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The Civil War Trilogy #2
The Killer Angels
"MY FAVORITE HISTORICAL NOVEL . . . A superb re-creation of the Battle of Gettysburg, but its real importance is its insight into what the war was about, and what it meant."
--James M. McPherson, Author of Battle Cry of Freedom
In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation's history, two armies fought for two dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life.
Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Shattered futures, forgotten innocence, and crippled beauty were also the casualties of war.
The Killer Angels is unique, sweeping, unforgettable--a dramatic re-creation of the battleground for America's destiny.
"REMARKABLE. . . A BOOK THAT CHANGED MY LIFE . . . I had never visited Gettysburg, knew almost nothing about that battle before I read the book, but here it all came alive."
--Ken Burns, Filmmaker, The Civil War
--James M. McPherson, Author of Battle Cry of Freedom
In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation's history, two armies fought for two dreams. One dreamed of freedom, the other of a way of life.
Far more than rifles and bullets were carried into battle. There were memories. There were promises. There was love. And far more than men fell on those Pennsylvania fields. Shattered futures, forgotten innocence, and crippled beauty were also the casualties of war.
The Killer Angels is unique, sweeping, unforgettable--a dramatic re-creation of the battleground for America's destiny.
"REMARKABLE. . . A BOOK THAT CHANGED MY LIFE . . . I had never visited Gettysburg, knew almost nothing about that battle before I read the book, but here it all came alive."
--Ken Burns, Filmmaker, The Civil War
374 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
About the author
Michael Shaara
117 books877 followersMichael Shaara was an American writer of science fiction, sports fiction, and historical fiction. He was born to Italian immigrant parents (the family name was originally spelled Sciarra, which in Italian is pronounced the same way) in Jersey City, New Jersey, graduated from Rutgers University in 1951, and served as a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne division prior to the Korean War.
Before Shaara began selling science fiction stories to fiction magazines in the 1950s, he was an amateur boxer and police officer. He later taught literature at Florida State University while continuing to write fiction. The stress of this and his smoking caused him to have a heart attack at the early age of 36; from which he fully recovered. His novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. Shaara died of another heart attack in 1988.
Shaara's son, Jeffrey Shaara, is also a popular writer of historical fiction; most notably sequels to his father's best-known novel. His most famous is the prequel to The Killer Angels, Gods and Generals. Jeffrey was the one to finally get Michael's last book, For Love of the Game, published three years after he died. Today there is a Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction, established by Jeffrey Shaara, awarded yearly at Gettysburg College.
Before Shaara began selling science fiction stories to fiction magazines in the 1950s, he was an amateur boxer and police officer. He later taught literature at Florida State University while continuing to write fiction. The stress of this and his smoking caused him to have a heart attack at the early age of 36; from which he fully recovered. His novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. Shaara died of another heart attack in 1988.
Shaara's son, Jeffrey Shaara, is also a popular writer of historical fiction; most notably sequels to his father's best-known novel. His most famous is the prequel to The Killer Angels, Gods and Generals. Jeffrey was the one to finally get Michael's last book, For Love of the Game, published three years after he died. Today there is a Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction, established by Jeffrey Shaara, awarded yearly at Gettysburg College.
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July 13, 2019
”This is a different kind of army. If you look at history you’ll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we’re here for something new. I don’t … this hasn’t happened much in the history of the world. We’re an army going out to set other men free.”
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
The position of all the troops on July 3rd, 1863. The last day of battle. You can see the famous fishhook deployment of the Union troops in blue.
I hadn’t really thought about how unusual it is in the history of the world for men to be fighting for the freedom of others. It was one of many times while reading this book that Michael Shaara crystallized some thoughts for me. I love those moments when I read something, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that another tumbler has clicked into place. With every click I have come one step closer to understanding everything. ( a mad thought that doesn’t last long) So the North was preserving the Union and freeing the slaves, but what exactly where the boys in butternut fighting for.
”They kept on insistin’ they wasn’t fightin’ for no slaves, they were fightin’ for their ‘rats.’ It finally dawned on me that what the feller meant was their ‘rights,’ only, the way they talk, it came out ‘rats.’... Then after that I asked this fella what rights he had that we were offendin’, and he said, well, he didn’t know, but he must have some rights he didn’t know nothin’ about. Now, aint that something?”
33% of Southerners owned slaves. Mississippi and South Carolina had much higher percentages at 49% and 46%. So why did all those Southern boys rich and poor fight for the ‘rats to keep slaves? Most Southern Americans, as do most Americans today, had an expectation that they would be rich someday, the eternal optimists. Those poor white sharecropper farmers aspired to be slave owners. It is the same reason why I hear people who live below the poverty line saying they didn’t believe it was ‘rat that the government was taxing the one percenters more than the rest of us. It doesn’t make sense, but then they...might...just win the lottery...someday.
General Robert E. Lee on Traveller. Lee said, “Well, we have left nothing undone. It is all in the hands of God.” Longstreet thought : it isn’t God that is sending those men up that hill. But he said nothing. Lee rode away.
This book is centered around the three days of the battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Robert E. Lee, overall commander of the Confederate army and GOD to many, is trying to make a final thrust North to force the Union to seek terms. His men loved him unconditionally.
”The secret of General Lee is that men love him and follow him with faith in him. That’s one secret. The next secret is that General Lee makes a decision and he moves, with guts, and he’s been up against a lot of sickly generals who don’t know how to make decisions, although some of them have guts but whose men don’t love them.”
He is a different man than he was at the start of the war. Some would say he is a brilliant tactician, but if you walk the grounds of the battle of Gettysburg which I have not had that opportunity physically, you will discover that Lee gave his generals an impossible task. The battle smells of desperation. Shaara makes the case that Lee was already suffering from the heart condition that would eventually kill him.
”But it was not the pain that troubled him; it was a sick gray emptiness he knew too well, that sense of a hole clear through him like the blasted vacancy in the air behind a shell burst, an enormous emptiness.”
General James Longstreet loyal despite his fervent disagreements with Lee on tactics.
Lee was feeling weak and mortal at Gettysburg. He wanted the war ended now. It certainly clouded his judgement. He was a man of faith and honor. In Pennsylvania he put too much faith in God finding his cause righteous and he depending too heavily on the honor of his troops to make it to that grove of trees at the top of the hill. He had a brilliant commander in Lieutenant General James Longstreet. Longstreet argued to slide around the enemy and to fight another day. If truth be known he disagreed with this whole thrusting North business. He wanted to build trenches and fight a defensive war. You don’t win glorious honorable battles fighting a defensive war and Lee was addicted to winning battles. There is a whiff of Shakespearean tragedy around Longstreet.
”It was Longstreet’s curse to see the thing clearly. He was a brilliant man who was slow in speech and slow to move and silent-faced as stone. He had not the power to convince.”
He was a strong, commanding figure until he got around Lee.
”Longstreet felt an extraordinary confusion. He had a moment without confidence, windblown and blasted, vacant as an exploded shell. There was a grandness in Lee that shadowed him, silenced him.”
He was an eccentric as well. He was living more in his mind than in his body.
”Longstreet touched his cap, came heavily down from the horse. He was taller than Lee, head like a boulder, full-bearded, long-haired, always a bit sloppy, gloomy, shocked his staff by going into battle once wearing carpet slippers.”
Lee counted on him, but unfortunately he would have traded Longstreet for Stonewall Jackson every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
General John Buford died a few months after Gettysburg from Typhoid Fever. He was a huge loss to the Union side.
Shaara also takes us into the minds of Union men like General John Buford who arrived at Gettysburg and realized the importance of deploying troops on the high ground against a superior Confederate force. He knew he had to hold out until reinforcements arrived. He’d done this before.
”He had thrown away the book of cavalry doctrine and they loved him for it. At Thoroughfare Gap he had held against Longstreet, 3,000 men against 25,000, for six hours, sending off appeal after appeal for help which never came.”
What impressed me about Buford was his ability to think out of the box and adapt to any situation. Unfortunately for the Union he didn’t have long to live or his name may have been further immortalized in Civil War history books.
General John Bell Hood
There was also Colonel Joshua Chamberlain who commanded the 20th Maine. He was a school teacher by trade, a professor at Bowdoin before the war broke out. He and the Maine troops were positioned at the far left of the Federal line. He was on Little Round Top facing the seasoned veteran General John B. Hood. Hood was a Longstreet man and firmly believed in the concept of a defensive war. Despite their objections to Lee’s tactics Hood and Longstreet did everything they could to obtain the objectives.
The 20th Maine’s bayonet charge.
Chamberlain’s men fired until they ran out of bullets and then Chamberlain in an act of desperation yelled:
”Let’s fix bayonets.”
Chamberlain and his remaining men charged down the hill in the face of enemy fire and because of the ferocity of their attack Hood’s men turned and retreated.
