1st Division
5th Corps
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| About the Book |
Who Would Not be a Soldier! is the story of two nineteen
year old farmers from Aroostook County, Maine who are
shocked when the Confederates fire upon Fort Sumter and
force its evacuation. Soon southern states begin to
secede from the Union. Mansfield Ham and Gustavus Walker
want to go fight but they have issues. They are needed
on their small family farms for planting and digging
potatoes. Mans has a sister with a serious behavioral
problem and he wonders how his mother could run the farm
and take care of her and the other children. His younger
brother, Hub, is less than reliable. Gus applies some
not so subtle pressure to enlist. A year passes but when
President Lincoln issues a call for 300,000 soldiers in
July 1862, they go.
Their regiment, the 20th Maine, and is initially
commanded by Colonel Adelbert Ames, who is a hard
taskmaster. He turns a regiment of independent thinkers
into an effective fighting unit. When the regiment is
laid low by a medical error, Ames resigns and his
second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Lawrence
Chamberlain takes over. Chamberlain is a professor at
Bowdoin College who was offered a two year leave of
absence to study foreign languages in Europe. Instead he
sought a commission in a Maine regiment. He develops
into a skilled practitioner of military arts. He leads
the 20th Maine to victory at the Battle of Little Round
Top and earns the respect of top Union officers and the
whole nation.
The Reader
This book will appeal to the young adult reader (12-17)
with an interest in history, the Civil War and the 20th
Maine. This story has been carefully researched. The
endnotes have been expanded to describe how the facts
were documented using both the internet and primary
sources, and how readers can do the same. Whenever
feasible, research protocols they might pursue are
suggested.
Teachers, school librarians, and persons involved in
assessing young adult books for library systems will
find it to be a good story. It covers many issues of
this period: slavery, patriotism, states' rights, the
small farm as an economic unit, and the availability of
information in 1860.
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