In narrating the lives of Joshua Chamberlain and William Oates, Mark Perry's Conceived in Liberty opens a window on seventy years of American history, at the center of which is the July 1863 Battle of Little Round Top. This legendary contest decided the Battle of Gettysburg, opened a door to the Northern victory in the Civil War, and sent Chamberlain and Oates on paths to national prominence. Drawing on a vast mine of documents, including letters, wartime journals, and political speeches, Perry brings their fascinating, uncannily parallel stories to life. Joshua Chamberlain, the son of a Maine farmer, first made his name as an academic at Bowdoin College, then as a brilliant military commander, before establishing a remarkably successful career in politics, including several terms as the governor of Maine. William Oates, an Alabama frontiersman of humble origins, was also a farmer's son, and his valiant service during the war became the platform upon which he built a career as a lawyer who helped revitalize the Democratic party in the South. He was elected to both the U.S. Congress and the governorship of Alabama. Chamberlain and Oates stand as forceful symbols of how the nation came to blows, as well as how the nation moved to redefine itself and -- in President Abraham Lincoln's words -- "bind up the wounds of war." Their story, as eloquently and dramatically told in the pages of Conceived in Liberty, creates a portrait of American possibility in a tumultuous century. - Jacket flap.