There are descriptions of battles so elegantly told that the horror is somewhat mitigated by the eloquence of Shaara’s writing. Bravery is not just for Custeresque men like General Winfield Scott Hancock who inspired such loyalty from his acquaintances, even those dressed in gray, such as his best friend General Lewis Armistead. Shaara describes the true crisis of consciousness these officers were facing. Most of them had fought together in the Mexican-American war, went to West Point together, drank together, and had been united as one before this war where politics forced them to choose sides against the friends they had once fought with.
”They’re never quite the enemy, those boys in blue.”
“I know,” Lee said.
“I used to command those boys,” Longstreet said.
“Difficult thing to fight men you used to command.”
Lee said nothing.”
By the end of this book I felt I knew all these men as intimately as I know friends I’ve known for decades. It is as if Shaara raised them from the dead, one by one. They are talking skeletons with nothing but truth rattling through their teeth. Their souls are showing through their pale gray ribcages enscrolled with their most intimate thoughts. They hid nothing from Shaara not their fears or their desires. The war has never been more real to me. Highly recommended!
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visithttp://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
The position of all the troops on July 3rd, 1863. The last day of battle. You can see the famous fishhook deployment of the Union troops in blue.
I hadn’t really thought about how unusual it is in the history of the world for men to be fighting for the freedom of others. It was one of many times while reading this book that Michael Shaara crystallized some thoughts for me. I love those moments when I read something, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that another tumbler has clicked into place. With every click I have come one step closer to understanding everything. ( a mad thought that doesn’t last long) So the North was preserving the Union and freeing the slaves, but what exactly where the boys in butternut fighting for.
”They kept on insistin’ they wasn’t fightin’ for no slaves, they were fightin’ for their ‘rats.’ It finally dawned on me that what the feller meant was their ‘rights,’ only, the way they talk, it came out ‘rats.’... Then after that I asked this fella what rights he had that we were offendin’, and he said, well, he didn’t know, but he must have some rights he didn’t know nothin’ about. Now, aint that something?”
33% of Southerners owned slaves. Mississippi and South Carolina had much higher percentages at 49% and 46%. So why did all those Southern boys rich and poor fight for the ‘rats to keep slaves? Most Southern Americans, as do most Americans today, had an expectation that they would be rich someday, the eternal optimists. Those poor white sharecropper farmers aspired to be slave owners. It is the same reason why I hear people who live below the poverty line saying they didn’t believe it was ‘rat that the government was taxing the one percenters more than the rest of us. It doesn’t make sense, but then they...might...just win the lottery...someday.
General Robert E. Lee on Traveller. Lee said, “Well, we have left nothing undone. It is all in the hands of God.” Longstreet thought : it isn’t God that is sending those men up that hill. But he said nothing. Lee rode away.
This book is centered around the three days of the battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Robert E. Lee, overall commander of the Confederate army and GOD to many, is trying to make a final thrust North to force the Union to seek terms. His men loved him unconditionally.
”The secret of General Lee is that men love him and follow him with faith in him. That’s one secret. The next secret is that General Lee makes a decision and he moves, with guts, and he’s been up against a lot of sickly generals who don’t know how to make decisions, although some of them have guts but whose men don’t love them.”
He is a different man than he was at the start of the war. Some would say he is a brilliant tactician, but if you walk the grounds of the battle of Gettysburg which I have not had that opportunity physically, you will discover that Lee gave his generals an impossible task. The battle smells of desperation. Shaara makes the case that Lee was already suffering from the heart condition that would eventually kill him.
”But it was not the pain that troubled him; it was a sick gray emptiness he knew too well, that sense of a hole clear through him like the blasted vacancy in the air behind a shell burst, an enormous emptiness.”
General James Longstreet loyal despite his fervent disagreements with Lee on tactics.
Lee was feeling weak and mortal at Gettysburg. He wanted the war ended now. It certainly clouded his judgement. He was a man of faith and honor. In Pennsylvania he put too much faith in God finding his cause righteous and he depending too heavily on the honor of his troops to make it to that grove of trees at the top of the hill. He had a brilliant commander in Lieutenant General James Longstreet. Longstreet argued to slide around the enemy and to fight another day. If truth be known he disagreed with this whole thrusting North business. He wanted to build trenches and fight a defensive war. You don’t win glorious honorable battles fighting a defensive war and Lee was addicted to winning battles. There is a whiff of Shakespearean tragedy around Longstreet.
”It was Longstreet’s curse to see the thing clearly. He was a brilliant man who was slow in speech and slow to move and silent-faced as stone. He had not the power to convince.”
He was a strong, commanding figure until he got around Lee.
”Longstreet felt an extraordinary confusion. He had a moment without confidence, windblown and blasted, vacant as an exploded shell. There was a grandness in Lee that shadowed him, silenced him.”
He was an eccentric as well. He was living more in his mind than in his body.
”Longstreet touched his cap, came heavily down from the horse. He was taller than Lee, head like a boulder, full-bearded, long-haired, always a bit sloppy, gloomy, shocked his staff by going into battle once wearing carpet slippers.”
Lee counted on him, but unfortunately he would have traded Longstreet for Stonewall Jackson every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
General John Buford died a few months after Gettysburg from Typhoid Fever. He was a huge loss to the Union side.
Shaara also takes us into the minds of Union men like General John Buford who arrived at Gettysburg and realized the importance of deploying troops on the high ground against a superior Confederate force. He knew he had to hold out until reinforcements arrived. He’d done this before.
”He had thrown away the book of cavalry doctrine and they loved him for it. At Thoroughfare Gap he had held against Longstreet, 3,000 men against 25,000, for six hours, sending off appeal after appeal for help which never came.”
What impressed me about Buford was his ability to think out of the box and adapt to any situation. Unfortunately for the Union he didn’t have long to live or his name may have been further immortalized in Civil War history books.
General John Bell Hood
There was also Colonel Joshua Chamberlain who commanded the 20th Maine. He was a school teacher by trade, a professor at Bowdoin before the war broke out. He and the Maine troops were positioned at the far left of the Federal line. He was on Little Round Top facing the seasoned veteran General John B. Hood. Hood was a Longstreet man and firmly believed in the concept of a defensive war. Despite their objections to Lee’s tactics Hood and Longstreet did everything they could to obtain the objectives.
The 20th Maine’s bayonet charge.
Chamberlain’s men fired until they ran out of bullets and then Chamberlain in an act of desperation yelled:
”Let’s fix bayonets.”
Chamberlain and his remaining men charged down the hill in the face of enemy fire and because of the ferocity of their attack Hood’s men turned and retreated.
There are descriptions of battles so elegantly told that the horror is somewhat mitigated by the eloquence of Shaara’s writing. Bravery is not just for Custeresque men like General Winfield Scott Hancock who inspired such loyalty from his acquaintances, even those dressed in gray, such as his best friend General Lewis Armistead. Shaara describes the true crisis of consciousness these officers were facing. Most of them had fought together in the Mexican-American war, went to West Point together, drank together, and had been united as one before this war where politics forced them to choose sides against the friends they had once fought with.
”They’re never quite the enemy, those boys in blue.”
“I know,” Lee said.
“I used to command those boys,” Longstreet said.
“Difficult thing to fight men you used to command.”
Lee said nothing.”
By the end of this book I felt I knew all these men as intimately as I know friends I’ve known for decades. It is as if Shaara raised them from the dead, one by one. They are talking skeletons with nothing but truth rattling through their teeth. Their souls are showing through their pale gray ribcages enscrolled with their most intimate thoughts. They hid nothing from Shaara not their fears or their desires. The war has never been more real to me. Highly recommended!
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visithttp://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
November 11, 2020
“Once Chamberlain had a speech memorized from Shakespeare and gave it proudly, the old man listening but not looking, and Chamberlain remembered it still. ‘What a piece of work is man…in action how like an angel!’ And the old man, grinning, had scratched his head and then said stiffly, ‘Well, boy, if he’s an angel, he’s a murderin’ angel.’”
- Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels
When it was first published, Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels landed with a thud. Even when it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1975, it did not gain a wide following. When Shaara passed away in 1988, he did so believing his novel to have underachieved (as far as Pulitzer Prize winners can ever be so considered). Then, in 1993, the film version, Gettysburg, was released in theaters. Though it did not prove a runaway box office hit, it did enough to lift The Killer Angels onto the bestseller lists.
According to Shaara’s son, Jeff (who can start a bank with the books he’s sold by aping his father’s distinctive techniques), The Killer Angels was initially greeted with skepticism due to its release at the tail end of the Vietnam War. Maybe, or maybe not. The world, after all, is filled with great books that never found wide audiences.
Still, there is some validity in the point. The Killer Angels is decidedly old-fashioned. It has none of the cynicism or darkness of modern war novels. I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is a pro-war book, but it embraces martial virtues with both its arms. In the world of The Killer Angels, when the characters aren’t thinking about duty, loyalty, and honor, they are giving speeches about it.
