historical information for accuracy, bias, etc. Mr. Desjardin took on the myth, and allowed Joshua Chamberlain to be seen as he should be; a decent man in a difficult situation. (The hard cover edition of this book has earned the honor of being the only one never returned to me from the many books I have shared with students over the past 13 years!)

The book isn't one that would catch your eye in a bookstore. It's barely 200 pages long and at first looks like any number of books one will find related to Gettysburg and the Civil War. The difference is while there are a lot of good historians out there who are good researchers, few of them are as talented at writing as Tom Desjardin.

The 20th Maine is perhaps the most famous regiment that fought at Gettysburg and it's commander Lawrence Chamberlain is perhaps the most famous Union officer after Grant thanks in part to the book 'Killer Angels' and the film 'Gettysburg'. Unfortunately however there are a lot of myths surrounding both Chamberlain and the 20th Maine. This book cuts through the myths that the book and film have helped perpetuate without trying to tear down Chamberlain like some in recent years have tried to do. In the end the truth is just as facinating as the myths, if not more so.

I initially read this book after participating in a staff ride of the Gettysburg battlefield. My knowledge of the battle at that time came largely from Shaara's "The Killer Angels", and the subsequent film "Gettysburg". As both were meant to inspire and entertain rather than inform, I had an unrealistic understanding of the 20th Maine and its place in the struggle at Gettysburg. Thomas Desjardin's book changed that.

Well written and fast moving, "Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine" provides excellent background information on the 20th Maine, identifies members of the Regiment beyond Chamberlain and his brother Tom, and reminds the reader that the 20th Maine's opponents at Little Round Top weren't a nameless mass of rebels, but members of a proud regiment with a strong leader all their own.

Desjardin explains the fight between the 20th Maine and the 15th Alabama in tremendous detail, with accompanying maps that enhance the narrative. More importantly, he describes the post-war growth of the Chamberlain legend, and explains the difference between Chamberlain the Man, and Chamberlain the myth. Desjardin's Chamberlain is not the battlefield intellectual who conceived an unorthodox maneuver in the face of the enemy to win the day, but an ordinary man who led from the front under extraordinary circumstances. I prefer the latter.

Students of Gettysburg will be interested in Desjardin's perspective on familiar events, and those unfamiliar with the battle will find it a great introduction to the subject. While not a history of the overall campaign, it is definitely a great starting place to learning what took place in PA over 140 years ago.

When I saw this at our local bookstore I thought it was brand new since I am a big Gettysburg fan and hadn't seen it before. Turns out it was originally published in 1995 by a small press in Pennsylvania or somewhere and was only available in a few places, Then [someone else] got hold of it and now it is everywhere. It is a really great book, more balanced and objective than ANY Civil War book I've read, and even though it exposes a lot of myths about Joshua Chamberlain and his men, you will still end up admiring them, only now for the truth, not the myth. Reads like a novel and has some great detailed appendixes with lists of participants, wounded, etc. Outstanding!

The success of the Novel "The Killer Angels," and its motion picture version "Gettysburg," has made Joshua Lawrence Chamberlin one of the most recognized figures in Civil War history. This books seeks to deflate some of the myth, but nonetheless represents an outstanding gem of small-unit scholarship. Desjardin maintains a ruthlessly narrow focus, recounting exclusivly the actions of the Maine regiment on July 2nd, 1863. He counters the notion presented by Michael Shaara that the 20th Maine's charge was some kind of executed manuver, presenting it rather as a spontaneous rush down the hill. He also de-emphasises the importance of the 20th Maine's actions, suggesting that had the 20th withdrawn, the 83rd Pennsylvania could have held against the exhausted Alabama regiments. He presents Chamberlin as somewhat of a tragic character after the war, suffering from political reverses and a failing marriage-this is in contrast to most accounts that celebrate his actions as a soldier, governor and college president. Desjardin's book certainly makes the battle less glamorous than it appears on the silver screen. Nonetheless, he reaffirms the basic story of a green regiment, and a green commander, putting up a hell of a fight. 20th Maine aficionados will want to read this book to get a new angle on the famous story, while Civil War buffs will appreciate it for its in depth detail about the dynamics of a regimental action.

