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Of all these Masons perhaps the most remarkable was Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. Chamberlain could read seven Languages. (Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, French, and German). Though a thirty-three-year-old father of three children and a distinguished college professor, when the war came he considered it his duty to fight.

At Gettysburg he commanded the 20 Maine, on Little Round Top, an action for which he later received the Medal of Honor. (30 years after the event)

Chamberlain served in 20 battles, numerous skirmishes, was cited for bravery four times, had six horses shot from under him, caught malaria and phenomena, and was wounded six times.

Chamberlain played such a striking part in the battles leading to the surrender by Robert E Lee, that Grant selected him—out of dozens of generals who ranked him—for the honor of receiving the Army of Northern Virginia’s formal surrender. So on the 12 April 1865 Chamberlain presided over the parade of the Confederate infantry at Appomattox Court House. General Gordon led the parade and as Brother Gordon approached Brother Chamberlain gave the order to carry arms, the salute of honour. An action that earned Brother Chamberlain criticism in the press, but after the parade one Confederate General said “You astonish us sir by your honourable and generous conduct".

Note the Maltese Cross the emblem of the Regiment.
Describing the surrender in his book, ‘The Passing of Armies: An Account Of The Final Campaign Of The Army Of The Potomac’ Chamberlain writes: At the right of our line our little group mounted beneath our flags, the red Maltese cross on a field of white, erewhile so bravely borne through many a field more crimson than itself, its mystic meaning now ruling all. <NEXT>