Courage on Little Round Top

A story first made popular in Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels and the movie Gettysburg, during the Twentieth Maine’s dramatic charge down Little Round Top during the second day’s fighting at Gettysburg Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain forced a young rebel office to surrender at the point of his sword. But Shaara’s story is only told from the point of view of Chamberlain and the action was condensed and simplified to fit into Shaara’s sweeping novel.

Courage on Little Round Top is a complete look at the confrontation between Chamberlain and a young Robert Wicker, of the Fifteenth Alabama, and detail examination of the events that led them to their historic encounter. The balanced approach through both Wicker and Chamberlain’s point of view gives the reader a complete picture of what led these two men to face each other with courage on Little Round Top.