Thread by @pptsapper

Ginnnnnnnnñnnnnnm

Yo

You

You look like you've had a goddam hard week

Have ya ever heard about this dude

He had a mustache

And spoke seven languages

And had this fuckin weird ass affinity for bayonets

Oh yes

I'm talking about THAT professor

Joshua "bayonets" Chamberlain

Joshua Lawrence Mustache Bayonets Chamberlain was born on September 8, 1828 in Brewah, Maine, bub, which is just next to Bangor NOT BANGER that's something you have with mash or something a daddy and mommy do when they love each other VERY MUCH thank you very much

Joshy was the eldest of five kids, a pretty small ass family for the time. His dad wanted him to go into the military which was IRONIC AF considering that HIS DAD underwent court martial for running the fuck away during the War of 1812. Maybe the old guy wanted redemption

Anyhoo, Josh's mama wanted him to be a preacher cause that's where you met the nicest ladies in those days but Josh was kinda like meh

So he & his dad and Bros did farm things like pull up stumps and rocks and fight with broadswords

Yes, broadfuckingswords

I don't make it up

Somewhere in this time, Joshy did that thing that all academics do and hide in a garret and learn Green and Latin so that he can get into Bowdoin College

I think he also tried to build himself a Viola and then teach himself the viola

Suffice to say

He did not get laid much

Ok so yeah, You're probably like, I don't get why this guy is so impressive, he's just a nerd

HE'S A TOTAL FUCKING NERD

he studies theology for three years

Then he goes back to Bowdoin

Wait

I should explain

Bowdoin is the Harvard of New England

Wait

No. Harvard of Maine

He goes back to Bowdoin to teach as a professor of rhetoric and religion and shit

Look I don't even know what any of that even means but he spoke 9 LANGUAGES including Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac WHICH will absolutely come in handy some day JUST HOLD ON

shit

Where we at

Right. Yes. HE GETS MARRIED

amazin. It happens. Her name is Fanny. And I gotta tell ya. Like... Even before battle things happen that make sex difficult their sex life ain't awesome. She kinda frigid y'all. But Josh, he loved her a lot, so we will too

Bring us to... 1861

Now there's this thing in fucking 1861, south Carolina get all batshit and squirreley, even MORE BATSHIT than normal, I know, and is all WHITE NATION WHERE WE KEEP BLACK SLAVES and starts a war, the rest of the south follows and shit, it's a real picked what JLC is gonna do

PICKLE, dammit.

Hahahaha no it's not the dude was Bros with Harriet Beecher Stowe, they used to fistbump over the thought of total emancipation ffs

Yeah he tries to run off to war but Bowdoin is like "whoa whoa whoa we didn't ACTUALLY mean publish or perish for tenure"

So Bowdoin tells our earnest Joshua not only no but helltothefuckno which makes him sad

HOW COULD YOU MAKE THIS FACE SAD

IT'S SO EARNEST AND PURE

JLC gets all contrite and shit

Says he's very sorry

He won't go off to war

He'll just go to Europe

To study shit or something

And Bowdoin is like "oh ok"

And so JLC then

GOES OFF AND JOINS THE US ARMY FUCK YEAH

Now look, in these days, if you had a college degree and knew some people they'd make you a colonel, and the governor of Maine was like, dudezyou straight colonel material, but Joshy he declined it because he wanted to learn stuff. So he becomes lieutenant colonel in 20th Maine

Joshy's youngest brother Thomas Davee Chamberlain joins up too because Mama Chamberlain told him to take care of JLC which makes Lawrence totally not happy because no one likes it when their baby sibling comes along but also he does because, Tom, man. He so sincere

The 20th heads off to the seat of war or whatever McClellan was calling his location in 1862

They arrive just in time for Mac to not use them at Antietam in September. JLC is gonna remember being like "we could done something"

You, and 30,000 other troops, Josh

Dammit

Suddenly it's December 1862

Gin will do that to ya

And it's time for Ambrose "just attack guys, please, I don't wanna look bad, but also, please still like me?" Burnside to have his moment

Which means Fredericksburg, which means charging a stone wall one brigade at a time

Burnside has just about slaughtered everyone but then decides that the V Corps should have some fun and sends them in and the 20th gets to spend their first battle doing lots of dying and sleeping in the cold in no man's land. JLC gonna get all cozy between some dead bodies

Not even fucking with ya, gets between two of them, uses a third as a pillow, pulls a coat over his head to sleep

Notwithstanding the bullets going "thunk" into the bodies

Now. These are the bodies of his friends. So. He's getting mad. Just saying. Foreshadowing, if you will

They pull back the next day and JLC is like wtaf just happened. He doesn't get much of a chance to think about that because soon it's spring and the regiment gets vaccinated for smallpox

Only, it's a bad batch of vaccine

They gotta go into quarantine

Self isolation for reals

JLC is pissed about this cause they're missing Chancellorsville. He even argues that the regiment should be allowed to become a biological weapon against the rebs.

