Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain Defends Little Round Top
Case Study Chapter 5
Arooj Javiad Zia
March 24, 2013
University of Maryland University College

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was in command of the 20th Maine Regiment of Infantry, under the Maine Volunteer Corps. During the third year of the Civil War, as part of the Union Army, Chamberlain’s troops were ordered by Strong Vincent to anchor of the extreme left of the Union line on Little Round Top. In order to get to the front lines, the leadership skills used by Chamberlain with the mutineers have to be honored for its effective assimilation. The story about the successful leadership is illustrated in The Leadership Moment by the author Micheal Useem. The way Chamberlain defended the Union Army during the day at Little Round Top is unique for being a great example of a great leader.
Although a commander leader from Maine in the Union Army, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was not a graduate from Universities like his other colonels; in fact he was a professor of religious studies at Bowdoin College. Even when he decided to become part of the Union Army, his college faculty was not granting him the leave at first since he did not even have any military training experience. Once he was accepted in the Army, his placement consisted of being a commander for 20th Maine Regiment by taking place of the higher officer who was promoted elsewhere.
Chamberlain was given the good news that he would have to train troops for the front lines from the 20th Maine Regiment. The groups of new soldiers were mutineers. Chamberlain soon learned that the unit, the 2nd Regiment of Maine, had actually been decommissioned (Useem, 1998). Therefore, the new 120 mutineer men were refusing to be reassigned to a new regiment since the Union commanders had taken them under armed guard. This is because the mutineer soldiers