20th Maine Volunteer Infantry

Description

Sculpted by Gary Casteel
Size: 4” x 4” x 6”
Weight: 6.05lbs
1863 Signed and Numbered Limited Edition Monument Replicas
The 20
th
Maine held the far left of Strong Vincent’s brigade on Little Round Top.  “No, I never expected to leave that hill alive,” its commander, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, later said.  Vincent told Chamberlain to hold the position “at all hazards” and the regiment’s stubborn defense has become the stuff of legend, thanks in part to its role in Michael Shaara’s novel,
The Killer Angels
and
Gettysburg
, the movie based on it.
The most notable battle was the regiment's decisive role on July 2, 1863, in the Battle of Gettysburg, where it was stationed on Little Round Top hill at the extreme left of the Union line.  When the regiment came under heavy attack from the Confederate 15
th
and 47
th
Alabama regiments (part of the division led by Major General John Bell Hood), the 20
th
Maine ran low on ammunition after one and a half hours of continuous fighting; it responded to the sight of rebel infantry forming again for yet another push up the slope at them by instead suddenly charging downhill with fixed bayonets, surprising and scattering the Confederates, thus ending the attack on the hill and the attempt to flank the hill position and move around the south end of the Federal "fishhook".  The 20
th
Maine and the adjacent 83
rd
Pennsylvania together captured many men from both Alabama regiments (including Lieutenant Colonel Michael Bulger, commander of the 47
th
), as well as several other men of the 4
th
Alabama and 4
th
and 5
th
Texas regiments of the same division.  Had the 20
th
Maine retreated from the hill, the entire Union line would have been flanked, endangering and hurting other Union regiments in the vicinity.
The monument is located on the southeast side of Little Round Top, in Gettysburg, PA, and was dedicated in 1886.
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