First time anyone has ever volunteered to be a CBRN officer

KIDDING I love you all

By this time, the regimental commander, Adelbert Ames - can we talk about that name for a sec? Adelbert? Damn, dude, Jaxlyn has nothing on Adelbert

Well, Adelbert has gone off to take command of a brigade leaving JLC in charge. It's June. 1863. Things are, as they say, happening

Robert E Lee is, bah gawd, invading into Pennsylvania. So the US Army rushes after his traitorous ass.

Meanwhile, there's a damn personnel S-1 problem in the V Corps. The 2d Maine is getting mustered out. They signed for 2 years & they ETSing. Minus the dudes who signed for 3...

Ya always got those dudes who didn't read their enlistment contracts all that well and here they are, 120 pissed off dudes. They wanna go home but they get stop lossed to the 20th. Chamberlain gives them a pep talk which somehow convinces most of them to chill out

As an article of good faith, he chooses ONE OF THE WORST dudes to be his color bearer. Andrew Tozier. Basically a low life. Did criminal stuff. Went to sea. Joined up. Now he's the color sergeant for the 20th and the guys from the 2d are like uhhhh guess we gotta behave?

Which is in the goddam nick of time, too, because there's the fucking battle. Gettysburg. Ya may have heard of it. Shit it's got everything. Including the dude who murdered his wife's lover & then pled insanity & got off, as a corps commander who does his own thing

Dan Suckles. Suckles. Fuck. SICKLES

YEAH that's the one. He moves off this Hill called Littke Round Top and gets his ass kicked

As part of the reinfocding corps, there is our boy JLC. Btw he looks like this now

War done this boy gooood in looks

That man can WEAR a saber

So now the 20th has to go save the fucking world I guess, posted on the extreme left of the US line by Strong Vincent, an ACTUAL Harvard grad

Yeah that's right, the liberal arts come to fight, son, and they don't care for you traitor flag

2 Alabama regiments spot the 20th out on the spur of Little Round Top & are like "psh, easy"

So they attack, one in front one on the flank

JLC is all "whatever" & draws his other battalion back at a right angle

Not today, traitors, these boys from a place where it snows in MAY

Look, the 20th is from Penobscot County and Downeast

Wanna know what Penobscot County has going for it? Nothing. It's cold. Downeast? It's really pretty. But fucking COLD.

Being outnumbered & miserable is just sorta normal

But math is also a thing and 60 rounds goes so far...

They fighting and fightin, and Andy Tozier he's the only one left of the color guard and he's shooting EVERYONE and then they run out of ammo.

So. JLC got some DECISIONS to make

Stay and die

Retreat and be flanked.

Or

Yeah, he opts for Bayonets and everyone gets all pointy and charges down the hill. This one Reb officer tries to shot our boy but JLC mutters something in Aramaic and the Ark of the Covenant causes the pistol to misfire and so the Reb has to surrender to JLC

THATS A FACT

So, uh, yeah, that happens

Then JLC gets dysentery and malaria for a while because war is a bitch

By 1864, he's kinda over all that and the 9 language dude gets a brigade command at the siege of Petersburg

Guess they just give brigades our to anyone these days

Now Grant is doing stuff at Petersburg

It's not terribly imaginative but hell, he's trying

So in frontal assault number 385, JLC finds himself leading his brigade on foot, attacking some Reb trenches

He gets shot some

Lemme rephrase that

He gets gutshot

Now, in Civil War terms, ya got a couple different cases for if ya get shot

1. Not so bad, here, have some opiates

2. Oof, gonna be an arm/leg, here, have some opiates

3. You're gutshot. We'll set you aside to die, sorry, no opiates for you

He's the latter.

Incidentally, JLC is gonna lean on his sword till his troops are past him before he collapses

Because lead by example, right?

