America's Revolutionary War
Personal dignity and pride-of-place motivated the colony of New Hampshire to adopt its own constitution in 1776, many months before America's Revolutionary War ended and the Declaration of Independence was signed in the city of Philadelphia.New Hampshire became the ninth and last necessary state to ratify the new Constitution of the United States on June 21, 1788. and John Langdon (of New Hampshire) became the country's first acting Vice President.
That he is not generally known beyond the borders of his native New Hampshire is hardly surprising. After George Washington, not many Americans can name a general of that war. New Hampshire has made General Stark so much its own that his famous saying, “Live Free or Die,” has been adopted as the state motto and been engraved on all the state’s noncommercial license plates. The future general was born in 1728 in Londonderry, New Hampshire, a small town bordering on the present city of Manchester, the state’s largest municipality. The entire state was rural, and battles with Indian tribes were not uncommon. When he was eight years old, his family moved to Manchester. As a young man of 24, he was on a hunting trip along a tributary of the Pemigewasset River when he was captured by Abenaki Indians and carried off to Quebec. He and fellow prisoner Amos Eastman were forced to run a gauntlet of warriors armed with sticks. Stark grabbed the stick from the first Indian he encountered in the line and attacked him with it, taking the whole line by surprise.
The chief was said to be so impressed with Stark’s combative instincts and courage that the New Hampshire native was adopted into the tribe. He spent the winter with his new family in Canada. By spring, however, a government agent from Massachusetts was sent to negotiate an exchange of prisoners. Stark was ransomed with $103 Spanish dollars, while $60 was expended for the release of Eastman. Both men returned to New Hampshire.
It was far from the end of John Stark’s encounters with the Native Americans or with the nation of Canada. Like Washington and other heroes of the colonial era, Stark cut his teeth in the French and Indian Wars. He served as a second lieutenant under Major Robert Rogers, and it was as a member of the daring Rangers that Stark gained valuable combat experience as well as a detailed knowledge of the Northern frontier. The Rangers journeyed from Lake George in upstate New York to the Abenaki village of Saint Francis deep in Quebec. They went north and attacked the Indian town while Stark, second in command, remained behind, refusing to join the attack out of respect for his Indian foster parents residing there. He returned to New Hampshire and to his wife whom he had married the previous year. At the end of the year, Stark retired from the military with the rank of captain.
He returned to military service after the Battle of Lexington and Concord signaled the beginning of the war by England’s North American colonists for independence. On April 23, 1775, just four days after the famous Massachusetts battle by “the rude bridge that arched the flood,” Stark accepted a commission as a colonel in the New Hampshire militia and took command of the First New Hampshire Regiment. Gathering his forces, Stark moved south to Massachusetts to support the rebels preparing to besiege Boston, making his headquarters the captured Isaac Royal House in Medford.
On June 16, the rebels, fearing a preemptive British attack on their positions in Cambridge and Roxbury, decided to take and hold the high ground surrounding the city, including Dorchester Heights, Bunker Hill, and Breed’s Hill. Holding these positions would allow the rebels to oppose any British landing. The positions could also be used to emplace cannon that could threaten the British ships in Boston Harbor — although no cannon were available to the rebels at this time. On the night of the 16th, they moved into position on the heights and began digging entrenchments.
As dawn approached, lookouts on HMS Lively, a 20-gun British sloop of war, noticed the activity, and the sloop opened fire on the rebels and the works in progress. That in turn drew the attention of the British Admiral, who demanded to know what the Lively was shooting at. Soon the entire British squadron opened fire. As dawn broke on June 17, the British could clearly see hastily constructed fortifications on Breed’s Hill, and British Gen. Thomas Gage knew that he would have to drive the rebels out before fortifications were complete. He ordered Major General William Howe to prepare to land his troops and the Battle of Bunker Hill was on. American Colonel William Prescott held the hill throughout the intense initial bombardment with only a few hundred untrained American militia. Prescott knew that he was sorely outgunned and outnumbered, and he sent a desperate request for reinforcements.
Stark and the New Hampshire Minutemen soon arrived. The Lively had begun a rain of accurate artillery fire directed at Charlestown Neck, the narrow strip of land connecting Charlestown to the rebel positions. On the Charlestown side, several companies from other regiments were milling around in disarray, afraid to march into range of the artillery fire. Stark ordered the men to stand aside and calmly marched his men to Prescott’s positions without taking any casualties.
