The Grand Old Man of Maine: Selected Letters of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, 1865-1914.

The Grand Old Man of Maine: Selected Letters of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, 1865-1914. Edited by Jeremiah E. Goulka. Foreword by James M. McPherson. Civil War America. (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, c. 2004. Pp. xlviii, 335. $39.95, ISBN 0-8078-2864-5.)

As James M. McPherson points out in his foreword to this collection of Joshua Chamberlain's postbellum correspondence, the Bowdoin professor turned hero "has become a modern Civil War icon almost on par with Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman for the Union and Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson for the Confederacy" (p. ix). Chamberlain owes his reputation largely to two events: Gettysburg and Appomattox. At the latter, Grant gave Chamberlain the honor of receiving the surrender of Confederate general John B. Gordon and his men; he did so with a salute that was answered with a bow. Though the precise sort of salute remains in some doubt, its meaning was clear: Chamberlain aimed to accelerate the process of sectional reconciliation, and for this, he earns high marks from more recent exercises in Civil War sentimentality, most notably the Ken Burns documentary The Civil War. This emphasis on knightly gestures at Appomattox, consciously or not, resurrects an older, conservative historical understanding of the postwar period, a rejoinder to both Radical Reconstruction and the academic history in sympathy with it.

When Chamberlain entered public life after the war, however, Maine Republicans pressed him to explain how his actions at Appomattox related to the political and racial order of the postwar South, which suggests that, contrary to Civil War mythology, the issues raised by the war were more complicated than "honor answering honor." This collection of letters, by bringing Chamberlain into the postwar period, brings many of these issues back into focus.

As Jeremiah E. Goulka's fine introduction makes clear, Victorian notions of chivalry and masculine honor dominated Chamberlain's sensibility. It was a value system that made a return to civilian life difficult. Cut adrift from the army, Chamberlain first tried his hand at politics, serving four terms as Maine's governor. Though always popular with the public, his sense of independence made him ill suited to the rough-and-tumble demands of partisan politics. Ultimately, for Chamberlain politics was a means to a personal end, a stage that could offer excitement and distinction. But Chamberlain thought it beneath him to flatter party operatives or curry their favor. Not surprisingly, civil service reform was the one issue that stirred his passion because it reflected the conflict between his careerist ambition and his honor-fueled desire for unsought recognition.

Though Chamberlain would always have his eye on high public office, politics consumes only one part of this volume. Framed contextually by the introduction, the organization of the letters is both chronological and thematic. They document his family life, including his tumultuous marriage; his return to Bowdoin, which was plagued by student revolts and financial crisis; his efforts in business, which lacked focus and more often than not ended in failure; and especially his involvement in veterans' organizations and the commemoration of the war. Remembered as the quintessential citizen-solider, Chamberlain, in the postwar period, was, ironically, consumed by martial pageantry and unrelenting efforts to guard his fame--both public and private efforts to impose his version of events upon the historical record. This well-conceived and finely edited book adds to that record and promises to stimulate future scholarship.

ADAM-MAX TUCHINSKY
University of Southern Maine