Enter Thomas Davee "yeah I plugged that hole on LRT with my body" Chamberlain and Dr Abner "I legit left med school for this" Shaw.

Tom pulls him outta the hospital and Abner Shaw does experimental surgery on him

EXPERIMENTAL. IN THE 1860s

Grant is like "this dude can't survive this" and gives him the consolation prize of dying as a brigadier general

Only

He doesn't die

ZOMBIE MAINE GENERAL

Jk he's not a zombie but holy hell. Look, this wound is in June. By November of the same year he's back in command. There's gotta be some magic involved here.

Maybe some of that Maine moose magic. I dunno. But JLC lives.

At a cost. See, when I say gutshot.. it's worse than that

He's gonna have a catheter for the rest of his life

A homemade one, at that

And sex? Yeah no, that's gone. He's doesn't have that anymore. Can't.

For. The. Rest. Of. His. life.

I mentioned he was mad about Fredericksburg. Yah, wicked mad. He keeps fighting.

He keeps fighting through 1865 where Grant is like "fuckit, he can't die, he can have a division" which yields the amusing incident where he's attacking along the Quaker Rd & uses a southern accent to escape capture, because professor of rhetoric DUH

Our boy is still going by April of 1865 where he's got 1/V Corps still & gets to be one of the people at the great traitor surrender where he gives a token salute to the rebs that makes everyone get misty eyed but let's not forget that he was attacking them till the last moments

Anyhoo, the war ends, JLC goes home, gets elected governor of Maine four straight times which is less impressive when you realize they had one year terms which is just EXHAUSTING from the voter end of things

Then he becomes president of Bowdoin because those who can't teach, do.

You might be like, ASO, why you telling us this boring stuff

WAIT FOR IT

In 1870, he gets so bored that he mothertruckin volunteers his services to the king of Prussia for the Franco-Prussian War

They're not interested

That's gonna come back to haunt them

Then, in 1880, Maine has a CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS and you're like I didn't even know maine had a Constitution. Oh yes. JLC, commander of the militia, is asked by the incumbent Governor to settle things in his favor

But JLC is all about them ethics

So he ain't gonna do it

Instead, he steps in and stays in the statehouse. An angry mob gathers

*Cut to*

Angry mob

JLC walks out, wearing his old Army uniform

"Do what you must"

A grizzled veteran of the Civil War leaps in front of him

"any man who wants 'im, goes thru me"

Crowd melts away

JLC keeps order, Maine is saved to be invaded by Massholes another day

In 1893, the Army gives him the Medal of Honor for Bayonets and stuff

But doesn't accept him in 1898 for the Span Am War. Probably because of the wound. Which is getting bad

Look, this is a happy story

He comes home

Saves his State

Lives happily ever fuckin after

War doesn't do that, guys. It doesn't let you be. It's always there. And for JLC, it's ALWAYS there in the form of a horrible wound.

In February of 1914, Chamberlain enters his last battle. It's one that he cannot win. The Petersburg wound finally takes him and he slips away, with his old Civil War surgeon Abner Shaw at his side

Just a few months later, WWI will begin. A war he surely would've volunteered for

Some of his pallbearers will go on to fight in that war, as members of the 2d Maine Regiment, putting the bayonet to the Germans in 1918, shoving them back as part of the 26th "Yankee" Division

And that's why the Prussians lived to regret turning down JLCs offer

Ok real talk for a sec.

Joshua L Chamberlain is more than just a fun subject to study for me

He and Tom are a very real reason I raised my right hand

Something in the writing caught me when I was young, & I guess it was a foregone conclusion

I'm indebted to their memory

Anyways, now y'all reprobates ready for tomorrow's drinking game of Gettsyburg, where JLC plays a small part

Gonna go get my liver ready

Cause #drunjhistory does not come easily

Also, I can't stand up

And hooooly shit I'm drunker than Thomas Rowley on the 1st Day of Gettysburg

Altho his ass was exonerated

Which is some bullllllllll

"Drunken brigade commanders" is my favorite Civil War band

Also. Chamberlain was referred to as "The Lion of Little Round Top" or "The Lion of Bowdoin;" I wanted to share a no-shit neighboring lion

This is at Colby College, north of Bowdoin

Modeled after the Lion of Lucerne, the Lion of Colby mourns its young who died for the Republic