Stark surveyed the ground and immediately saw that the British would probably try to flank the rebels by landing on the beach of the Mystic River, below and to the left of Breed’s Hill. Stark led his men to the low ground between Mystic Beach and the hill and ordered them to “fortify” a two-rail fence by stuffing straw and grass between the rails. Stark also noticed an additional gap in the defense line and ordered Lieutenant Nathaniel Hutchins, from his brother William Stark’s company, and others to follow him down a nine-foot-high bank to the edge of the Mystic River. They piled rocks across the 12-foot-wide beach to form a crude defense line. After this fortification was hastily constructed, Stark deployed his men three-deep behind the wall. A large contingent of British, with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in the lead, advanced toward the fortifications. The Minutemen crouched and waited until the advancing British were almost on top of them, and then stood up and fired as one. They unleashed a fierce and unexpected volley directly into the faces of the fusiliers, killing 90 immediately and breaking the advance. The fusiliers retreated in panic. A charge of British infantry was next, climbing over their dead comrades to test Stark’s line. This charge too was decimated by a withering fusillade. A third charge was repulsed in a similar fashion, again with heavy losses to the British. The British officers wisely withdrew their men from that landing point and decided to land elsewhere, with the support of artillery.
Later in the battle, as the rebels were forced from the hill, Stark directed the New Hampshire regiment’s fire to provide cover for Colonel Prescott’s retreating troops. The day’s New Hampshire dead were later buried in the Salem Street Burying Ground, Medford, Massachusetts.
While the British did eventually take the hill that day, their losses were formidable, especially among the officers. After the arrival of General George Washington two weeks after the battle, the siege reached a stalemate until March the next year, when cannon seized at the capture of Fort Ticonderoga were positioned on Dorchester Heights in a deft night maneuver. This placement threatened the British fleet in Boston Harbor and forced General Howe to withdraw all his forces from the Boston garrison and sail for Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Trenton and Princeton
As Washington prepared to return south, he knew that he desperately needed experienced men like John Stark to command regiments in the Continental Army. Washington immediately offered Stark a command, and Stark and his New Hampshire regiment agreed to attach themselves temporarily to the Continental Army. The men of the New Hampshire Line were sent as reinforcements to the Continental Army during the invasion of Canada in the spring of 1776. With the defeat of the Continental Army in Canada, Stark and his men traveled to the New Jersey colony to meet up with Washington, and fought in the battles of Princeton and Trenton.
After Trenton, Washington asked Stark to return to New Hampshire to recruit more men for the Continental Army. Stark agreed, but upon returning home, learned that while he had been fighting in New Jersey, a fellow New Hampshire Colonel named Enoch Poor had been promoted to Brigadier General in the Continental Army. In Stark’s opinion, Enoch Poor had refused to march his militia regiment to Bunker Hill to join the battle, instead choosing to keep his regiment at home. Stark, an experienced woodsman and fighting commander, had been passed over by someone with no combat experience and apparently no will to fight. On March 23, 1777, Stark resigned his commission in disgust, although he pledged his future aid to New Hampshire if it should be needed.
Four months later, Stark was offered a commission as Brigadier General of the New Hampshire militia. He accepted on the strict condition that he would not be answerable to Continental Army authority. Soon after receiving his commission, he was ordered by Brigadier General Philip Schuyler of the Continental Army to depart from Charlestown, New Hampshire, to reinforce the Continental Army at Saratoga, New York. Stark refused to go to Saratoga. Instead, he led his men to meet the Hessians at the Battle of Bennington. Before engaging the Hessian troops, Stark prepared his men to fight to the death, shouting, “There are your enemies, the Red Coats and the Tories. They are ours, or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow!”
Stark’s men, with some help from Seth Warner’s Vermont militia, the Green Mountain Boys, routed the Hessian forces there and prevented British General John Burgoyne from resupplying. Stark’s action contributed directly to the surrender of Burgoyne’s northern army at the Battle of Saratoga some months later. This battle is seen as the turning point in the Revolutionary War, as it was the first major defeat of a British general and it convinced the French that the Americans were worthy of military aid. After the Battle of Freeman’s Farm, Gen. Stark’s brigade moved into a position at Stark’s Knob, cutting off Gen. John Burgoyne’s path back to Lake George and Lake Champlain.
