BRUNSWICK

On June 18, 1864, as the Civil War raged, then-Col. Joshua

Chamberlain was severely wounded during an assault on Petersburg, Virginia. He narrowly survived, and went to his grave a half-century later believing that his brush with death took place near the future site of Fort Hell in Petersburg — a location agreed upon by the majority of biographers.

Enter author Dennis A. Rasbach, who argues in his recent book, “Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the Petersburg Campaign,” that the celebrated hero actually fell a mile from where he thought he was.

“I don’t think he was a liar and I don’t think he was not a hero,” said Rasbach, a surgeon from St. Joseph, Michigan, and member of the Civil War Round Table of Southwest Michigan. “I just think he did things differently than he said he did.”

Mainer and Civil War historian Diane Smith — who wrote the Chamberlain biography “Fanny and Joshua” in 1999 as well as an account of the Petersburg battle, “Chamberlain at Petersburg: The Charge at Fort Hell,” in 2004 — strongly disagrees with Rasbach’s findings.

“Rasbach seems to think he’s not only challenging me, but he completely lost sight of the fact that he is actually crossing swords, if you will, with Joshua Chamberlain himself,” Smith said.

Smith said that she used a first person account of the Petersburg Campaign, written by Chamberlain, as the groundwork for “Charge at Fort Hell.” Smith criticized Rasbach’s work as “revisionist” and “novice.”

Rasbach admits his status as a newcomer to historical research, but sees that as a benefit.

“I have no particular agenda, written work, or reputation to defend,” Rasbach said.

Rasbach admitted that when he began researching the Petersburg Campaign in 2013, writing a book was the last thing on his mind.

“I was doing some genealogy research and realized that my great-great-grandfather spent nine months in Petersburg,” said Rasbach. “I then learned that he marched beside Chamberlain. I decided then that I wanted to read up on him and learn about the man who marched beside my great-great-grandfather.”

Rasbach set to work on his research, and discovered there were many conflicting accounts of Chamberlain’s exploits on June 18, 1864.

“One account said Chamberlain was isolated and alone when he was hurt, and that didn’t mesh with the other account I read,” said Rasbach. “I met with Julia Steele, the archeologist down in Petersburg, and as I processed the info she gave me it became clear that there was an overwhelming body of evidence from a dozen other sources that Chamberlain took the ground in front of Petersburg.”

That was about a mile from where Chamberlain was injured, according to Rasbach.

Chamberlain was still in the thick of battle when he fell, Rasbach said, but the location was much different than originally documented.

Smith, drawing from Chamberlain’s personal account and her own career as a historian, said that Rasbach’s findings fly in the face of the man she has spent years studying.

“The Chamberlain I have come to know … was a careful and thoughtful historian, who during the war and after spoke with, met with and corresponded with fellow veterans and witnesses,” said Smith. “I felt obliged to do the same in my research.”

Rasbach argues that Chamberlain’s injury clouded his judgment of that particular battle, as he was unconscious for days afterward, heavily medicated and shipped to Annapolis where he was in septic shock for two months. His absence from the battlefield and inability to re-walk the ground after the smoke cleared skewed the story further, Rasbach said.

“Later in life he tried to make sense of it all and some of the info was interpreted wrongly,” said Rasbach. “He gave his story and biographers picked it up and repeated it again and again and again, and that became the common wisdom.”

But Smith takes issue with Rasbach’s dismissal of those accounts, saying that his “biggest handicap is his inexperience when it comes to the complicated business of finding, analyzing and interpreting resources, and beyond that, evaluating their relevancy.”

Rasbach said that as a result of his research, the Department of Historic Resources has moved the original marker of where Chamberlain was injured closer to the newly discovered spot featured in his book.

Smith argues that the marker was moved in March 2016, months before Rasbach’s book was released. Either way, Rasbach firmly believes he has convinced Civil War officials with his research.

“When you look at something very closely, you can learn a lot,” said Rasbach.

Though she has yet to read Rasbach’s book, Larisaa Vigue Picard of Pejepscot Historical Society in Brunswick that oversees the Joshua L. Chamberlain Museum said that PHS “always welcomes new research and scholarship on Joshua Chamberlain.”

“New books and research on Chamberlain mean that he remains of great interest to scholars and the general public, and that is important to us,” Picard said.

Smith, however, said her concerns go beyond Rasbach’s research.

“What does disturb me, exceedingly, is a concerted effort to discredit or call into question the courage and honesty of a remarkable commander and the brave men he led on June 18, 1864,” said Smith.

Said Rasbach: “My point is not to say that he was dishonest or a coward. He was just old and confused.”

bgoodridge@timesrecord.com