The Killer Angels begins on the eve of the Civil War battle of Gettysburg, and takes us through each of the three bloody days as the Union and Confederacy clashed in the fields and hills around a small Pennsylvania crossroads village. In order to tell this story, Shaara employs viewpoint chapters in which the battle unfolds through the eyes of a limited number of characters. The characters are: the Confederate scout, Harrison; Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, and Lewis Armistead; the British observer Fremantle; Union General John Buford; and Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, of the 20th Maine (whose posthumous reputation has spiked drastically because of this).
Though the writing is in the third-person, each of the viewpoint chapters sticks to the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the chosen character. This leads to the kind of telescoping that is familiar to anyone who has read A Song of Ice and Fire. While we are ostensibly being treated to epic events, it sometimes feels like we’re viewing it through a keyhole. By focusing so rigidly on a handful of participants, you get a great sense of intimacy, at a loss of some of the scope.
It’s impossible to talk about The Killer Angels without mentioning Shaara’s amazing style. He has an incredible eye for detail, the weather, the terrain, the colors, the sounds. He wraps you in these details until you feel like you’re present on the field. You feel like you could take this book to Gettysburg and find your way around. At times, he slips easily into a hypnotic stream-of-consciousness, punctuated by the use of the present tense, interior monologues, and his trademarked sentence fragments. (Though, if we’re being technical, I think Jeff Shaara has the trademark now).
Shaara’s genius is in his characterizations. He brings Buford and Chamberlain and the others to life by embodying them, by inhabiting their minds. There is Lee, suddenly very old, suffering from heart disease, struggling with the loss of Jackson, unable to control his subordinates or get them to see his vision. He is courtly, saintly, pervaded by an unfortunate fatalism he wraps in a vague theology (“It’s in God’s hands now,” he intones repeatedly). There is Chamberlain, a professor of rhetoric, questioning everything, his thoughts, his actions, a true believer in the cause of freedom and Union, though he is constantly trying to define those things. And then there is Armistead, who gets only one chapter, during Pickett’s Charge, but remains perhaps the most powerful creation, a doomed romantic, mourning his broken friendship with Union General Winfield Hancock. In a novel short of female characters, the remembered bonds between Hancock and Armistead provide the love story.
The best testament to the power of Shaara’s vision is that his fictionalized conception of these real life figures has gained such widespread traction. For instance, Shaara used Longstreet’s memoirs in his research; as such, Longstreet arises as something of a prophet, a man who can see the trenches of World War I just over the horizon, who believes that Lee’s aggressiveness will destroy the Confederacy. While effective, it is worth noting that Shaara’s concept of these men is not necessarily shared by all historians.
The Killer Angels is not a graphic or gratuitous book. There are no curse words. Despite the presence of thousands of men, there is nary a dirty thought in the air. The violence is rather tame, at least relatively speaking. Yet Shaara still manages to deliver marvelous battle scenes, especially a memorable accounting of Pickett’s failed assault on the Union center.
The Killer Angels does have its share of flaws, though they are slight. The cast of characters, for one, is a bit imbalanced. On the Confederate side, Longstreet is a Corps commander, while Lee is in charge of the whole Army. Meanwhile, on the Union side, Buford is in charge of a cavalry division, and disappears after the first day. Chamberlain commands only a regiment. This means you get a great sense of the Confederate strategy, while the Union strategy is reduced to slandering General George Meade (who, despite Shaara’s odd intransigence, was more than capable).
Then there is the handling of slavery. Shaara acknowledges – or has his characters acknowledge – slavery as the root cause of the war on several occasions. He even has Longstreet admitting this. But Shaara also includes an interaction between Chamberlain and a runaway slave that I found a bit underdeveloped. In the scene, Chamberlain, despite his high ideals, finds himself revolted by the runaway, who is described in animal-like terms. The idea of exploring racism among Northern characters is not necessarily bad; if given the proper space, it might even have been meaningful. Unfortunately, Shaara never really expounds on the notion, leaving us with the disconcerting fact that Chamberlain is the only one in the book who is remotely racist. I feel like the inclusion of this requires an obverse scene, maybe one in which Lee oversees his men kidnapping and re-enslaving the unfortunate blacks who tarried in the invasion path. (Which is a thing that actually happened).
These are really minor critiques. And yes, I understand this is a novel with a very specific storyline. Still, it bears mentioning, if only because this is a very good piece of historical fiction, and when historical fiction is really, really good, you sometimes start to forget it’s fiction and believe it's historical. But while heavily researched (with the inclusion of more maps than you get in typical history volume), it is, when all is said and done, a product of imagination.
The Killer Angels deserves its place in the pantheon of great American war novels. It is a fascinating study in command, so much so that it is often recommended to military officers in training. More than that, it is a touching exploration of the bonds and friendships between men, and the sentimental notion that these relationships mean more than nations. It is no surprise that Shaara chose the famous lines from E.M. Forster’s essay, What I believe, as his epigraph. “I hate the idea of causes,” Forster wrote, “And if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”
- Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels
When it was first published, Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels landed with a thud. Even when it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1975, it did not gain a wide following. When Shaara passed away in 1988, he did so believing his novel to have underachieved (as far as Pulitzer Prize winners can ever be so considered). Then, in 1993, the film version, Gettysburg, was released in theaters. Though it did not prove a runaway box office hit, it did enough to lift The Killer Angels onto the bestseller lists.
According to Shaara’s son, Jeff (who can start a bank with the books he’s sold by aping his father’s distinctive techniques), The Killer Angels was initially greeted with skepticism due to its release at the tail end of the Vietnam War. Maybe, or maybe not. The world, after all, is filled with great books that never found wide audiences.
Still, there is some validity in the point. The Killer Angels is decidedly old-fashioned. It has none of the cynicism or darkness of modern war novels. I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is a pro-war book, but it embraces martial virtues with both its arms. In the world of The Killer Angels, when the characters aren’t thinking about duty, loyalty, and honor, they are giving speeches about it.
The Killer Angels begins on the eve of the Civil War battle of Gettysburg, and takes us through each of the three bloody days as the Union and Confederacy clashed in the fields and hills around a small Pennsylvania crossroads village. In order to tell this story, Shaara employs viewpoint chapters in which the battle unfolds through the eyes of a limited number of characters. The characters are: the Confederate scout, Harrison; Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, James Longstreet, and Lewis Armistead; the British observer Fremantle; Union General John Buford; and Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, of the 20th Maine (whose posthumous reputation has spiked drastically because of this).
Though the writing is in the third-person, each of the viewpoint chapters sticks to the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the chosen character. This leads to the kind of telescoping that is familiar to anyone who has read A Song of Ice and Fire. While we are ostensibly being treated to epic events, it sometimes feels like we’re viewing it through a keyhole. By focusing so rigidly on a handful of participants, you get a great sense of intimacy, at a loss of some of the scope.
It’s impossible to talk about The Killer Angels without mentioning Shaara’s amazing style. He has an incredible eye for detail, the weather, the terrain, the colors, the sounds. He wraps you in these details until you feel like you’re present on the field. You feel like you could take this book to Gettysburg and find your way around. At times, he slips easily into a hypnotic stream-of-consciousness, punctuated by the use of the present tense, interior monologues, and his trademarked sentence fragments. (Though, if we’re being technical, I think Jeff Shaara has the trademark now).
Shaara’s genius is in his characterizations. He brings Buford and Chamberlain and the others to life by embodying them, by inhabiting their minds. There is Lee, suddenly very old, suffering from heart disease, struggling with the loss of Jackson, unable to control his subordinates or get them to see his vision. He is courtly, saintly, pervaded by an unfortunate fatalism he wraps in a vague theology (“It’s in God’s hands now,” he intones repeatedly). There is Chamberlain, a professor of rhetoric, questioning everything, his thoughts, his actions, a true believer in the cause of freedom and Union, though he is constantly trying to define those things. And then there is Armistead, who gets only one chapter, during Pickett’s Charge, but remains perhaps the most powerful creation, a doomed romantic, mourning his broken friendship with Union General Winfield Hancock. In a novel short of female characters, the remembered bonds between Hancock and Armistead provide the love story.
The best testament to the power of Shaara’s vision is that his fictionalized conception of these real life figures has gained such widespread traction. For instance, Shaara used Longstreet’s memoirs in his research; as such, Longstreet arises as something of a prophet, a man who can see the trenches of World War I just over the horizon, who believes that Lee’s aggressiveness will destroy the Confederacy. While effective, it is worth noting that Shaara’s concept of these men is not necessarily shared by all historians.
The Killer Angels is not a graphic or gratuitous book. There are no curse words. Despite the presence of thousands of men, there is nary a dirty thought in the air. The violence is rather tame, at least relatively speaking. Yet Shaara still manages to deliver marvelous battle scenes, especially a memorable accounting of Pickett’s failed assault on the Union center.