After serving with distinction throughout the rest of the war, Stark retired to his farm in Derryfield. It has been said that of all the Revolutionary War generals, Stark was the only true Cincinnatus because he truly retired from public life at the end of the war. In 1809, a group of Bennington veterans gathered to commemorate the battle. General Stark, then aged 81, was not well enough to travel, but he sent a letter to his comrades, which closed, “Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.” Stark and the Battle of Bennington were later commemorated with the 306-foot Bennington Battle Monument in Bennington, Vermont. 
America's Civil War
Across America, the plight of black slaves in the southern states was a controversial issue. During the administration of Franklin Pierce, New Hampshire's only President of the United States (1853–57), that moral dispute between the northern and southern states peaked, and in 1861 America's Civil War began. During the bloody Civil War, New Hampshire supported The Union of The United States of America, contributing more than its share of troops and supplies. The Civil War lasted four years, and nearly 6,000 of New Hampshire's best were dead.
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Brewer, Maine
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (September 8, 1828 – February 24, 1914) was an American college professor from the State of Maine, who volunteered during the American Civil War to join the Union Army. Although having no earlier education in military strategies, he became a highly respected and decorated Union officer, reaching the rank of brigadier general (and brevet major general). For his gallantry at Gettysburg, he was awarded the Medal of Honor. He was given the honor of commanding the Union troops at the surrender ceremony for the infantry of Robert E. Lee's Army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. After the war, he entered politics and served four one-year terms of office as the 32nd Governor of Maine. He served on the faculty, and as president, of his alma mater, Bowdoin College.
Chamberlain was born Lawrence Joshua Chamberlain in Brewer, Maine, the son of Sarah Dupree and Joshua Chamberlain. He was the eldest of five children. It is also said that he was his mother's favorite while his father was tough on him. He was very involved in his church, mostly singing in the choir. His mother encouraged him to become a preacher, but he was reluctant. He was very shy and didn't like to speak in front of crowds, partly because of a speech impediment he suffered from for his whole life. He entered Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, in 1848, after teaching himself to read Ancient Greek in order to pass the entrance exam. While at Bowdoin he met many people who would influence his life, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, the wife of a Bowdoin professor. Chamberlain would often go to listen to her read passages from what would later become her celebrated novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. He also joined the Peucinian Society, a group of students with Federalist leanings. A member of the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society and a brother of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, Chamberlain graduated in 1852.
He married Fanny Adams, adopted daughter of a local clergyman, in 1855, and they had five children, one of whom was born too prematurely to survive and two of whom died in infancy. Adams's father did not at first approve of the marriage, but later approved and shared a mutual respect with his son-in-law. Chamberlain studied for three additional years at Bangor Theological Seminary in Bangor, Maine, returned to Bowdoin, and began a career in education as a professor of theology and rhetoric. He eventually went on to teach every subject in the curriculum with the exception of science and mathematics. In 1861 he was appointed Professor of Modern Languages. He was fluent in nine languages other than English: Greek, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac.
Chamberlain's great-grandfathers were soldiers in the American Revolutionary War. One, Franklin Chamberlain, was a sergeant at the battle of Yorktown. His grandfather, also named Joshua Chamberlain, was a colonel in the local militia during the War of 1812. His father also had served during the abortive Aroostook War of 1839. Chamberlain himself was not trained in military science, but felt a strong desire to serve his country.
Chamberlain believed the Union needed to be supported by all those willing against the Confederacy. On several occasions, Chamberlain spoke freely of his beliefs during his class, urging students to follow their hearts in regards to the war while issuing his own proclamation that the cause was just. Of his desire to serve in the War, he wrote to Maine's Governor Israel Washburn, Jr., "I fear, this war, so costly of blood and treasure, will not cease until men of the North are willing to leave good positions, and sacrifice the dearest personal interests, to rescue our country from desolation, and defend the national existence against treachery.” Many faculty at Bowdoin did not feel his enthusiasm for various reasons and Chamberlain was subsequently granted a leave of absence (supposedly to study languages for two years in Europe). He then promptly enlisted unbeknownst to those at Bowdoin and his family. Offered the colonelcy of the 20th Maine Regiment, he declined, according to his biographer, John J. Pullen, preferring to "start a little lower and learn the business first." He was appointed lieutenant colonel of the regiment on August 8, 1862. One of Chamberlain's younger brothers, Thomas Chamberlain, was also an officer of the 20th Maine.
Joshua Chamberlain achieved fame at the Battle of Gettysburg, where his valiant defense of a hill named Little Round Top became the focus of many publications and stories, including the novel The Killer Angels and the film Gettysburg.
