Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Statue and Treasures at Bowdoin College Photo Tour

During my vacation in Maine last week, I took a drive up to Brunswick, Maine to tour Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain’s home with my wife Michele, and my friends Jon and Marcia. We were fortunate to meet up with Noma Petroff, a resident of the area who also writes about the soldiers of the Union army. She has studied the life and career of Chamberlain and is a historian of the region’s connections to the Civil War. I wrote about our tour of Chamberlain’s home earlier this week and you can find that article here. Today I want to show you what we saw at Bowdoin College, where Chamberlain taught and where he was the president of the school. Included in the tour are Chamberlain’s statue and the treasures of his held by the college.

The Chamberlain statue is directly across the street from the Chamberlain home and right in front of Bowdoin College in Brunswick. It faces the Congregational Church that Chamberlain was a member of. The Chamberlain statue is a modern sculpture created by Maine sculptor Joseph Query and dedicated in 2003. The eight foot tall statue was funded by a commission of private citizens and donated to the town of Brunswick. The effort to erect a statue of Chamberlain came following the featured place of the Maine general in Ken Burns’s documentary The Civil War and the movie Gettysburg. Chamberlain is also a central character in the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Killer Angels.

The statue presents Chamberlain as a Union commander during the Civil War. While the surrounding plaza has separate installations focusing on Chamberlain as a Scholar and Stateman, as well as a Soldier, the statue depicts him in military attire.

The sculpture itself is realistic and it accurately depicts Chamberlain. It is well sited and free parking is available within about fifty feet of the plaza.  There is seating in the plaza and it is sheltered by trees, as you can see in the photo below.

 

The gate in the rear of the next photo is the entrance to Bowdoin College and it is worth going onto the campus.  You can also walk across the street to Chamberlain’s church, although it is not always open for visits.

Part of what made this visit a pleasure was the help we received from historian Noma Petroff, shown with me below.

After viewing the statue, Noma took us onto the Bowdoin campus. Many buildings there remain from the days when Chamberlain was president of the school. We all noted that there is no ivy!

Bowdoin was chartered in 1794 and it is one of the oldest colleges in the United States. At the time of its founding, Maine was still part of the State of Massachusetts. The school began to grow in the 1820s when Maine became a state of its own. While the school has a large endowment and an excellent academic reputation, it is a small college with only 2,000 students. Still, for such a small school, even smaller in the 19th Century, nearly 300 of its Alums fought in the war.

The first building Noma took us to is Memorial Hall, just a hundred yards from the Chamberlain statue. Memorial Hall honors the school’s Civil War veterans.

The building itself is a fine old Gothic structure. It contains explanatory panels on the school’s connections to the Civil War, as well as memorials for the soldiers who served in the Union Army during the conflict. Here is the exterior of Memorial Hall.

It is currently used as part of a theater complex for plays. In 1873, Chamberlain was drilling students in the building to prepare them for any future conflicts. Chamberlain’s father had wanted him to attend West Point, but Chamberlain did not show a military bent until the Civil War broke out. After he became college president he insisted that students purchase a West Point-style cadet’s uniform and participate in military drills.

In the lobby of Memorial Hall there are several plaques listing alums who served during the Civil War.

 

This plaque has Chamberlain at the top of the Class of 1852..

Oliver O. Howard was also a Bowdoin graduate who had a substantial role in the Civil War. At the end of the war, he headed the Freedmen’s Bureau.

 

There is also a plaque memorializing Ulysses S. Grant receiving an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Bowdoin in August of  1865.

Memorial Hall has a good interpretive plaque explaining Bowdoin’s role in the Civil War Era.

This photo on the plaque shows the construction of Memorial Hall in 1867 to honor Alums who served in the war.

The panel explains the roles of Alums outside of the military as well. Professor William Smyth was an abolitionist, and his abode on the campus was believed to be a stop on the Underground Railroad. Gov. John Andrew of Massachusetts led that state during the war and organized the 54th Massachusetts. Also Alums were William Pitt Fessenden, Lincoln’s Treasury Secretary, and Owen Lovejoy, a Republican Congressman and Abolitionist.

While Memorial Hall was constructed to honor Union soldiers, there are some unexpected references to the Confederacy there. Before the Civil War, Jefferson Davis was honored by the college! The panel explains what happened.

