Dennis Rasbauch: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the Petersburg Campaign

Dennis A. Rasbach, MD, is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. As a busy practicing surgeon, he is an unlikely author of a micro history of the Civil War experience at the Front of Petersburg on June 18, 1864. The inception of the book was pure serendipity. While investigating the movements of his great-great-grandfather’s regiment, the 21st Pennsylvania Cavalry, his focus was suddenly and unexpectedly diverted to Joshua Chamberlain and his famous charge. Glaring contradictions emerged as the popular narrative of that event was compared with the historical record. Those inconsistencies prompted an intense search for clarification and resolution, which, over the course of a year and with help from a network of new Civil War friends, grew into the present work. Dennis is a member of the Civil War Round Table of Southwest Michigan. The father of two sons, he resides with his lovely wife Ellen in St. Joseph, Michigan. Coincidentally, his birthday is June 18, the day of the Petersburg charge.