Joshua Chamberlain: From Stuttering Child to Civil War Hero to Polyglot Governor of Maine

Before 1862, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain had rarely left his home state of Maine, where he was a trained minister and mild-mannered professor at Bowdoin College. His colleagues were shocked when he volunteered for the Union army, but he was undeterred and later became known as one of the North’s greatest heroes: On the second day at Gettysburg, after running out of ammunition at Little Round Top, he ordered his men to wield their bayonets in a desperate charge down a rocky slope that routed the Confederate attackers. Despite being wounded at Petersburg—and told by two surgeons he would die—Chamberlain survived the war, going on to be elected governor of Maine four times and serve as president of Bowdoin College.

How did a stuttering young boy come to be fluent in nine languages and even teach speech and rhetoric? How did a trained minister find his way to the battlefield? To explore Chamberlain’s fascinating story is today’s guest, Ronald White, author of “On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain.” He is presented from cradle-to-grave in all his ideals, tenacity, and contradictions.