Garnett’s boys had reached the road. They were slowing, taking down rails. Musket fire was beginning to reach them. The great noise increased, beating of wings in the air. More dead men: a long neat line of dead, like a shattered fence. And now the canister, oh God, [Armistead] shuddered, millions of metal balls whirring through the air like startled quail, murderous quail, and now for the first time there was screaming, very bad sounds to hear. He began to move past wounded struggling to the rear, men falling out to help, heard the sergeants ordering the men back into line, saw gray faces as he passed, eyes sick with fear, but the line moved on…
The Killer Angels does have its share of flaws, though they are slight. The cast of characters, for one, is a bit imbalanced. On the Confederate side, Longstreet is a Corps commander, while Lee is in charge of the whole Army. Meanwhile, on the Union side, Buford is in charge of a cavalry division, and disappears after the first day. Chamberlain commands only a regiment. This means you get a great sense of the Confederate strategy, while the Union strategy is reduced to slandering General George Meade (who, despite Shaara’s odd intransigence, was more than capable).
Then there is the handling of slavery. Shaara acknowledges – or has his characters acknowledge – slavery as the root cause of the war on several occasions. He even has Longstreet admitting this. But Shaara also includes an interaction between Chamberlain and a runaway slave that I found a bit underdeveloped. In the scene, Chamberlain, despite his high ideals, finds himself revolted by the runaway, who is described in animal-like terms. The idea of exploring racism among Northern characters is not necessarily bad; if given the proper space, it might even have been meaningful. Unfortunately, Shaara never really expounds on the notion, leaving us with the disconcerting fact that Chamberlain is the only one in the book who is remotely racist. I feel like the inclusion of this requires an obverse scene, maybe one in which Lee oversees his men kidnapping and re-enslaving the unfortunate blacks who tarried in the invasion path. (Which is a thing that actually happened).
These are really minor critiques. And yes, I understand this is a novel with a very specific storyline. Still, it bears mentioning, if only because this is a very good piece of historical fiction, and when historical fiction is really, really good, you sometimes start to forget it’s fiction and believe it's historical. But while heavily researched (with the inclusion of more maps than you get in typical history volume), it is, when all is said and done, a product of imagination.
The Killer Angels deserves its place in the pantheon of great American war novels. It is a fascinating study in command, so much so that it is often recommended to military officers in training. More than that, it is a touching exploration of the bonds and friendships between men, and the sentimental notion that these relationships mean more than nations. It is no surprise that Shaara chose the famous lines from E.M. Forster’s essay, What I believe, as his epigraph. “I hate the idea of causes,” Forster wrote, “And if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”
August 2, 2023
An excellent rendering of the days of the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania by author, Michael Shaara. His lively and intuitive prose brings the principal players to life and gives insight into the men of the blue and the gray. There’s a portentous aura in Shaara’s portrayal of the men and their thoughts as the battle approaches. After all, I know how it turns out. When an author writes, “he was thirty-eight and that was as old as he would ever be”, clouds gather and grow dark with the knowledge of the fate of all that are to die in what is known as the bloodiest battle on American soil. As the sword of Damocles is unsheathed, lives are held in the balance without regard for politics or affiliation. These thoughts predominate throughout my reading.
In the days leading up to the great battle, however, the men are marching, drinking, eating, telling jokes, and on the Confederate side, wondering about the whereabouts of their gallant leader of cavalry, Lieutenant General J.E.B. Stuart. Responsible for letting Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia know about the movements of the Army of the Potomac, Stuart fails to deliver. In the end, the vital information comes from the Confederate spy, Henry Thomas Harrison. Like the hub of a wheel, all the action that followed revolved around Harrison’s information.
On the Union side, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, thirty-four, is faced with what to do about the Maine mutineers. Their old company, the Second Maine was disbanded when the majority of the men had fulfilled their two-year commitment to the army. 120 of them, however, had signed up for three years. They had signed on to fight with the Second only, they said, but their commanders had other ideas, sending them under guard back to the fight. Wouldn’t it be fine for them to join Chamberlain, Maine’s 20th Regiment of Infantry. If they didn’t think so, Chamberlain had permission to shoot them. In his former life, Chamberlain had been a professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College. He fed the mutineers first, then gave them a speech, one that he believed in. It must have been a good one because all but six agreed to return to the fight.
“”This is a different kind of army. If you look at history you’ll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we’re here for something new. I don’t . . . this hasn’t happened much in the history of the world. We’re an army going out to set other men free.”
According to a NY Times opinion piece by Phil Leigh, ‘Making ‘Killer Angels’’ dated June 28, 2013, Michael Shaara spent seven years of meticulous research, delving into old diaries and private memoirs and letters to fashion something new in the world of historical fiction. He uses actual and fictional dialogue to create the perspective of actual participants. While I appreciate Shaara’s rendition of The Battle of Gettysburg, I appreciate even more the necessity to use it as a springboard for more research into accounts that are strictly historical, balancing each added piece of information against others.
Shaara depicts Lee as being the most loved man on both sides, but I don’t learn quite enough about why this is so. It’s obvious the Confederate soldiers are willing to put themselves in harm’s way to serve him and ‘The Cause.’ ‘The Cause’ is voiced as being states’ rights which includes the right to own slaves.
The Union Army as I understand it felt resentful of instructions from Washington, D.C., and as though the armchair generals didn’t know enough about what was happening on the ground to make important decisions. According to the NY Times article I referenced earlier, Shaara “resurrected Chamberlain as a hero, and he has remained one of the most popular figures associated with the battle ever since.” As a professor turned soldier, and with great success against unlikely odds, he easily captured my attention.
Shaara also captures exceptionally well how the Civil War divided families and friendships. The friendship between General Lewis Addison Armistead from North Carolina (who would serve in the Confederate Army) and General Winfield Scott Hancock (who would serve for the Union Army) is beautifully illustrative. Was the friendship as close as Shaara would have us believe? Not according to ‘Armistead and Hancock–Rethinking the Storied Friendship Between Two Opposing Gettysburg Generals, an article at miltaryhistorynow.com, dated November 27, 2022, but it did exist. On the last day of the battle, Armistead’s brigade penetrated further into the Union Army than any other, and it was Hancock’s troops he faced. When Armistead is fatally wounded, Hancock, not too far away, is also wounded. One of Hancock’s officers, Union Captain Henry Bingham, “attended to the fallen Armistead on Cemetery Ridge. When Armistead learned of the connection, he identified Hancock as an “old and valued friend.” Armistead would die on July 5th from his wounds, while Hancock would survive. Shaara’s embellishments on this friendship serves in my mind, to tell the stories of multitudes of other families and friendships, relations cut in two.
A noteworthy book, engaging, and easily read. I learned a lot and that I don’t know near enough.
In the days leading up to the great battle, however, the men are marching, drinking, eating, telling jokes, and on the Confederate side, wondering about the whereabouts of their gallant leader of cavalry, Lieutenant General J.E.B. Stuart. Responsible for letting Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia know about the movements of the Army of the Potomac, Stuart fails to deliver. In the end, the vital information comes from the Confederate spy, Henry Thomas Harrison. Like the hub of a wheel, all the action that followed revolved around Harrison’s information.
On the Union side, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, thirty-four, is faced with what to do about the Maine mutineers. Their old company, the Second Maine was disbanded when the majority of the men had fulfilled their two-year commitment to the army. 120 of them, however, had signed up for three years. They had signed on to fight with the Second only, they said, but their commanders had other ideas, sending them under guard back to the fight. Wouldn’t it be fine for them to join Chamberlain, Maine’s 20th Regiment of Infantry. If they didn’t think so, Chamberlain had permission to shoot them. In his former life, Chamberlain had been a professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College. He fed the mutineers first, then gave them a speech, one that he believed in. It must have been a good one because all but six agreed to return to the fight.
“”This is a different kind of army. If you look at history you’ll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we’re here for something new. I don’t . . . this hasn’t happened much in the history of the world. We’re an army going out to set other men free.”
According to a NY Times opinion piece by Phil Leigh, ‘Making ‘Killer Angels’’ dated June 28, 2013, Michael Shaara spent seven years of meticulous research, delving into old diaries and private memoirs and letters to fashion something new in the world of historical fiction. He uses actual and fictional dialogue to create the perspective of actual participants. While I appreciate Shaara’s rendition of The Battle of Gettysburg, I appreciate even more the necessity to use it as a springboard for more research into accounts that are strictly historical, balancing each added piece of information against others.
Shaara depicts Lee as being the most loved man on both sides, but I don’t learn quite enough about why this is so. It’s obvious the Confederate soldiers are willing to put themselves in harm’s way to serve him and ‘The Cause.’ ‘The Cause’ is voiced as being states’ rights which includes the right to own slaves.
The Union Army as I understand it felt resentful of instructions from Washington, D.C., and as though the armchair generals didn’t know enough about what was happening on the ground to make important decisions. According to the NY Times article I referenced earlier, Shaara “resurrected Chamberlain as a hero, and he has remained one of the most popular figures associated with the battle ever since.” As a professor turned soldier, and with great success against unlikely odds, he easily captured my attention.
