The 20th Maine Charges to Glory
A daring bayonet charge saves the Union army at Gettysburg
One hundred and fifty-eight years ago yesterday (July 2), a professor on leave from Maine’s Bowdoin College courageously led his outnumbered and battered volunteer regiment on a desperate bayonet charge down the slope of Little Round Top in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
In so doing, Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine saved the Union army from almost certain defeat.
At the outset of July 2, 1863, Colonel Chamberlain’s regiment of Maine volunteers was posted to the extreme flank of the Union army at Gettysburg.
The Confederates launched repeated, determined attacks to dislodge the 20th Maine from their position. If they succeeded, the Union army would have been flanked and they would have rolled up the Union line.
For the Union, the battle would have been lost and many strategic locations in the North would have been imperiled, including the nation’s capital.
Chamberlain was ordered to “fight to the last” and to not retreat under any circumstances. He followed those orders, and by the end of the day’s fighting, his unit was decimated and practically out of ammunition.
