". . . this comes as near reliving the Civil War as anyone in the twentieth century is likely to get." --Boston Sunday Herald

"Mr. Pullen . . . has gone to the letters, diaries, and memoirs of the participants with the thoroughness and care of a good historian, and he has had the literary skill to let the personality of the regiment come through. . . ." --Bruce Catton

During the past two decades Joshua Chamberlain has emerged as a modern icon, featured in the novel The Killer Angels, the film Gettysburg, and Ken Burns's series The Civil War. Numerous biographers dissect his Civil War career, living history interpreters speak on his behalf, and even a beer bears his likeness and name. Renowned historian John J. Pullen, who first introduced Joshua Chamberlain to modern readers, is again approaching the subject of this complex man. This new biographical essay explores Chamberlain's later life through the lens of his experiences during the Civil War and examines his place in history--both man and myth.

John J. Pullen is the author of The Twentieth Maine, a modern literary classic that is still in print after 40 years. Also by Pullen: A Shower of Stars: The Medal of Honor and the 27th Maine. He lives in Brunswick, Maine.

"On the Confederate surrender at Appomattox . . . Whether or not it was a full-fledged salute, its ordering was an audacious act on Joshua Chamberlain's part, considering the actions and attitude of Congress over the next several years and the widespread grief of thousands of Northern families who had lost fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons as a result of the rebellion. But somehow, in spite of his own suffering in the war, Chamberlain had reached a higher plane, from which he saw the surrendering Southerners as part of the nation he had fought to preserve, and he was welcoming them back into a Union that in his opinion they had never left."--from Joshua Chamberlain