Shaara also captures exceptionally well how the Civil War divided families and friendships. The friendship between General Lewis Addison Armistead from North Carolina (who would serve in the Confederate Army) and General Winfield Scott Hancock (who would serve for the Union Army) is beautifully illustrative. Was the friendship as close as Shaara would have us believe? Not according to ‘Armistead and Hancock–Rethinking the Storied Friendship Between Two Opposing Gettysburg Generals, an article at miltaryhistorynow.com, dated November 27, 2022, but it did exist. On the last day of the battle, Armistead’s brigade penetrated further into the Union Army than any other, and it was Hancock’s troops he faced. When Armistead is fatally wounded, Hancock, not too far away, is also wounded. One of Hancock’s officers, Union Captain Henry Bingham, “attended to the fallen Armistead on Cemetery Ridge. When Armistead learned of the connection, he identified Hancock as an “old and valued friend.” Armistead would die on July 5th from his wounds, while Hancock would survive. Shaara’s embellishments on this friendship serves in my mind, to tell the stories of multitudes of other families and friendships, relations cut in two.
A noteworthy book, engaging, and easily read. I learned a lot and that I don’t know near enough.
November 23, 2011
Michael Shaara's passion gave life to something unique and singularly extraordinary in this Pullitzer Prize winning novel. With high-charged, emotive prose, lush descriptions and fully-fleshed characters, he transforms the The Battle of Gettysburg, the bloodiest engagement of the Civil War, into a gorgeously rendered and deeply personal story populated by flawed, ordinary men caught in an extraordinary concatenation of circumstances by the machinations of Fate. Shaara’s reduction of this momentous event into a tapestry woven of a myriad of individual observations and subjective accounts so seamlessly alternates between heart-swelling and heart-wrenchingthat your own blood-pumper may need an overhaul by the time your finished.
Shaara’s approach for this story was so revolutionary at the time that he couldn’t even find a publisher willing to distribute his novel. Recounting the period of June 30-July 3, 1863 (the day before and the 3 days of the Battle of Gettysburg), Shaara’s narrative filters the events surrounding the battle through the subjective lens of the leaders of the two armies. Today, his approach has been mimicked so often by those inspired by his achievement that it’s likely to feel familiar to those reading it for the first time (see reference to Ken Burn’s Civil War below). However, back in 1975, it was fresh and daring and unique.
Shaara jumps back and forth between dozens of viewpoints, each serving an important function and providing a unique perspective on the events surrounding the conflict. The most notable players in Shaara’s epic play are: For the South: Commanding General Robert E. Lee, General George Pickett, General James Longstreet, and British Col. Arthur Freemantle; and For the North: Commanding General George Meade, General John Buford andCol. Josh Chamberlain. Through these soldiers and many others, Shaara emphasizes the motivations, decisions and actions of these men and how each of their unique and very human perspectives along with the ever present “fog of war” resulted in the final outcome at Gettysburg.
Not being a Civil War buff, there was one part early in the story that I found fascinating to read. According to Shaara (and many historians I have come to find), but for one ambiguous order on the part of General Lee to his conservative cream-puff of a subordinate General, Richard Ewell, the South may very well have won the Battle of Gettysburg and drastically changed the outcome of the Civil War. Here is the order by General Lee as recounted by Shaara:
Tell General Ewell the Federal troops are retreating in confusion. It is only necessary to push those people to get possession of those heights. Of course, I do not know his situation, and I do not want him to engage a superior force, but I do want him to take that hill, if he thinks practicable. (Emphasis added)
Four simple words, “if he thinks practicable” were enough “wiggle room” to permit Ewell to justify ignoring Lee’s order and deciding against taking Cemetery Hill. This inaction allowed the Union to entrench themselves on the higher, well defended ground. Shaara goes on to make it clear (through Lee’s own personal musings) that if hard-charging, BSD Gen. Stonewall Jackson had not been killed weeks earlier, Cemetery Hill would’ve been taken and the outcome of the battle, and possibly of history, dramatically altered.
Another moment of the novel that I found simply breath-stealing was the description of the battle of Little Round Top. A single regiment of Union soldiers (the 20th Maine), held off a superior force of confederate charges for well over an hour until they finally ran out of ammunition. With the confederate soldiers still advancing and no retreat possible:
Chamberlain raised his saber, let loose the shout that was the greatest sound he could make, boiling the yell up from his chest: Fix bayonets! Charge! Fix bayonets! Charge! Fix bayonets! Charge! He leaped down from the boulder, still screaming, his voice beginning to crack and give, and all around him his men were roaring animal screams, and he saw the whole Regiment rising and pouring over the wall and beginning to bound down through the dark bushes, over the dead and dying and wounded....The result was that the soldiers from the South broke in the face of the furious charge and the Union held Little Round Top. The fact that Chamberlain was a citizen solider (being a college professor before volunteering for the army) and yet acted so competently and with such courage was amazing to experience.
Quite simply, this is an extraordinary novel. However, for two completely subjective (and probably unfair) reasons, I have elected to only rate this as a very strong 4 stars. Reason #1: is that the Civil War is not favorite period of American history and so my juices don’t flow as strongly when reading stories from this time as others more smitten with the events. Reason #2: goes by the name of Ken Burns and his brilliant mini-series, The Civil War. That masterpiece has ruined me for all other depictions of the conflict.
The great irony is that Shaara’s novel was a major influence on Burns’s decision to create his mini-series in the first place and Burns adopted to a great degree the tone and style employed by Shaara. Alas, Ken Burns got to me first and his more expansive description of the war and the causes thereof keep him firmly dug in at the top of the charts.
Still, a strong, strong, strong 4.5 stars and my HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!
March 12, 2018
Visceral. That’s the best word I can use to describe The Killer Angels, both in the sense of instinctive or elemental emotions and in the sense of internal organs and guts. Because both are relevant when you’re talking about a book that captures what I imagine the experience of war to be like in a way that very few other books I’ve ever read has.
The big caveat there, of course, is the “I imagine” part—I’ve never been a soldier, have never fired anything other than a BB gun (though, in my callous youth, I did bring to a premature conclusion the life of more than one recalcitrant soda can), and have absolutely no idea what it’s like to kill another human (or have another human try to kill me); Jebus willing, I never will. So, it’s possible that war is nothing like this.
But, Shaara’s lean but descriptive prose and shifting POVs offer a perspective that feels so authentic that I found myself occasionally forgetting that this is a novel rather than a stitching together of first-hand narratives; one suspects Mr. Shaara did his homework. There’s a reason this book is a classic of its genre, and it’s simultaneously an enlightening and painful read.
The American Civil War is, if not unique in the history of warfare, certainly a particularly unusual conflict, especially when you consider the officers leading the troops on both sides of the fight. Many had served together previously in the United States army—and for a not inconsiderable period of time—which meant that you had colleagues, and in some cases good friends, whose job it was to go out and try to kill each other in the name of the geography into which they happened to have been born, putting aside their own personal feelings about the reasons for the war. (Side note: I have a few colleagues I’d be totally fine pointing the business end of my bayonet at, but it’s unlikely that I would actually be able to eviscerate them if it came to that, though I’d happily pour salt in their coffee.)
Shaara is not concerned with trying to explain the reasons for the Civil War, nor in making a case for whether those reasons were good ones or not; his goal is to capture the experience of the fight. He does so masterfully; I felt completely immersed in the (very troubling) experience of preparing to fight, from the oddly relaxed downtime between battles to the gut-liquidating moments before the charge.
This is one of those books that will sit with me for a while, and one that reminds me that even when justified—and I have a much higher threshold for justification than most rulers/countries over the course of human history—war is an awful, horrific, terrible thing that indelibly transforms the lives of all those involved, whether directly engaged in the battle, the family members of those combatants, or the civilians whose homes and towns are destroyed in the process.
I think I may need a little Dr. Seuss as a palate cleanser before jumping into anything else this heavy…
(Thanks to Allie for the buddy read!)
The big caveat there, of course, is the “I imagine” part—I’ve never been a soldier, have never fired anything other than a BB gun (though, in my callous youth, I did bring to a premature conclusion the life of more than one recalcitrant soda can), and have absolutely no idea what it’s like to kill another human (or have another human try to kill me); Jebus willing, I never will. So, it’s possible that war is nothing like this.
But, Shaara’s lean but descriptive prose and shifting POVs offer a perspective that feels so authentic that I found myself occasionally forgetting that this is a novel rather than a stitching together of first-hand narratives; one suspects Mr. Shaara did his homework. There’s a reason this book is a classic of its genre, and it’s simultaneously an enlightening and painful read.
The American Civil War is, if not unique in the history of warfare, certainly a particularly unusual conflict, especially when you consider the officers leading the troops on both sides of the fight. Many had served together previously in the United States army—and for a not inconsiderable period of time—which meant that you had colleagues, and in some cases good friends, whose job it was to go out and try to kill each other in the name of the geography into which they happened to have been born, putting aside their own personal feelings about the reasons for the war. (Side note: I have a few colleagues I’d be totally fine pointing the business end of my bayonet at, but it’s unlikely that I would actually be able to eviscerate them if it came to that, though I’d happily pour salt in their coffee.)
