Background information and commentary by Andrew Carroll: For the concluding letter in the series of Civil War correspondence we've been highlighting, I thought I'd feature a poignant letter by Joshua Chamberlain. On July 2nd, 1863 at Gettysburg, Colonel Chamberlain led a spectacular and potentially suicidal bayonet charge against approaching Rebels after he and his men ran out of ammunition. (Chamberlain, a college professor before the war, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his courage and leadership in saving a strategically important stronghold at Gettysburg.) Almost a year later, at Petersburg, a bullet slammed into Chamberlain's right hip and tore through his midsection, severing arteries and fracturing his pelvis before exiting from his left hip. He barely survived. After the war he was elected governor of Maine four times, and then became president of the prestigious Bowdoin College. In January 1882 Chamberlain, fifty-three, was riding back on a train from Florida, where he had been looking for new business opportunities. In the following letter to his sister Sarah, he described his visit to the nation's capital, which he found populated by too many self-promoting politicians, and his journeys through the South, including a nostalgic return to Petersburg. Seventeen years after the war, the battle-scarred field -- like the nation and the old soldier, himself -- were all, quite literally, still in the process of healing. (This letter was first published in its entirety in WAR LETTERS.)Washington Jan 29 1882

My dear Sister,

I am so far on my way home and write a word to let you know where my movements are leading.

I made quite a visit to Florida, and saw much there to impress energetic and resolute young men. There are great opportunities to get health and wealth, and also to do good, and help other people….

Friday I visited the battlefield of Petersburg and spent 4 hours in trying to identify the spot where I fell on the 18 of June 64 in leading a charge upon the Rebel works.

All is changed there now. What was a solid piece of wood trenches over which I led my troops is now all clear field, and the hillside, so smooth there now, is grown up with little clumps of trees --  marking some spots made years earlier perhaps by the bloody struggles enacted on them.

At last, guided by the said wood and other well remembered places I found the spot or a space of 20 or 30 feet within which I must have fallen. It is now a plowed field, too rich, I suppose, since that 18 of June to be left barren by the owner, and there are on it the remnants of last year's cornfield.

Standing and musing there remembering how I thought of mother in that calm ebbing away of life amidst the horrible carnage, I looked down and saw a bullet, and while stooping to pick it up, another and another all immediately in sight and I took up six within as many feet of each other and on this spot where I fell.

You may imagine what there have must have been that day. And for 17 years relic hunters have been carrying away lead and iron from that field amounting, I was told, to cart loads. I could easily no doubt have found many more had I searched or kicked away the earth a little. But these I have, and that other that made so straight a way through me, will do.

You can not imagine, I believe, what thoughts came over me, as I thought of all those who stood there on that day -- for and against -- and what it was all for, and what would come of it -- and of those who on the one side and the other thought there was something at stake worthy of dearest sacrifice.

Such thoughts never would end, had one time to ponder, and it is well perhaps that the common cases and the inexorable duties of life call us away from too long thoughts.

Another study is this capital. Here are gathered the representatives of all sections and parties and creeds and countries, within little space. It is like a spectacle -- a scene in an amphiteater. Here is the little dome around which the whole country moves.

Self-seeking marks too many faces, and all the strifes of peaceful times, less noble often than those of war.

All is not evil here, however. I went to a church with earnest people this morning, and heard words of deep impressiveness, and witnessed a wonderful scene of infant baptism, which also set me to thinking long of how we are responsible for each other.

I shall hasten home now, and shall hope to see you before long. Trusting you are all well and happy under God, providing love and care

I am

Your affectionate brother,

Lawrence

NEXT WEEK: Beginning on May 29, a series of newly-discovered letters contributed to the Legacy Project.