In The Hands of Providence

Chamberlain at Fredericksburg, Va., Dec. 13, 1862
The Official Gods and
Generals Collection Fourth in a Four Print Special Series from the Official
Artist of the Motion Picture Gods and Generals
Finally, it was their
turn. For hours, Lieutenant Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain and the troops of the
20th Maine had awaited the command to enter combat at the Battle of
Fredericksburg. The men from Maine watched with fascination and horror as wave
after wave of their fellow soldiers courageously charged across a deadly, open
field of fire – and were dashed to pieces by Southern artillery and infantry
fire. Now their time had come – and their full initiation to combat would occur
at one of the bloodiest battles of America’s bloodiest war. “I held my breath
and set my teeth together,” one of the regiment’s officers would later recall,
“determined not to show fear if I could….” Mort Künstler’s Comments:
Few events in the war were more memorable or more courageous than the charge of the
20th Maine at the Battle of Fredericksburg. It was this extraordinary event that
I wanted to portray as the climactic fourth and final print in the Gods and
Generals collection.
Wave after wave of Union infantry charged the sunken
road and impregnable defenses of Marye’s Heights. The climax occurred when Lt.
Col. Joshua L. Chamberlain led the 20th Maine in the final charge of the battle
late in the afternoon of December 13, 1862. The 20th ended up within a stone’s
throw of the Confederates and spent almost two days and nights under heavy
Confederate fire until the 20th was finally withdrawn.
What a remarkable
soldier and man of character was Joshua Chamberlain. Perhaps the best biography
of him is Alice Rains Trulock’s In the Hands of Providence. I love the title of
the book because it really sums up Chamberlain’s personality – he was a man who
treasured character, duty, charity, courage and faith. He apparently lived what
he believed, and – like Stonewall Jackson – placed his future, whether in war or
peace, in what he called “the hands of Providence.”
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Limited Edition Signed and Numbered
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