TO PRESERVE THE UNION. On these pages, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain's name has often been invoked as an explanation for the academic administrator holding a faculty position, not as a backup job, but as a regular job from which he or she is temporarily serving as administrator.

Independence Day passed while I was marked off. Power Line's Scott Johnson invokes Colonel Chamberlain along with the 20th Maine he commanded, and the First Minnesota as instrumental in stopping the Rebels on July 2 at Gettysburg, a development that along with Vicksburg's surrender on July 4 persuaded United States leadership (at levels subordinate to President Lincoln) to begin thinking about victory.