Much has been written about the Civil War luminary, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and I thought it was time for his wife “ Fanny” to receive more recognition.

Frances Caroline “Fanny” Chamberlain, nee Adams, was born Aug. 12, 1825, in the Greater Boston area, and lived with different family members until she settled with Rev. George Adams, a nephew of her father, in Brunswick, Maine, as a small child. An educated and artistic girl with a talent for music and singing, she played music in the First Parish Congregationalist Church, her adoptive father’s church.

It was at this church in 1849 she first met Lawrence, one of the many students at nearby Bowdoin College. They had a difficult and slow courtship due to several factors including Fanny’s apparent lack of interest early on and that Rev. Adams did not feel Chamberlain was good enough for his adopted daughter. Despite this, the couple became engaged in the autumn of 1852. A long engagement ensued which took Chamberlain to work toward a Master’s Degree at the Bangor Theological Seminary, and it took Fanny to teach voice at a girls’ school, private piano lessons and playing the organ at a Presbyterian church in Milledgeville, Georgia, for three years. Fanny returned to Maine in the summer of 1855 in time to see her fiance graduate from Bangor.

They were married in her father’s church on Dec. 7, 1855. The newlyweds lived in rented rooms while Chamberlain taught Logic and Natural Theology and was given charge of Freshman Greek. In October 1856, Fanny gave birth to a daughter the named Grace Dupee, though the child quickly took the nickname “ Daisy.” The following November, Fanny went into labor three months early with their first son but, sadly, the premature infant only survived a few hours. A second son was born a year later and named Harold Wylls. Two more daughters followed — Emily Stella in 1860 and Gertrude Lorraine in 1865. Neither child survived scarlet fever to see their first birthdays.

Family life was short lived with the arrival of the American Civil War. Her husband took a leave of absence from Bowdoin ( despite the college’s protests) to join the Union war effort as lieutenant colonel of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Fanny remained at home while he rose through the ranks. There is speculation that she resented the Army for disrupting her life and her great fears of abandonment once again returned. In the early summer of 1863, Fanny traveled to Manhattan in hopes of visiting her husband in the field. Due to the slowness of the mail especially at the height of the war, Fanny and Lawrence were constantly missing each other.

The following summer Fanny’s worst nightmare came true when she received news that Lawrence had been mortally wounded in the siege of Petersburg. Fearing he would die, General Grant gave a battlefield promotion to him, making Lawrence a Brigadier General. Despite expecting another child, Gertrude, Fanny rushed to her husband’s side in Annapolis, Maryland, where she nursed him for three months. He recovered at home for several more weeks but decided to return to his command even though he could not yet mount a horse or walk great distances unaided. The war ended in April 1865 and Fanny finally had her husband home, along with an endless parade of visitors and dignitaries. She quickly found that his inability to readjust to civilian life and her inability to understand what he had gone through caused troubles in their marriage.

Lawrence made a successful run for Governor of Maine which again left her at home for long periods of time since there was no official governor’s residence until 1917. The marriage became so strained by l868 that Fanny was secretly talking amongst friends about seeking a divorce lawyer, even going so far as to making accusations that her husband had a history of physical violence towards her. Lawrence lived with neighbors for almost a year before the couple managed to reconcile by 1870. They also had their share of health problems and Fanny accompanied Lawrence to Philadelphia a number of times where he had surgery in the hopes of alleviating his battle wounds. She had suffered eye problems her entire life and it became clear that she was going blind, a hardship indeed for a woman who so adored the finer things in life. In her last years, her granddaughters described her as cold and melancholic, perhaps symptoms of losing her sight.

In the summer of 1905, Fanny fell at home and broke her hip. This soon caused her illness that forced her to bed and by October, it was clear she was not going to live much longer. She died on October 18, at age 80, at home with her nurse nearby; her husband having not make it in time to say goodbye since he was working in Portland, Maine. She was buried three days later in Pine Grove Cemetery, and her husband wrote a tribute to her that Spring:

“You in my mind I see, faithful watcher by my cotside long days and nights together through the delirium of mortal anguish, steadfast, calm, and sweet as eternal love. We pass now quickly from each other’s sight, but I know full well that where beyond these passing scenes you shall be, there will be heaven!”