Description: It was at Little Round Top that the Twentieth Maine, commanded by Joshua Chamberlain, performed one of the miracles of the Civil War, saving the left flank of the Union battle line. Outnumbered two to one, their front doubled back to the shape of a horseshoe. And with ammunition gone, the men fixed bayonets, charged, and not only broke up the Confederate attack, but took four hundred prisoners. At Appomattox, the Twentieth Maine was one of the regiments chosen to receive the surrender of General Lee's infantry, and Joshua Chamberlain, the Bowdoin professor who had become a general, was appointed to command the Union troops at the ceremony.
Brief description:
John J. Pullen was born in the town of Amity, Maine, which contributed several men to the Twentieth Maine regiment, and a few Civil War veterans were in the area during his childhood. One of his first memories was of seeing a scar on his grandfather's head from a wound he got at Appomattox while serving with the Eleventh Maine, and he feels that perhaps his interest in the Civil War began subconsciously in those early, formative years. He graduated from Colby College, Waterville, Maine, in 1935. He served in the US Army from 1941 to 1946, rising from private to captain in the field artillery. He saw action overseas with the Sixty-fifth and Ninth Infantry Divisions.