Shaara is not concerned with trying to explain the reasons for the Civil War, nor in making a case for whether those reasons were good ones or not; his goal is to capture the experience of the fight. He does so masterfully; I felt completely immersed in the (very troubling) experience of preparing to fight, from the oddly relaxed downtime between battles to the gut-liquidating moments before the charge.
This is one of those books that will sit with me for a while, and one that reminds me that even when justified—and I have a much higher threshold for justification than most rulers/countries over the course of human history—war is an awful, horrific, terrible thing that indelibly transforms the lives of all those involved, whether directly engaged in the battle, the family members of those combatants, or the civilians whose homes and towns are destroyed in the process.
I think I may need a little Dr. Seuss as a palate cleanser before jumping into anything else this heavy…
(Thanks to Allie for the buddy read!)
July 2, 2023
Reading The Killer Angels is akin to eating custard. Something in the texture is alarming. It feels so smooth, consistent, and warm. Then, the battle starts. And like tart cherries or rhubarb filling in a crumble, Shaara's writing made my eyes smart with tears.
The old Irishman is there. So, is Pickett with his flair. One from the North and one from the South to love just as they are in the Ken Burns films that this book inspired.
As a lesson in what happens when politics fail, it's a warning to be sure. Yet, it is also a poignant reminder of the humanity in us all as this author brings his characters to life.
The old Irishman is there. So, is Pickett with his flair. One from the North and one from the South to love just as they are in the Ken Burns films that this book inspired.
As a lesson in what happens when politics fail, it's a warning to be sure. Yet, it is also a poignant reminder of the humanity in us all as this author brings his characters to life.
July 8, 2013
This month marked the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg which we all know is the fight that took place when Abraham Lincoln wanted to make a speech at that address and then one of the neighbors got mad and challenged him. Or something like that.
Ah, but seriously folks…. Gettysburg was the turning point of the American Civil War in which the Union forces defeated Robert E. Lee’s invading Confederate troops, but this isn’t a non-fiction book about the battle. Instead it’s a historical fiction in which author Michael Shaara used research and literary license to put us into the minds of several key figures so that readers experience the fight through their eyes.
For this re-read, I listened to the audible version, and it featured an interesting introduction from Shaara’s son, Jeff. (Who has followed his late father’s formula to write several other books about American history.) The younger Shaara tells of how his father’s book was rejected over a dozen times, was a commercial flop but won a Pulitzer Prize only to see no increase in its profile following the award. Michael died in 1988 thinking that the book would not be remembered. In an twist of fate, the movie adaptation Gettysburg that came out five years later would put the book on the best seller list almost twenty years after it was originally published.
On the Confederate side, an ailing and weary Robert E. Lee has pinned his hopes to end the war on the idea of attacking and destroying the Union army on it’s own ground, but his top general, James Longstreet, was against the invasion since he believes the South’s military success has come from a defensive style of warfare. As they advance into Pennsylvania, they’ve been left with a dangerous lack of information about Union movements because cavalry officer J.E.B. Stuart has been failing to provide them with reports from his scouting mission.
Both sides begin to converge on the small town of Gettysburg which has a valuable crossroads nearby, but Union cavalry officer John Buford is there first and immediately realizes that the hills and slopes outside of the town will give a huge advantage to the army that holds them. With the Confederate forces closing in fast, Buford occupies and tries to hold the good ground while urging the Union army to rush in and reinforce him. As troops pour into the area from both sides, they find themselves fighting in a battle no one had counted on. The Union troops manage to occupy the better positions as Longstreet desperately tries to convince Lee that attacking would be a major mistake, but Lee believes that his army can destroy the Union forces once and for all.
This book and the subsequent film version would do a lot to make people reevaluate Longstreet’s reputation. He’d been scapegoated by other Confederate officers after the war for the defeat at Gettysburg, but Shaara’s version of events based on letters and diaries of those involved makes a convincing argument that it was Lee whose stubborn refusal to disengage and pick a better spot for a fight was the main culprit for the Confederate failure.
Shaara also credits the forgotten Buford with being a major reason as to why the Union was able to seize the high ground. He also tells the story of another officer forgotten by mainstream American history as one of the true heroes of the battle. Joshua Chamberlain was a professor at Maine’s Bowdoin College when the war broke out, but he showed a knack for military command that eventually put him in charge of a regiment at the end of the Union line on a hill called Little Round Top. As the extreme left position of the Union forces, Chamberlain and his men had to hold back repeated efforts to flank them by Longstreet’s troops, and then they found themselves in the thick of the fighting again on the last day during Pickett’s Charge.
Chamberlain would win the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg, and he would continue to serve with distinction for the rest of the war. Eventually promoted to the rank of brigadier general, Ulysses Grant chose Chamberlain to command the Union troops at the surrender ceremony. After the war, he would win multiple terms as Maine’s governor as well as eventually becoming president of his old college. (Feeling like a slacker yet?) The book and a great performance by Jeff Daniels in the movie version would make Chamberlain remembered once again.
The prose gets a bit flowery at times, but Shaara’s preface notes that he actually toned down the verbose style of the time. There’s also a bit too much repetition on a couple of points like Chamberlain’s horror at himself that he ordered his brother to fill a gap in the line during the fight on Little Round Top without a second thought or Confederate General Armistead’s constant references to his friend Win Hancock as he frets that he’ll have to face his buddy on the battle field.
Those are minor gripes about a book that found a new and fresh way to tell a story that every American school kid has heard. Shaara also does a nice job of pointing out the inherent hypocrisy of the Confederates who claim to be fighting for their rights while not mentioning that what they want is the freedom to keep owning slaves. That point gets overlooked a lot when the South gets romanticized in mainstream works of fiction, and it’s refreshing that Shaara called bullshit on it.
Random trivia: Joss Whedon’s television show Firefly was partially inspired by his reading of this book.
Also posted at Shelf Inflicted.
Ah, but seriously folks…. Gettysburg was the turning point of the American Civil War in which the Union forces defeated Robert E. Lee’s invading Confederate troops, but this isn’t a non-fiction book about the battle. Instead it’s a historical fiction in which author Michael Shaara used research and literary license to put us into the minds of several key figures so that readers experience the fight through their eyes.
For this re-read, I listened to the audible version, and it featured an interesting introduction from Shaara’s son, Jeff. (Who has followed his late father’s formula to write several other books about American history.) The younger Shaara tells of how his father’s book was rejected over a dozen times, was a commercial flop but won a Pulitzer Prize only to see no increase in its profile following the award. Michael died in 1988 thinking that the book would not be remembered. In an twist of fate, the movie adaptation Gettysburg that came out five years later would put the book on the best seller list almost twenty years after it was originally published.
On the Confederate side, an ailing and weary Robert E. Lee has pinned his hopes to end the war on the idea of attacking and destroying the Union army on it’s own ground, but his top general, James Longstreet, was against the invasion since he believes the South’s military success has come from a defensive style of warfare. As they advance into Pennsylvania, they’ve been left with a dangerous lack of information about Union movements because cavalry officer J.E.B. Stuart has been failing to provide them with reports from his scouting mission.
Both sides begin to converge on the small town of Gettysburg which has a valuable crossroads nearby, but Union cavalry officer John Buford is there first and immediately realizes that the hills and slopes outside of the town will give a huge advantage to the army that holds them. With the Confederate forces closing in fast, Buford occupies and tries to hold the good ground while urging the Union army to rush in and reinforce him. As troops pour into the area from both sides, they find themselves fighting in a battle no one had counted on. The Union troops manage to occupy the better positions as Longstreet desperately tries to convince Lee that attacking would be a major mistake, but Lee believes that his army can destroy the Union forces once and for all.
This book and the subsequent film version would do a lot to make people reevaluate Longstreet’s reputation. He’d been scapegoated by other Confederate officers after the war for the defeat at Gettysburg, but Shaara’s version of events based on letters and diaries of those involved makes a convincing argument that it was Lee whose stubborn refusal to disengage and pick a better spot for a fight was the main culprit for the Confederate failure.
Shaara also credits the forgotten Buford with being a major reason as to why the Union was able to seize the high ground. He also tells the story of another officer forgotten by mainstream American history as one of the true heroes of the battle. Joshua Chamberlain was a professor at Maine’s Bowdoin College when the war broke out, but he showed a knack for military command that eventually put him in charge of a regiment at the end of the Union line on a hill called Little Round Top. As the extreme left position of the Union forces, Chamberlain and his men had to hold back repeated efforts to flank them by Longstreet’s troops, and then they found themselves in the thick of the fighting again on the last day during Pickett’s Charge.
Chamberlain would win the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg, and he would continue to serve with distinction for the rest of the war. Eventually promoted to the rank of brigadier general, Ulysses Grant chose Chamberlain to command the Union troops at the surrender ceremony. After the war, he would win multiple terms as Maine’s governor as well as eventually becoming president of his old college. (Feeling like a slacker yet?) The book and a great performance by Jeff Daniels in the movie version would make Chamberlain remembered once again.
