What really happened on Little Round Top?

Headnote

Colonel Joshua Chamberlain remembered events differently than others who alongside him on July 2.

THE STRUGGLE for Little Round Top on july 2, 1863, is one of the most familiar episodes of the Civil War. As the story goes, after numerous attempts by Confederates to wrest the hill's spur from its Union defenders, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain led a bayonet charge down the slope, capturing hundreds of Confederates. As a result of that action, Chamberlain has become enmeshed in a legend of Little Round Top that he in part shaped. Chamberlain emerged from the war a decorated veteran; he had been wounded six times and had accepted the surrender of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. In print and in lectures, the highly respected Chamberlain repeated his account of the fight on Little Round Top until it became the accepted version of events. But is it true?

At approximately 3:30 p.m. on july 2, the 20th Maine was on the far left of the Union line, with the 83rd Pennsylvania on its immediate right, followed by the 44th New York and the 16th Michigan. The 20th Maine, under the command of Colonel Chamberlain, had approximately 358 enlisted men and 28 officers under arms. As Chamberlain formed his men into line, he summoned Captain Walter Morrill of Company B and sent him and his men into the woods to the left of the main line to act as skirmishers and to prevent a flank attack on the regiment. The men had only minutes to construct crude breastworks. Taking cover behind boulders and trees, they waited anxiously for an impending infantry assault. According to Private Elisha Coan, Chamberlain was "standing upon a rock about 15 ft. in rear of the colors."

The 20th Maine's line overlooked the hollow between Little Round Top and Big Round Top. It would be here that they would meet the vicious series of assaults by the 15th and 47th Alabama regiments that would propel the 20th Maine into immortality. For a variety of reasons, events here were remembered differently by combatants.

Chamberlain wrote several after-action reports regarding the battle for Little Round Top. On july 6, four days after its heavy fighting, the 20th Maine marched to Marsh Creek,...