A Hell of a Regiment: To Gettysburg and Beyond with the Twentieth Maine

From raw recruits to battlefield legends, the 20th Maine's stand at Gettysburg became one of the defining moments in American history.

The 20th Maine needs no introduction. One of the most famous units of not only the Civil War, but all of American military history, the regiment earned its reputation in one of the country's most celebrated clashes of arms: the defense of Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg, under the command of the legendary Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Drawing on previously unknown or inaccessible sources, A Hell of a Regiment is the first major account of the 20th's stand at Gettysburg in more than three decades, a fresh telling for a new era.

Organized in the summer of 1862, the 20th Maine, a mix of spirited, independent men from small towns and the backwoods, did not initially inspire soldierly confidence. Its first commander, a West Pointer, was not impressed: "This is a hell of a regiment!" he barked. Hard training and campaigning whipped the regiment into shape, and the 20th would fight hard to give its leader's judgment new meaning, nowhere more so than at Gettysburg.

By the time the 20th Maine marched into Pennsylvania in July 1863, a new colonel stood at its head, thirty-four-year-old college professor and citizen-soldier Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Late on the afternoon of the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the regiment found itself on the rocky slope of Little Round Top, the very last regiment in the Union line, just as the Confederates launched an attack to destroy the Union flank. If the 20th broke, the entire Army of the Potomac would be in grave jeopardy - and perhaps the outcome of the battle, perhaps the war. As whooping Alabamians swarmed up the hill, Chamberlain ordered a bayonet charge, and the Maine men overwhelmed the shocked enemy, saving Little Round Top and likely much more. The 20th Maine was a hell of a regiment indeed.

With an eye and ear for the excitement and horror of Civil War combat, Jared Peatman evocatively reconstructs the 20th Maine's stand on Little Round Top, shedding new light on the battle and explaining just how a ragtag group of soldiers, led by a colonel trained in rhetoric and religion instead of military drill and tactics, became an effective fighting force. More than just an account of a single regiment during its finest hour, this is the story of the Union soldier's experience in the Civil War battlefield.