The prose gets a bit flowery at times, but Shaara’s preface notes that he actually toned down the verbose style of the time. There’s also a bit too much repetition on a couple of points like Chamberlain’s horror at himself that he ordered his brother to fill a gap in the line during the fight on Little Round Top without a second thought or Confederate General Armistead’s constant references to his friend Win Hancock as he frets that he’ll have to face his buddy on the battle field.
Those are minor gripes about a book that found a new and fresh way to tell a story that every American school kid has heard. Shaara also does a nice job of pointing out the inherent hypocrisy of the Confederates who claim to be fighting for their rights while not mentioning that what they want is the freedom to keep owning slaves. That point gets overlooked a lot when the South gets romanticized in mainstream works of fiction, and it’s refreshing that Shaara called bullshit on it.
Random trivia: Joss Whedon’s television show Firefly was partially inspired by his reading of this book.
Also posted at Shelf Inflicted.
March 6, 2012
I am not really a fan of books about war. I have trouble envisioning the action and the maneuvers of the troops, and I find that I get lost in the details and just don't really care about the characters.
Because of this, I didn't have high hopes for The Killer Angels, but it was this month's selection for my book club, and I decided to give it a try.
This book was incredible. I did have some trouble keeping track of the characters. I ended up making myself a cheat-sheet with things like, "Longstreet - Confederate general. Lee's second-in-command. Nickname: Pete." Actually, Longstreet I could keep track of. It was Pettigrew and Pender and Sykes and Sedgewick that kept tripping me up. The maps were very helpful as I tried to visualize the action, but they were less helpful when I couldn't remember which names were Union and which were Confederate.
This is a novel, so it's a fictionalized account of the Battle of Gettysburg, but Shaara clearly did his research. Written from the shifting perspective of the main players in the battle and drawn from the personal correspondence of these men as well as the historic record and Shaara's own embellishments and best guesses, this book explains the nuances of the battle and of the war more clearly than I've read before. I've been taught the Civil War from the perspective that there was a clear side to root for. I've known for a long while that the reality was murkier than this, but Shaara helped make this murkiness more apparent to me (or perhaps I'm just now of an age where I can embrace murkiness better than I could in high school and college). There is a distinction here between the Cause and the people doing the fighting. I don't think that's a distinction I've often seen.
Shaara puts the reader in Gettysburg, not only in the location but in the minds of the people who were there. All of the things people say about the Civil War---the idea of brothers fighting against brothers, the internal conflict and sense of near heresy of killing one's own countrymen, the ambivalence of Northerners to the people the slaves were even as they disagreed with the institution of slavery---Shaara illustrates clearly here.
The book is peppered with lyrical, powerful passages, but two stand out for me as particularly moving.
One is a speech Chamberlain gives to a group of would-be deserters handed over as prisoners to his brigade to try and convince a few of them to fight rather than just ride out the battle as prisoners.
"This is a different kind of army," Chamberlain explains. "If you look at history you'll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we're here for something new. I don't...this hasn't happened in the history of the world. We're an army going out to set other men free."
The other passage that really struck me was when Longstreet and Hood were saying goodbye to one another before a fight. Longstreet puts out his hand for Hood to shake.
"Hood took the hand, held it for a moment. Sometimes you touched a man like this and it was the last time, and the next time you saw him he was cold and white and bloodless, and the warmth was gone forever."
I just found the way Shaara uses language to be powerful, poignant, but not overdone at all. He has a light touch which lets the scenes shine through. The writing was easy to read, the story rather less so.
I think I can blame this book at least in part for the gloomy mood I've been in the past few days. It's an incredible book about an infamously dark battle in our country's darkest war.
Because of this, I didn't have high hopes for The Killer Angels, but it was this month's selection for my book club, and I decided to give it a try.
This book was incredible. I did have some trouble keeping track of the characters. I ended up making myself a cheat-sheet with things like, "Longstreet - Confederate general. Lee's second-in-command. Nickname: Pete." Actually, Longstreet I could keep track of. It was Pettigrew and Pender and Sykes and Sedgewick that kept tripping me up. The maps were very helpful as I tried to visualize the action, but they were less helpful when I couldn't remember which names were Union and which were Confederate.
This is a novel, so it's a fictionalized account of the Battle of Gettysburg, but Shaara clearly did his research. Written from the shifting perspective of the main players in the battle and drawn from the personal correspondence of these men as well as the historic record and Shaara's own embellishments and best guesses, this book explains the nuances of the battle and of the war more clearly than I've read before. I've been taught the Civil War from the perspective that there was a clear side to root for. I've known for a long while that the reality was murkier than this, but Shaara helped make this murkiness more apparent to me (or perhaps I'm just now of an age where I can embrace murkiness better than I could in high school and college). There is a distinction here between the Cause and the people doing the fighting. I don't think that's a distinction I've often seen.
Shaara puts the reader in Gettysburg, not only in the location but in the minds of the people who were there. All of the things people say about the Civil War---the idea of brothers fighting against brothers, the internal conflict and sense of near heresy of killing one's own countrymen, the ambivalence of Northerners to the people the slaves were even as they disagreed with the institution of slavery---Shaara illustrates clearly here.
The book is peppered with lyrical, powerful passages, but two stand out for me as particularly moving.
One is a speech Chamberlain gives to a group of would-be deserters handed over as prisoners to his brigade to try and convince a few of them to fight rather than just ride out the battle as prisoners.
"This is a different kind of army," Chamberlain explains. "If you look at history you'll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we're here for something new. I don't...this hasn't happened in the history of the world. We're an army going out to set other men free."
The other passage that really struck me was when Longstreet and Hood were saying goodbye to one another before a fight. Longstreet puts out his hand for Hood to shake.
"Hood took the hand, held it for a moment. Sometimes you touched a man like this and it was the last time, and the next time you saw him he was cold and white and bloodless, and the warmth was gone forever."
I just found the way Shaara uses language to be powerful, poignant, but not overdone at all. He has a light touch which lets the scenes shine through. The writing was easy to read, the story rather less so.
I think I can blame this book at least in part for the gloomy mood I've been in the past few days. It's an incredible book about an infamously dark battle in our country's darkest war.
July 9, 2023
I think this book deserves its description of the greatest Civil War novel ever written, even though it takes place over 4 days, and depicts one battle, but Gettysburg was the turning point of the war. It puts us inside the head of the generals and soldiers, and in doing so, tells us the story of the Southern aristocracy and their dependence on slavery, the sense of honor in these men on both sides, and the pride of the fighting men. It had me in tears a few times for the waste and the loss of lives, and admiration for the Generals who had those lives in their charge. It was a beautiful novel, beautifully written, and I loved it.
February 1, 2021
I am fairly sure that I read this book like 25 years ago as well. It is so memorable as we see the events unfold through a series of perspectives from major actors: Lee, Chamberlain, Buford, Longstreet...It is a masterful evocation of this crucial battle in which the Civil War was more or less decided (even if it played out over the following two years). Very moving and realistic, it is probably the next best thing to going to Gettysburg in person - a voyage I definitely need to make after the corona madness.
My rating of all the Pulitzer Winners: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
My rating of all the Pulitzer Winners: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
August 30, 2021
“There's nothing so much like a god on earth as a General on a battlefield.”
― Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels
One of my favorite historical fiction novels of ALL TIME. I read this with my 13 year-old son and 12 year-old daughter and it was amazing. My kids loved it just as much as I did. It was tight, character-driven, and dramatic. Imagine my surprise when my kids are discussing the virtues of Team Chamberlain (smart, honorable, thoughtful, a natural leader) VS Team Longstreet (Brilliant, ahead of his time, brooding, quiet).
The Civil War is one of those historical periods that is a bit of a mixed bag for me. It has elements of romance, chivalry, honor, gentility mixed in with the horrible stench of a modern, brutal war. There are characters like Lee, Chamberlain, Pickett, Stuart, etc., who seem to belong in some Arthurian myth/melodrama next to Longstreet and Hancock who could easily have been cast in some post-apocalyptic Battle Royale. Add to this, the fact that these were real men, with real failings, fighting real friends and the book almost seems to narrate itself.
Anyway, this is a top-shelf war novel -- it educates, it entertains (as much as a war novel can be called entertainment) and it is beautiful. There were some paragraphs I wanted Terence Malick to film.
― Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels
One of my favorite historical fiction novels of ALL TIME. I read this with my 13 year-old son and 12 year-old daughter and it was amazing. My kids loved it just as much as I did. It was tight, character-driven, and dramatic. Imagine my surprise when my kids are discussing the virtues of Team Chamberlain (smart, honorable, thoughtful, a natural leader) VS Team Longstreet (Brilliant, ahead of his time, brooding, quiet).
