Through Blood and Fire at Gettysburg

Modern readers may be perturbed at the rhetorical style of Chamberlain which by contemporary standards is florid and unappologetically dramatic. Yet recall Joshua Chamberlain was one of the most educated(as well as decorated: Congressional Medal of Honor)officers this nation has ever fielded. When he acclaims soldiers at Gettsyburg,UNFORGOTTEN SONS OF GOD(p.28)!there is no irony or hyperbole intended. This is grateful, guileless praise of an officer exalting brother heroes. A letter written to Chamberlain...by a Confederate combatant of the 15th Alabama Regiment which assaulted Little Round Top on July 2...is astonishing(p.21).The former rebel soldier simply states that he COULD HAVE SHOT CHAMBERLAIN TWICE during the battle but spared him: "I rested my gun on the rock and took steady aim. I started to pull the trigger but some ...notion stopped me.Then I got ashamed of my weakness and went through the same motions again. I had you,perfectly certain. But that same ... something shut right down on me.I couldn't pull the trigger, and gave it up--that is,your life. I am glad of it now, and hope you are...Yours truly"

"Through BLOOD & FIRE at Gettsyburg" by one of America's greatest soldiers,educators and national leaders,is a remarkable document that profoundly says much about the kind of men; heroism and spiritual gratitude and dependancy that sustained and fortified this nation.It must,indeed,astonish...if not shame...many. Particularly those who would hide behind, or affect cynical sophistication about sentiment and character.[Pulitzer Prize winning Civil War historian, James McPherson's FOR CAUSE & COMRADES(1997)draws on letters and diaries of 1076 Civil War soldiers. This scholarship substantiates and affirms what Joshua Chamberlain,perhaps,more radically, astutely,and "sacredly" professes in BLOOD & FIRE]. This work is recommended to all readers who would try to understand and value the sacrifice of the soldiers who fought The American Civil War.