So many books have been written about the Battle of Gettysburg and in particular the events that occured on the 2nd day of battle concerning the decisive events that occured on Big Round Top and Little Round Top, after reading many books by noted scholars, I thought I knew the events and the 20th Maine led by Col. Joshua L. Chamberlain very well. I was wrong, Thomas A. Desjardin has uncovered some actions taken by the men of the 20th Maine as well as Col. Chamberlain that hasn't been written before and incorporated it into this book very nicely.

Usually, when writing about the 20th Maine at Gettysburg, an author will focus on the events that occured at Little Round Top only and ignore what happened to the regiment before July 2, 1863 and afterwards, however Desjardin tells readers what the regiment went through a month or so before the battle and what happened on July 3 during Picketts charge. This is a nice change only one other author comes to mind when I read this and that is John Pullen in his book "The 20th Maine" that was written many years before.

Desjardin describes the regiment in an easy to read prose, he dosen't mix in to many details that aren't necessary and he makes a reader feel like they were there during the crucial events at Gettysburg. I think Col. (later Gen and Governor) Chamberlain would approve of this book in its no nonsence manner (even though Col. Chamberlain did speak and write rather long). This is accurate and very interesting to read.

Highly recommended!

Interesting book, good subject. Some people, with a degree of justification, bemoan the attention given to the 20th Maine, but I'm not one of them. What I would like to see is that same attention given to other deserving regiments as well.

This book has the advantage of being well-documented and, as far as I can tell, accurate. It has the disadvantage of being somewhat superficial in that the regiment is never put into any larger context. There are anecdotes galore, and of course there is a thorough reconstruction of the 20th Maine at Little Round Top. But the substance of the battle around them is lacking; to be fair, this is not supposed to be a book about the battle as a whole.

In short, this is a good supplementary book if you have already read a thorough account of the battle (I recommend Coddington, personally), and it's good for bits of information about the 20th Maine, so it fulfills its purpose. Subjectively, I found it a rather dry account; interesting, informative, clearly written, but somehow lacking flavor.

The defense of Little Round Top by the 20th Maine Regiment on the far left of the Union lines on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, July 2, 1863, is perhaps one of the most famous small unit actions in American military history, right up there with Custer's Last Stand - except the latter lost. As the author of STAND FIRM YE BOYS FROM MAINE (SFYBFM) points out, the U.S. Army still uses the actions of the 20th Maine's commander, Col. Joshua Chamberlain, as a model of leadership under hostile fire.

Author Thomas Desjardin picks up the story of the 20th Maine in the aftermath of Chancellorsville on or about June 21 as the regiment marched north along the east slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains while Lee marched his Confederates on the west slope towards Maryland through the Shenandoah Valley. After some skirmishing at Ashby's Gap, the unit arrived in the vicinity of Gettysburg at the end of the battle's first day. Desjardin's focus is, of course, on the 20th Maine's resistance against the assaults of the15th and 47th Alabama regiments against Vincent's Spur on Little Round Top, followed by the 20th's relatively uneventful occupation of Big Round Top before being relieved. Chamberlain's command spent the third day, during Pickett's Charge, in reserve behind the front lines. The next day was spent maneuvering across the Gettysburg battlefield until, after it became apparent that the Army of Northern Virginia had decamped and was headed homeward, a pursuit was mounted through rain and mud to a final skirmish with the Rebels on Sharpsburg Pike on July 10, an event that marked the end of the Gettysburg Campaign for the boys from Maine.

Having finished with the battle itself, Desjardin examines the post-war period, during which, Little Round Top having receded in time but not in the participants' memories, bickering broke out among the survivors as various accounts of that fateful day in July, 1863 had to be reconciled with each other (or not).

