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Thursday, March 09, 2006
COLUMN: Jim Brunelle
Copyright © 2006 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||
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Chamberlain was the Bowdoin College professor, untutored in military tactics or history, who became the leader of the storied 20th Maine. He gained national fame as the hero of Little Round Top and at the end of the war was chosen to accept the surrender of Lee's army at Appomattox. His war exploits have been chronicled in books, movies and television documentaries. In Maine, he is remembered for more than just soldiering but also as a political leader and scholar who returned from the war to serve four terms as governor of the state and then as the long-time president of Bowdoin. His reputation is such that he has almost totally eclipsed other outstanding Civil War figures from Maine. Chamberlain and that war are synonymous in our minds, no other military heroes need apply. Nevertheless, news reports of a fire that destroyed an old farmhouse in Leeds the other day reminds us of the fickleness of history in that regard. The house, located atop a hill overlooking several acres of rolling fields and woods, was the boyhood home of Oliver Otis Howard. Howard also attended Bowdoin, graduating two years ahead of Chamberlain. Both men considered a life in the ministry, but while Chamberlain attended Bangor Theological Seminary for a time before returning to teach rhetoric at his alma mater, Howard accepted an appointment to West Point, where he became a mathematics teacher after graduation. There were numerous career parallels. Like Chamberlain, Howard also entered the war with the rank of colonel, also performed bravely in the field and was raised to the rank of major general while in his early 30s and, like Chamberlain, was severely wounded in the war. That happened in the summer of 1862 during the Battle of Seven Pines, a fierce encounter outside of Richmond that resulted in nearly 14,000 casualties on both sides. Howard was in the thick of things, leading his men into battle even after having two horses shot out from under him and having an arm shattered by bullets. After the battle, his wounds proved so serious that the arm was amputated. Howard also received a Medal of Honor for his performance at Gettysburg, where at one point in the fighting he was the overall commander of Union forces. The two Maine men differed in one important respect. Unlike Chamberlain, Howard was a committed abolitionist from the very outset and was regarded as much a moral crusader as a military warrior. It was because of this that he emerged as an important figure nationally at the conclusion of the war. He was named head of the newly formed Freedmen's Bureau, charged with helping 4 million ex-slaves adjust to their newfound freedom. "The rights of the freedman, which are not yet secured to him, are the direct reverse of the wrongs committed against him," declared Howard. "I never could detect the shadow of a reason why the color of the skin should impair the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." His assignment proved to be an impossible one, complicated by corruption within the agency, widespread resistance among southern whites and a relentless effort by President Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, to dismantle the bureau and undermine its mission. Eventually he came to concentrate his efforts on one special goal, the education of young blacks, using federal funds to establish several schools for that purpose. This led to something that should have earned him a prominent place in the history of the period. Howard was a principal founder and early president of a university in Washington, D.C. Although initially envisioned as a theological seminary, the school was eventually formed for the specific purpose of training black lawyers, doctors, dentists and teachers. Today, Howard University is a nonsectarian institution open to both sexes without regard to race. It stands as a lasting monument to the Maine-born general who went well beyond his military involvement in the Civil War in championing the cause of freedom and equality. He was later handed the more morally challenged duty of forcing some western Indian tribes to relocate onto reservations assigned to them under federal law -- an experience that the record suggests he found personally agonizing -- and finally returned East to become superintendent of West Point. That was Maine's "other" Civil War general. He's the one who wasn't Joshua Chamberlain, and the one that history has largely overlooked. Jim Brunelle is from Cape Elizabeth. He has commented on Maine issues for more than 35 years. His e-mail address is jbrunemaine.rr.com
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