Silver Eagles

One of the miracles of the Civil War was the bayonet charge performed by the beleaguered 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry at Gettysburg on Little Round Top. It has become as well-known as the famous "Charge of the Light Brigade". However, men do not perform such feats alone—they must be lead. SILVER EAGLES is the story of the two commanders that made that miracle possible: Colonel Adelbert Ames, a twenty-six year old graduate of West Point, an often brutal by-the-book disciplinarian who trained them and led them through their first baptism of fire and Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, an unassuming thirty-four year old college professor turned soldier who led them to glory at Gettysburg. It is a story of tragedy and triumph and what it took to command a Civil War volunteer regiment told through their points of view, thoughts, and feelings, bringing the reader up close and personal to the most turbulent time in our national history with the men who lived it.