I saw the film Gettysburg (Widescreen Edition) on the Big Screen when it was released, and was greatly impressed with the leadership qualities of the Joshua Chamberlain character under fire (as portrayed by Jeff Daniels). Subsequently, I visited the Gettysburg National Military Park and stood in reverence before the monument to the 20th Maine set in the trees now covering Vincent's Spur. Therefore, the final chapter of SFYBFM, "American Legend, American Shrine", in which Desjardin puts the regiment's defense in perspective and deflates some of the mythology surrounding the action, poured a certain amount of cool water upon my adulation. As the author points out, as evidenced by Chamberlain's recollection of the event, the colonel never actually ordered "forward", but only that his men fix bayonets. With that, the Maine troops charged off down the slope on their own and the famous "right wheel" by the 20th's left was more of a ragtag pursuit after already fleeing Rebels instead of the textbook maneuver of mythology. Moreover, the entire Army of the Potomac's line, from left to right of the famous "fish hook", was never in danger of being rolled up. Had the 15th Alabama actually been able to capture and hold Vincent's Spur, it would've had to face the 83rd Pennsylvania, the regiment next to Chamberlain's, as well as the 140th New York that had just come up. Furthermore, there was only room on Little Round Top for perhaps eight artillery pieces to be aimed at the rest of General Meade's army. If all of Longstreet's cannons couldn't dislodge the Federals on Day 3 of the confrontation, eight weren't going to do it on Day 2.

The strength of SFYBFM is in the comprehensiveness of Desjardine's research, which encompassed examination of close to eighty accounts of the battle by survivors on both sides. There are twenty-two pages of Notes and a six-page Bibliography. There's a complete roster of the 20th Maine soldiers at Gettysburg, which includes each man's rank, company, hometown, age, marriage status, civilian occupation, height, and post-battle status as applicable (killed, wounded, mortally wounded, captured). In addition, Appendix One enumerates the number of combatants in the three regiments involved. Appendix Three, Four and Five list in greater detail the nature of each casualty for the 20th Maine, 15th Alabama, and 47th Alabama respectively. For example, Private Mansfield Ham of the 20th Maine is noted as having been:

"Wounded severely in side, thumb shot off."

SFYBFM includes a serviceable assortment of photos sprinkled throughout as well as a number of maps, the most useful of which depict the evolving positions of the 20th Maine and 15th Alabama as they engaged.

STAND FIRM YE BOYS FROM MAINE is an exemplary battle history. While it may refute some of the more outlandish claims of the legend, e.g. that the survival of the Union hinged on the 20th Maine's victory, it puts the supreme efforts of both sides on a human scale and not on pedestals, especially as the personalities and civilian lives, both pre- and post-war, of combatants from both sides are described. From this vantage point, the Civil War student, whether casual or serious, can better appreciate the command style of the regimental officers and the heroic fighting qualities of their men. The volume deserves prominent place on any bookshelf dedicated to the American Civil War.

Chamberlain and Gettysburg scholars have written millions of words about the pivotal campaign of the Civil War. Nevertheless, they have tended to introduce us only to the titans on the field: Alexander, Buford, Chamberlain, Doubleday, Early, Ewell, Hancock, Hood, Lee, Longstreet, Oates, Pettrigrew, Pickett, Spear, Trimble, et al. A few have enlarged the cast of characters to include the courageous Sergeant Tozier and the faithful Sergeant Buck.

Desjardin's contribution is that he expands the cast of characters to include the ordinary soldiers, who in the horrors of war, dedicated themselves to a cause greater than individual survival or gain. By painting for us a more honest portrait of battle and its aftermath, Desjardin has done us all a great service.

This is a well worked area of the ACW but Thomas A. Desjardin brings a fresh look to the subject. He is an excellent author and scholar, both show in his books. The book contains very good maps, photos and current status of Little Round Top, roster of the 20th Maine, 5 Appendix, notes and index. This is a very well done book that can be used as an introduction or reference.