Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle if Little Round-Top during the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his 20th Maine Regiment of Volunteers kept the Army of the Potomac's left flank from collapsing, thus saving the Army, and the nation.
The approx 150 men of the 20th Maine held off a couple of brigades worth of men from John Bell Hood's Division of James Longstreet's First Corp.
He was ordered to hold to the last man by his Brigade commander Col Vincent.
After six or seven assaults pretty much every Maine soldier was wounded or dead. They were also out of ammunition. Chamberlain knowing they would not be able to withstand another attack, and being unable to fall back, ordered his men to fix bayonets. When the next attack started he ordered his remaining men to charge, while swinging down hill like an open gate.
This took Hill's men completely by surprised and they surrendered by the bucket full. Union men were holding prisoners with empty muskets.
Chamberlain would eventually be awarded the Medal of Honor. By the end if the war he had been wounded six or seven times, including through the pelvis ( which he would eventually die from 50 or so years later). After one of his wounds, which was thought to be fatal (and in fact his obituary was printed in the paper) US Grant promoted him to Brig. General.
At the end of the war, out of all the division commanders in the Army, he was chosen to receive the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia.
After the war he was elected Govenor of Maine four times. He also served as president of Bowdion College, where he taught every class at one time or the other except for mathematics.