When Davis became President of the Confederacy in 1861, many demanded that his degree be rescinded. The college refused to do so, stating that at the time it was awarded, Davis was a suitable candidate for the honor.

Even more unexpected was finding out that while Bowdoin was solidly against the Confederacy during the Civil War and Reconstruction, its leaders in the 1950s and 1960s took a softer view of the Confederates than Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain had. Memorial Hall had a plaque honoring the Confederate alums of the college installed in time for Centennial of the Civil War. Of course, by then, all of its Union veteran Alums had passed away.

 

The school also offered a Jefferson Davis Award. This was not a relic from the pre-Civil War days. It was created in 1960! The panel explains this award.

Frankly, by the time the first Jeff Davis Award was given out, the modern Civil Rights Movement was two decades old and it is hard to see any rationale for such an award. The fact that it was given for excellence in the study of Constitutional Law is doubly damnatory.

Also very near the Chamberlain statue and Memorial Hall is the First Parish Church that Chamberlain attended. It was here that Ulysses S. Grant was received by the community in August 1865. The church was used by Bowdoin College for its commencement ceremonies, which is why Grant was there to receive his Honorary Law Doctorate.

On May 2, 1851 Harriet Beecher Stowe, a member of the congregation, was at the church when she had a vision of an abused slave, which inspired her to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Her husband taught at the college.

This Congregational Church was founded in 1717 and its current building was constructed in 1845. Like many New England Congregational Churches, it has wooden clapboard, but unlike them it is a Gothic structure. It can be seen here right across from the statue.

The attractive building is open to the public, but it is not always open.

The church is considered intrinsically connected to the college campus and its construction was funded in-part by Bowdoin. Standing in front of it, you can imagine Stowe, and Grant, and Chamberlain walking down those steps.

Grant received his Honorary Doctorate at the Church in August, 1865. That summer, after Lee’s surrender, Grant travelled extensively throughout the North. These trips gave Northerners an opportunity to see the general who had defeated Lee and Grant a chance to make connections that could be valuable later in his life. Noma Petroff, in her planned volume Understanding Ulysses S. Grant Character, Context, and Stories has researched Grant’s Maine visit extensively. She found an account of his time at Bowdoin written by a reporter who just happened to be in town when word came that Grant would soon be there.

The reporter was Samuel Roland Crocker, Bowdoin Class of 1855, who was visiting his Alma Mater that August. He was at the Church for a college ceremony, when surprising news arrived:

General Grant would arrive on the following day and be present at the distribution of diplomas. The huge church fairly rocked with the applause that this announcement drew forth. There had been rumors of his coming throughout the week, but it was not generally believed that the College would be so honored.

That evening students celebrated the news with rum punch. The next day, the train station was filled with people hoping to catch sight of the victorious Union Army commander. The crowd cheered when Grant got off the train. Grant was then taken to Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain’s house to wash up after his travels and then across the street to the Church to receive his Honorary Degree. The assemblage in the Church gave three cheers for Grant and another three cheers for Chamberlain. In keeping with tradition, Grant did not speak at the commencement.

After commencement, Grant attended the college’s Commencement Dinner. Reporter Crocker described Grant’s appearance:

His personal appearance has been so often described that I won’t try my hand at a new picture; but I cannot help remarking that the great dignity of his manner was something especially to admire. He was dressed in a far-from-new uniform, his shoulders displaying the three stars of his rank. His face, which is as familiar to almost every man, woman and child in America as seen in his
photographs, wore a slightly care-worn look…

That evening, there was a service at the Church to honor those who had fallen in the war and recognize those who had served and returned home. Grant attended. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was the last to speak at the memorialization. Noma has included his concluding speech in her book:

I stand in the presence of my commander, and if I go too far he’ll order me to fall back, and I shall certainly obey the order. Ten years ago I went forth from these halls. You, Mr. President, conferred on me the Master’s degree, and on this stage I endeavored, in my youthful way, to set forth the relations of law and liberty, and I believe, to-night, they go together. I am thankful to be here, and I am grateful to God that, after many vicissitudes, I am able to meet you again.

My heart is full, and I am thankful to see before me those who have cheered me, and especially him whose calmness and integrity gave strength to the armies when you trembled. But not all return to receive this greeting. When I remember the forty fallen [Bowdoin Alums], mostly my pupils, my heart sinks within me; but still “I can see them with the eyes of my soul.”

