IT'S A PARTICULARLY GOOD WEEKEND TO WATCH GETTYSBURG AGAIN:

With his term expiring at midnight, January 9, Garcelon knew that his departure would leave a rudderless government. On January 5, he announced in Special Orders No. 45, that Chamberlain was "authorized and directed to protect the public property and institutions of the State until my successor is duly qualified." Garcelon's adjutant general, S.D. Leavitt, promptly organized Maine's "several counties...into the first militia division," with Chamberlain in command.

A Portland newspaper stated the obvious: "Gen. Chamberlain is now the only lawful State authority...until a Governor is chosen and qualified." The war hero was "the sole possessor of executive power....He will see that the peace is kept and that law and order prevail."

In early January, Republican legislators posed 27 questions to the state's supreme court--convening now in Bangor, 75 miles away by train from Augusta--and, along with Chamberlain and countless other Mainers, awaited the justices' official decision.

As Chamberlain reached the capital and settled into an obscure State House office, a newspaper reported that "all his movements are carefully observed." By January 9, he had arranged with Augusta police to place officers in the State House and to arrest "all parties...breaking the peace."

Discovering "unauthorized persons" in the Executive Council chamber, Chamberlain ordered them out, locked the door, and pocketed the key. Thronged by "citizens...asking and urging all manner of things," he set a police guard outside his office door.

Chamberlain summoned to Augusta a few trusted friends--all veteran officers as well--and made them aides. He then sent packing "the bummer guard" allegedly protecting the State House. Wiring militia officers not to organize their units unless directed by him, he worked with Augusta Mayor Charles A. Nash to keep sufficient city police on hand.

Because Chamberlain had served four terms as a Republican governor, Grand Old Party interests in the state were convinced they owned him. The Fusionists, on the other hand, tried to intimidate Chamberlain, figuring he was just one man. Both parties underestimated him.

Wanting the crisis resolved in Republican favor, U.S. Senator James Blaine of Maine even dangled a juicy political bribe. He would resign his seat in Washington, D.C., and back Chamberlain as his replacement if the general supported the Republicans. The bribe failed.

Violent threats circulated. The Bangor Commercial, for one, delivered a "bitter attack...calling me a traitor, & calling on the people to send me speedily to a traitor's doom"--execution, in other words, Chamberlain informed his wife, Fanny.

The rebellion peaked January 14. Chamberlain would call it "another Round Top, although few knew of it."

"There were threats all morning of overpowering the police & throwing me out of the window," he reported to Fanny, "& the ugly looking crowd seemed like men who could be brought to do it (or to try it)."

When, he noted, angry partisans threatened "fire & blood" or cajoled him "to call out the militia at once...I stood it firmly through, feeling sure of my arrangements & of my command of the situation."

That afternoon he learned that subversives planned "to arrest me for treason" and toss him "in prison while they inaugurated a reign of terror & blood." Perhaps Chamberlain saw through the smokescreen and called their bluff, because "they foamed & fumed...all that evening," but "that plan failed." Later that night, he was informed of another threat in which he "was to be kidnapped--overpowered & carried away & detained" in parts unknown, "so that the rebels could carry on their work."

Wartime memories were sparked. "I had the strange sense again--of sleeping inside a picket line," he wrote.

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