Chamberlain
- Sleeping off an eighty-mile march and a case of sunstroke, Union Colonel Joshua Chamberlain wakes up from dreams of his home state, Maine, to see one of his soldiers and friends Buster Kilrain standing by him.
- (It's now June 30, and not June 29, by the way, though the book doesn't officially note this.)
- Kilrain apologizes for waking Chamberlain, but says he has important news: their regiment, the 20th Maine, is inheriting 120 mutinous soldiers from the disbanded 2nd Maine. These soldiers are threatening not to fight. General Meade has sent an order saying that Chamberlain can shoot these guys if they refuse.
- These mutineers will now make up about a third of his regiment, and Chamberlain's going to need to try to talk sense into them.
- Chamberlain, a 34-year-old Professor of Rhetoric from Bowdoin College (also in Maine), gets up. He thinks that he won't be able to shoot Maine men.
- Kilrain tells Chamberlain to ride and not walk today, in order to spare his energy. Tom, Chamberlain's brother, shows up, and makes the same comment.
- Chamberlain observes the Union Army getting ready to start marching, then sees the ragged mutineers marching up the road.
- When the mutineers arrive, they all sit down, despite their Captain's hollered order not to.
- The Captain, contemptuous of the Mainers, hands them over to Chamberlain, who signs a form accepting command over them.
- Before leaving, the Captain tells Chamberlain that he can shoot the mutineers if they won't fight.
- Chamberlain asks the men if they're hungry, and they say yes. He tells them the cook is butchering a steer for their lunch.
- Chamberlain tells a soldier, Glazier Estabrook, to direct the men where to go, but the men don't move.
- A scarred man tells Chamberlain he's been chosen to speak for the mutineers' grievances. Chamberlain agrees to listen while the rest of the men go off to eat. He gives a book of infantry tactics to Tom.
- The scarred man and Chamberlain go have coffee in Chamberlain's tent, where the man complains about how he and his soldiers have been treated. They've fought in eleven engagements—more than Chamberlain has.
- The scarred man explains that his name is Joseph Bucklin, and he's from Bangor, Maine. He hates the officers from West Point—the generals—who he claims are using him and the other men like dogs.
- Chamberlain says he gets Bucklin's point.
- Kilrain announces that a courier's arrived.
- The courier tells the men to get ready move out. They're going to be marching at the front of the Union line.
- Chamberlain dismisses Bucklin, saying he'll think about what he said.
- Chamberlain talks with Kilrain, who says that they're moving westward to somewhere in Pennsylvania. It comes out that Kilrain was demoted from sergeant to private for throwing a bottle at an officer during a brawl. Chamberlain needs his help, but because of this incident, he can't promote him yet.
- Chamberlain suggests Kilrain would be doing him a favor by knocking him (Chamberlain) out with a bottle at the present moment.
- Tom shows up and calls Chamberlain by his middle name, Lawrence. Chamberlain chastises him for this, since it looks too informal, and the men could think there's favoritism.
- Tom says that General Meade has his son as an aide, but Chamberlain says generals are different.
- Walking away, Chamberlain thinks about what he's going to tell the would-be mutineers, about how he'll defend the Union Cause. He strongly believes in the cause, but his beliefs are hard to express.
- Chamberlain thinks that he's fighting for freedom—against slavery, yes, but even more against the Southern aristocracy, who've transplanted old European nobility to the New World.
- Chamberlain's Huguenot (French Protestant) ancestors escaped from persecution to come to America, so his feeling against aristocracy are personal. He's not fighting for an ethnicity or a nationality, but for equality and freedom and humanity as a whole.
- Chamberlain walks over to the new soldiers, where they're being guarded by Glazier Estabrook. Chamberlain tells them that he's talked with Bucklin and heard their complaints. He says he'll take them seriously and won't shoot them. They'll have to come along, but it's up to them if they fight.
- Chamberlain starts his speech by telling the mutineers that the 20th Maine's numbers have been cut from 1,000 to 300 men. It hasn't been easy. He admits, too, that they've come to fight for different reasons, and that many of them have never even seen a black person. But, he says, they're still fighting for something valuable and real.
- Chamberlain says the men will be fighting for something unique—they'll be fighting to set other people free. They'll be fighting to preserve a country where you're judged on your own merits and not on who your father was.
- Chamberlain says he didn't mean to preach, but if the men want to fight, they can have their rifles back. Otherwise, they'll stay under guard.
- As the regiment forms to start marching, Tom tells Chamberlain that all but six of the 120 men have agreed to fight. He orders Tom to assign them to different companies.
- Though tired, Chamberlain feels a great moment of joy as he rides out at the head of the regiment, now marching toward Gettysburg.