Gettysburg Off the Beaten Path: Chamberlain’s “Lost” Company

Part of a series.

Just below the storied crest of Little Round Top lies a small monument to the fabled 20th Maine Infantry. Unlike the regiment’s main monument on Vincent’s Spur, which is dedicated to the entire unit, this marker commemorates only 44 men of the regiment. They belonged to Capt. Walter Morrill’s Company B.

As the 20th Maine arrived on Little Round Top in the late afternoon of July 2nd, 1863, Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain assessed the situation. His commander, Col. Strong Vincent, had placed their brigade at the extreme left of the entire Union line. In accordance with Vincent’s orders, Chamberlain initially placed the 20th Maine between the 16th Michigan to its left and 83rd Pennsylvania. The former professor deployed his regiment in roughly a straight line along the crest of the hill, assigning Capt. Atherton Clark of Company E to watch the right wing and Capt. Ellis Spear of Company G to supervise the left. As the Maine men filed into line, Chamberlain remembered one of Vincent’s directives for each regiment to send out a company of skirmishers. He chose Capt. Walter Goodale Morrill, one of his most capable officers, for the job.

A former laborer in the slate quarries of Brownsville, Maine, Morrill had proven himself a reliable young soldier by July 1863. He volunteered for service in the summer of 1861 and served as a first sergeant in the 6th Maine Infantry during the Peninsula Campaign and the battle of Fredericksburg. Then, with a commission as second lieutenant, he transferred to the 20th Maine Regiment just after the battle of Antietam in September 1862. However, when Morrill arrived, the captain and first lieutenant resigned—leaving the 21-year-old in charge of Company B.[1]

Now, promoted to captain, Morrill faced the daunting task of leading his company into the dark woods in front of them. The 44 soldiers of Company B followed their captain down the slope and to the left, hoping to link up with the skirmishers of the 16th Michigan. However, Vincent had already withdrawn the Michiganders from their position to the left of the 20th Maine before they had time to throw out skirmishers. He placed them on the right of the brigade line instead, leaving Chamberlain’s regiment at the extreme flank of the Union line. With no one to their left, Morrill and his Company B found themselves lost and alone.[2]

The Mainers soon discovered a low stone wall and took shelter behind it as they could hear the first sounds of battle. “Having advanced across the flat and just commenced to ascend Big Round Top, I was somewhat surprised to hear heavy volleys of musketry in our rear, where we had just left the regiment,” Morrill wrote to his colonel a few days later.[3] A contingent of sharpshooters soon joined Company B behind the stonewall, and the men waited quietly as the Confederate attack lapped like a wave against Little Round Top.

In front of Company B, the rest of the 20th Maine clung to the slope desperately against continued assaults by the 15th and 47th Alabama. Hand to hand fighting intermittently broke out, as the Alabamians inched further and further to Chamberlain’s left flank. “At times I saw around me more of my enemy than of my own men,” the colonel wrote.[4] All the while, Morrill and his company stayed quiet and out of reach, fulfilling Chamberlain’s orders to “keep within supporting distance […] and to act as exigencies of the battle should require.”[5]

That exigency occurred when the 20th Maine began to run out of ammunition. “At this moment my anxiety was increased by a great roar of musketry in my rear, on the farther or northerly slope of Little Round Top,” Chamberlain recalled.[6] The regiment’s line, perched atop Vincent’s Spur, had also begun to fold in upon itself. Ironically, William C. Oates, colonel of the 15th Alabama, found himself in a similarly precarious position. The Alabamians had gained a critical foothold on the spur but lacked enough reinforcements to hold it. Oates’s brother had just fallen with a mortal wound, and his regiment’s colors had nearly been captured. As Chamberlain decided to charge, Oates determined to retreat.[7]

As the exhausted Alabamians turned and fled, the men from Company B stood at the stone wall and poured a withering volley into the Confederates’ flank and rear. In fact, Morrill’s presence was enough to convince Oates that two regiments of Union infantry were approaching from the fields to his right and that if he didn’t pull his men out in time, they could very well be surrounded. As his fellow Mainers charged down the hill with fixed bayonets, Morrill ordered his own men to charge from behind the wall, intercepting many of the retreating Alabamians.[8]

Company B advanced to the foot of Big Round Top in pursuit of the Confederates before their captain ordered them to halt. Two men had been wounded and two had been captured during the charge. But the efforts of Morrill and his company helped achieve victory on the slopes of Little Round Top and secure the Union left flank.

Morrill later received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions at the battle of Rappahannock Station, a few months after Gettysburg. After “learning that an assault was to be made upon the enemy’s works by other troops,” Morrill “voluntarily joined the storming party with about 50 men of his regiment, and by his dash and gallantry rendered effective service in the assault.” A few weeks later, at the battle of Mine Run, the young captain was wounded in the leg. He survived his wound and served in the 20th Maine Infantry until Appomattox, ending the war as a colonel.

Veterans of the 20th Maine returned to Gettysburg to dedicate a monument on Little Round Top in 1888, but the National Military Park placed a marker to Company B about a hundred yards east of the main monument in 1932.

For more information on Company B, check out this video.

To Reach the Company B Marker:

From the town square.

– Drive south on Baltimore Street.
– Make a slight right onto Steinwehr Avenue (US-15).
– Follow Steinwehr Avenue (US-15) until you reach S. Confederate Avenue.
– Turn left on S. Confederate Avenue and follow it for 1.5 miles until you reach a four-way intersection.
– Make a right at the intersection and park in the parking lot immediately to your left. The 20th Maine main monument should be to your front.
– Turn 90 degrees to the right and follow the horse trail approximately 150 yards down the hill. There, you will arrive at the Company B marker.

[1] Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine, 13.

[2] Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine, 44.

[3] Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine, 51-52.

[4] Through Blood and Fire at Gettysburg.

[5] Chamberlain, Bayonet! Forward, 23; Desjardin, Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine, 51.

[6] Chamberlain’s Official Report (OR).

[7] Desjardin, Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine, 67-68.

[8] Desjardin, Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine, 67, 71.