On Great Fields: The Life and Unlikely Heroism of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

From the New York Times bestselling author of A. Lincoln and American Ulysses comes the dramatic and definitive biography of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the history-altering professor turned Civil War hero."A vital and vivid portrait of an unlikely military hero who played a key role in the preservation of the Union and therefore in the making of modern America."--Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of And There Was LightA KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 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. Despi