After the statue, the Church, and Memorial Hall, Noma led my wife Michele and I on a walk through the campus.

First we passed by Massachusetts Hall. Noma says that “This hall is called Massachusetts Hall and it was built in Massachusetts.” She does not mean it was built near Boston and then moved to Brunswick. She means that when it built, Brunswick was still in Massachusetts. This is the oldest hall at Bowdoin, built 220 years ago, two decades before Maine became a state. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain had his office here, in Massachusetts.

The next building on our route was the medical school. This was called the Medical School of Maine and operated between 1821 and 1921. In 1849, John Van Surly DeGrasse and Thomas J. White graduated from the medical school. Both were African American. Bowdoin was only the second medical school in the country to admit Blacks.  DeGrasse was the first Black regimental surgeon in the Union Army during the Civil War. Noma tells me that Bowdoin had 20 officers in the United States  Colored Troops.

The first African American undergraduate to graduate from Bowdoin was John B. Russwurm in 1826.

We then walked across campus to the library.

Next to the library is a building that was the home of William Smyth, a professor who had himself graduated from Bowdoin in 1822. Smyth was an Abolitionist who aided runaway slaves. The house is believed to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad.

The home is now a center for African American studies on campus.

We next went into the Hawthorne-Longfellow Library, named after two literary giants who graduated from Bowdoin.

 

Paintings of the namesakes greet visitors. Longfellow lived in an apartment in the house that became Chamberlain’s home.

On the Fourth Floor of the Library, Noma took us to the Bowdoin Archives’ display on Chamberlain.

It is small, but fascinating.

 

What first caught my eye was a handwritten letter from Joshua Chamberlain to his wife Fanny telling her that he was dying. Written at Petersburg in 1864, Chamberlain and those around him expected his death.

Here is a transcription of this moving letter.

Next is the bracelet that Chamberlain gave his wife after the war. It was designed by Chamberlain and made by Tiffany and bears the cross of the V Corps of the Army of the Potomac.

 

The red cross symbolizing the corps and and division of the 20th Maine Infantry is the most prominent feature of the bracelet, but it also references the 24 battles he participated in.

The final heirloom in the case is the Medal of Honor awarded to Chamberlain for his heroism at Little Round Top on July 2, 1863.

The original Medal of Honor is housed at the Chamberlain home. This second medal, for the same acts on July 2, 1863 was issued years later.

The library houses many historical objects, but it is a modern library. Interestingly, Noma told us that on the day Alexander Calder passed away his sculpture there crashed to the floor.

The library that Hawthorne-Longfellow replaced was the school’s old library, which is now called Hubbard Hall. The hall is named for Thomas Hamlin Hubbard, a Bowdoin graduate in 1857 who joined the Union Army soon after the war broke out. Although still in his early 20s at the start of the war, Hubbard quickly rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel. In 1864 he was promoted to Colonel and given command of his regiment, the 30th Maine. He served primarily in Louisiana, and his service was conspicuous enough that he was breveted brigadier general at the end of the war.

Hubbard was from a prominent Maine family, his father had been the governor of Maine before the war. He used his influence to support Polar exploration and he was a major backer of Bowdoin graduate Robert Peary. He also headed the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS). He used his position as a leader of veterans to oppose Lost Cause efforts to rewrite the history of the Civil War.

The building, which houses a museum of Artic Exploration, has the architectural flourishes you would expect of a college library.

The old reading rooms of the building are lovely places today for students to gather.

 

Noma brought us to this beautiful interior to see the school’s portrait of Chamberlain as the college president.

Here is a close-up.

If You Go: The campus is open to visitors. While the number of students is small, the campus is quite large. It is not hilly, has plenty of trees for shelter from the sun, and benches to rest on making this a great place to walk. Noma suggested that we eat at the campus pub in the Union building. The meal was better than most college food and relatively inexpensive. Our leisurely tour took about two hours, including time for our lunch.

You can find a map here from the local historical society that illustrates the approximate locations of the sites we visited.

Finally, thanks to Jon and Marcia who hosted us for our week in Maine and who drove us to the Chamberlain home from Biddeford.

If you liked this article, make sure to check out my tour of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain’s home.

Note: All color photos in this post were taken by Patrick Young except as noted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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