In Popular Media
Chamberlain is a key character in Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning historical novel about Gettysburg, The Killer Angels, and the movie based on that novel, Gettysburg (in which Chamberlain was played by actor Jeff Daniels, who repeated that role in the Gods and Generals prequel).
Tom Eishen's historical novel Courage on Little Round Top is a detailed look at Chamberlain as well as Robert Wicker, the young Confederate officer who fired his pistol at Chamberlain's head during the 20th Maine's historic charge down Little Round Top.
Ken Burns's 1990 nine-part PBS film The Civil War featured Chamberlain prominently.
Steve Earle's song Dixieland from his album The Mountain refers to Chamberlain and the Battle of Gettysburg:
I am Kilrain of the 20th Maine and I fight for Chamberlain'Cause he stood right with us when the Johnnies came like a banshee on the wind
When the smoke cleared out of Gettysburg, many a mother wept
For many a good boy died there, sure, and the air smelled just like death
I am Kilrain of the 20th Maine and I'd march to hell and back again
Although his name is never said, Chamberlain's actions during the Battle of Gettysburg are popularized in the song Hold at All Costs featured on the CD The Glorious Burden by the band Iced Earth, in which singer Tim Owens takes the role of Chamberlain at the battle on Little Round Top.
Shipyard Brewing Company named a pale ale after Chamberlain, and decorated the label with his profile.
In the book The Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews, Chamberlain is the main character in one of the chapters, giving a brief lesson on his history.
In the second of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series (The Sea of Monsters), Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is mentioned by the centaur Chiron as single-handedly changing the course of the American Civil War.
The book "The Lost Regiment" and the subsequent series by author William R. Forstchen chronicle the adventures of the "35th Maine", a Union regiment from Maine having been transported to an alien planet. The regiment was based on the 20th Maine, with the main character and commander of the regiment, Andrew Lawrence Keane, also being a college professor.
Chamberlain and the story of Little Round Top is mentioned in the episode The Vest of the Showtime (TV channel) TV show Homeland (TV series), in a scene at Gettysburg.
Read more about this topic: Joshua Chamberlain
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or media:
“There is a continual exchange of ideas between all minds of a generation. Journalists, popular novelists, illustrators, and cartoonists adapt the truths discovered by the powerful intellects for the multitude. It is like a spiritual flood, like a gush that pours into multiple cascades until it forms the great moving sheet of water that stands for the mentality of a period.”
—Auguste Rodin (1849–1917)
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)