On the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Union forces were recovering from initial setbacks and hastily regrouping into defensive positions on a line of hills south of the town. Sensing the momentary vulnerability of the Union forces, the Confederates began an attack against the Union left flank. Sent to defend the southern slope of Little Round Top by Col. Strong Vincent, Chamberlain found himself and the 20th Maine at the far left end of the entire Union line.
He quickly understood the strategic significance of the small hill, and the need for the 20th Maine to hold the Union left at all costs. The men from Maine waited until troops from the 15th Alabama Infantry regiment, under Col. William C. Oates, charged up the hill, attempting to flank the Union position. Time and time again the Confederates struck, until the 20th Maine was almost doubled back upon itself. With many casualties and ammunition running low, Col. Chamberlain recognized the dire circumstances and ordered his left wing (which was now looking southeast, compared to the rest of the regiment, which was facing west) to initiate a bayonet charge. From his report of the day: "At that crisis, I ordered the bayonet.
He quickly understood the strategic significance of the small hill, and the need for the 20th Maine to hold the Union left at all costs. The men from Maine waited until troops from the 15th Alabama Infantry regiment, under Col. William C. Oates, charged up the hill, attempting to flank the Union position. Time and time again the Confederates struck, until the 20th Maine was almost doubled back upon itself. With many casualties and ammunition running low, Col. Chamberlain recognized the dire circumstances and ordered his left wing (which was now looking southeast, compared to the rest of the regiment, which was facing west) to initiate a bayonet charge. From his report of the day: "At that crisis, I ordered the bayonet.
The 20th Maine charged down the hill, with the left wing wheeling continually to make the charging line swing like a hinge, thus creating a simultaneous frontal assault and flanking maneuver, capturing 101 of the Confederate soldiers and successfully saving the flank. This version of the battle was popularized by the book The Killer Angels and the movie, Gettysburg. Chamberlain sustained two slight wounds in the battle, one when a shot hit his sword scabbard and bruised his thigh, and another when his right foot was hit by a spent bullet or piece of shrapnel. For his tenacity at defending Little Round Top, he was known by the sobriquet Lion of the Round Top. Chamberlain's commanding General said "Chamberlain had the soul of a lion and the hart of a women." Prior to the Battle, Chamberlain was quite ill, developing malaria and dysentery. Later, due to this illness, he was taken off active duty until he recovered.
For his "daring heroism and great tenacity in holding his position on the Little Round Top against repeated assaults, and carrying the advance position on the Great Round Top", Chamberlain was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Citation:
Citation:
The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism on 2 July 1863, while serving with 20th Maine Infantry, in action at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, for daring heroism and great tenacity in holding his position on the Little Round Top against repeated assaults, and carrying the advance position on the Great Round Top.
Appomattox
On the morning of April 9, 1865, Chamberlain learned of the desire by Lee to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia when a Confederate staff officer approached him under a flag of truce. "Sir," he reported to Chamberlain, "I am from General Gordon. General Lee desires a cessation of hostilities until he can hear from General Grant as to the proposed surrender." The next day, Chamberlain was summoned to Union headquarters where Maj. Gen. Charles Griffin informed him that he had been selected by by General Ulysses S.Grant to preside over the parade of the Confederate infantry as part of their formal surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 12.
Thus Chamberlain was responsible for one of the most poignant scenes of the Civil War. As the Confederate soldiers marched down the road to surrender their arms and colors, Chamberlain, on his own initiative, ordered his men to come to attention and "carry arms" as a show of respect. Chamberlain described what happened next:
Gordon, at the head of the marching column, outdoes us in courtesy. He was riding with downcast eyes and more than pensive look; but at this clatter of arms he raises his eyes and instantly catching the significance, wheels his horse with that superb grace of which he is master, drops the point of his sword to his stirrup, gives a command, at which the great Confederate ensign following him is dipped and his decimated brigades, as they reach our right, respond to the 'carry.' All the while on our part not a sound of trumpet or drum, not a cheer, nor a word nor motion of man, but awful stillness as if it were the passing of the dead.
Chamberlain's salute to the Confederate soldiers was unpopular with many in the North, but he defended his action in his memoirs, The Passing of the Armies. Many years later, Gordon, in his own memoirs, called Chamberlain "one of the knightliest soldiers of the Federal Army." Gordon never mentioned the anecdote until after he read Chamberlain's account, more than 40 years later.
Gettysburg 50 Years Later
Gettysburg 50 Years Later
The Chamberlain Memorial Brewer, Maine
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