Monument restoration

Editor's note: Information for this column came from Stars and Stripes military newspaper.

From July 1 to 4, 1863, the United States Army fought a battle which could, as President Lincoln would later say, have determined whether the United States or "any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure." During those days an unplanned battle was fought at the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, between 165,000 Union and Confederate soldiers. The defeat of the Union army would have removed the only obstacle between Robert E. Lee's Confederate force and Washington, D.C.

The Union Army had formed an inverted L-shaped line on high ground south of Gettysburg. That line went northward from the high ground of Little Round Top, and the defense of that position was assigned to the 20th Maine Infantry Regiment commanded by Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Ordered to hold at all costs and low on ammunition after a prolonged Confederate attack, Chamberlain ordered and led a bayonet charge downhill, scattered the Confederate force and saved the Union line from being overrun. Chamberlain was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions which saved the Union line.

After the war numerous monuments were erected at Gettysburg marking where various units fought. There are now 1,300 monuments on the 6,000-acre Gettysburg National Battlefield. Many of these monuments date back to the 1880s. When Clem Bechard of Lewiston, Maine, found the monument to the 20th Maine regiment it was in the woods, off the trail, dirty and worn from the elements, and it was difficult to read the names of men in the unit. Bechard asked National Park Service personnel if the monument could be replaced, and he was told that it could not be done as new monuments are prohibited. He was also told there were currently no funds to restore the monuments.

Bechard was spurred to raise the funds to clean and restore the 20th Maine monument. To that end, Bechard, a custodian at McMahon Elementary School, started a GoFundMe web page to raise the $2,000 to repair the monument and make it easier to find. David Cooper, chief development officer for the not-for-profit Gettysburg Foundation, which works with the National Park Service to maintain and preserve Gettysburg, praised Bechard as one of very few citizens to start such a preservation effort.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.