The Civil War is one of those historical periods that is a bit of a mixed bag for me. It has elements of romance, chivalry, honor, gentility mixed in with the horrible stench of a modern, brutal war. There are characters like Lee, Chamberlain, Pickett, Stuart, etc., who seem to belong in some Arthurian myth/melodrama next to Longstreet and Hancock who could easily have been cast in some post-apocalyptic Battle Royale. Add to this, the fact that these were real men, with real failings, fighting real friends and the book almost seems to narrate itself.
Anyway, this is a top-shelf war novel -- it educates, it entertains (as much as a war novel can be called entertainment) and it is beautiful. There were some paragraphs I wanted Terence Malick to film.
March 5, 2017
I was reminded about this book while listening to a podcast the other day. The guy mentioned The Killer Angels and I immediately thought about how much I had liked it and about my stepdad. He was the reason I read it, some twenty+ years ago now, this book that I am sure I would never have picked up on my own. He handed it to me one day said something like, “This was really good. You should read it.” I remember thinking at least two things in that moment: A book about war? I don’t read that stuff. But the second thing I thought about was my dad loving a book. That’s because I had so rarely seen him reading one. So okay I thought, I will try it.
Wow, is all I really need to say at this point. Yes it’s about war, specifically the Battle of Gettysburg, but it’s far more personal than that. Sharra created something amazing here. His words caused me to think about the individual man. Not what I had expected at all. Now when I think about The Killer Angels, I think about my stepdad, and I am grateful.
Wow, is all I really need to say at this point. Yes it’s about war, specifically the Battle of Gettysburg, but it’s far more personal than that. Sharra created something amazing here. His words caused me to think about the individual man. Not what I had expected at all. Now when I think about The Killer Angels, I think about my stepdad, and I am grateful.
September 19, 2022
Perhaps the Greatest War Novel Ever Written
(Too much? American war novel, then.)
'The Killer Angels' stands tall as the best novel about the American Civil War ever written... and there have been many. I recently read E. L. Doctorow's 'The March', for example; it's about a massive military convoy and its swelling ranks of thieves, whores, and freed slaves, all following General Tecumseh Sherman's trail of destruction. It's a great book by a great writer, but in contrast with Shaara's masterwork, it served to convey the grace & apparent ease with which Shaara articulates the scope and complexity of battle.
The narration hovers above the killing fields of Gettysburg like the recording angel itself, examining without judgement the horrors and triumphs, looking into the hearts and minds of the now legendary officers whose fates were decided there. The interactions between an exhausted Lee, who has decided to take the offensive and move into Northern territory for the first time since the war began, and Longstreet, his pragmatic and most trusted friend and general, are unforgettable. Shaara imagines Longstreet's wavering faith in Lee as a near religious crisis. He lets the reader suffer with Lee at the sickening realization he has made a fatal error, wasting tens of thousands of lives on an obvious tactical mistake... and knowing that now he has finally lost a battle, this one loss will likely cost him the war. Shaara's account of the various decisive military engagements are masterful, in particular Chamberlain's heroic defense of his position on 'Little Round Top', one of the key factors in the Union victory.
Michael Shaara won a Pulitzer for 'The Killer Angels', an honor he very much deserved. He was not a prolific writer, however, and his best work would be his last. His son, Jeff Shaara, has continued on the course his father charted, telling the stories behind the other great battles of the civil war, as well as going back in history further to create historical novels about the American Revolution and the Mexican-American war.
But it is 'The Killer Angels' that remains the masterpiece, perhaps the best war novel ever written. There are very few books that have managed to convey the heroic grandeur and vast complexity of war, while capturing the sad and curious details, the psychological transformations, the waste and tragic errors. Others come close:
Norman Mailer's 'The Naked and the Dead' and James Jones 'The Thin Red Line', for example, both dealing with the Pacific theater of the Second World War. Jones provides a profound understanding of the motivations driving his characters; but Mailer, in his debut novel, became an immediate intellectual powerhouse with a fictionalized account of his WWII observations & experiences, articulating the most complex psychological processes, peeling back layers of delusion & contrived personas, to expose the petty, ugly, and sadistic roots. He was the 20th Century's keenest literary observer of human behavior & motivations, and this laser-scalpel of an intellect made 'The Naked & The Dead' an instant classic in the canon of war novels, & a powerful work of literature that has retained its shocking vitality over the last 70-years.
And then there's 'Count Belisarius', by Robert Graves. It's a lesser-known novel by the greatest writer of Historical Fiction in the English language, following his masterwork, 'I, Claudius'. It's the heart-breaking tale of a noble General fighting for the Eastern Roman Empire after Rome itself had fallen to the Germanic tribes; his incorruptible sense of duty, loyalty & competence, is ruthlessly exploited by a weak, petty, jealous & cruel Emperor Justinian. He is sent out against impossible armies who vastly outnumber him, and through sheer strategic genius, brings his Emperor a glorious victory. Justinian steals all the glory, and sends him out on even deadlier missions, greedily stealing all the glory again & again... so jealous of Belisarius, he sends him on suicide missions, which he somehow survives. And for all the victories & sacrifice & loyalty, he is not rewarded, but punished. 'Goodbye To All That' was Graves fascinating autobiography, much of it devoted to his life-shaping experiences during WWI... and it makes an ideal companion to Erich Maria Remarque's 'All Quiet On The Western Front', a novel about the First World War from the German POV; both books are included in the 4-volume WWI-Classics pack picture-linked above.
Lastly: 'Tree of Smoke', Denis Johnson's modern masterpiece set amid the chaos of Southeast Asia before and during the Vietnam war. For a clear-eyed, unflinching tale of the various costs that war demands, however, 'The Killer Angels' still stands alone.
(Too much? American war novel, then.)
'The Killer Angels' stands tall as the best novel about the American Civil War ever written... and there have been many. I recently read E. L. Doctorow's 'The March', for example; it's about a massive military convoy and its swelling ranks of thieves, whores, and freed slaves, all following General Tecumseh Sherman's trail of destruction. It's a great book by a great writer, but in contrast with Shaara's masterwork, it served to convey the grace & apparent ease with which Shaara articulates the scope and complexity of battle.
The narration hovers above the killing fields of Gettysburg like the recording angel itself, examining without judgement the horrors and triumphs, looking into the hearts and minds of the now legendary officers whose fates were decided there. The interactions between an exhausted Lee, who has decided to take the offensive and move into Northern territory for the first time since the war began, and Longstreet, his pragmatic and most trusted friend and general, are unforgettable. Shaara imagines Longstreet's wavering faith in Lee as a near religious crisis. He lets the reader suffer with Lee at the sickening realization he has made a fatal error, wasting tens of thousands of lives on an obvious tactical mistake... and knowing that now he has finally lost a battle, this one loss will likely cost him the war. Shaara's account of the various decisive military engagements are masterful, in particular Chamberlain's heroic defense of his position on 'Little Round Top', one of the key factors in the Union victory.
Michael Shaara won a Pulitzer for 'The Killer Angels', an honor he very much deserved. He was not a prolific writer, however, and his best work would be his last. His son, Jeff Shaara, has continued on the course his father charted, telling the stories behind the other great battles of the civil war, as well as going back in history further to create historical novels about the American Revolution and the Mexican-American war.
But it is 'The Killer Angels' that remains the masterpiece, perhaps the best war novel ever written. There are very few books that have managed to convey the heroic grandeur and vast complexity of war, while capturing the sad and curious details, the psychological transformations, the waste and tragic errors. Others come close:
Norman Mailer's 'The Naked and the Dead' and James Jones 'The Thin Red Line', for example, both dealing with the Pacific theater of the Second World War. Jones provides a profound understanding of the motivations driving his characters; but Mailer, in his debut novel, became an immediate intellectual powerhouse with a fictionalized account of his WWII observations & experiences, articulating the most complex psychological processes, peeling back layers of delusion & contrived personas, to expose the petty, ugly, and sadistic roots. He was the 20th Century's keenest literary observer of human behavior & motivations, and this laser-scalpel of an intellect made 'The Naked & The Dead' an instant classic in the canon of war novels, & a powerful work of literature that has retained its shocking vitality over the last 70-years.
And then there's 'Count Belisarius', by Robert Graves. It's a lesser-known novel by the greatest writer of Historical Fiction in the English language, following his masterwork, 'I, Claudius'. It's the heart-breaking tale of a noble General fighting for the Eastern Roman Empire after Rome itself had fallen to the Germanic tribes; his incorruptible sense of duty, loyalty & competence, is ruthlessly exploited by a weak, petty, jealous & cruel Emperor Justinian. He is sent out against impossible armies who vastly outnumber him, and through sheer strategic genius, brings his Emperor a glorious victory. Justinian steals all the glory, and sends him out on even deadlier missions, greedily stealing all the glory again & again... so jealous of Belisarius, he sends him on suicide missions, which he somehow survives. And for all the victories & sacrifice & loyalty, he is not rewarded, but punished. 'Goodbye To All That' was Graves fascinating autobiography, much of it devoted to his life-shaping experiences during WWI... and it makes an ideal companion to Erich Maria Remarque's 'All Quiet On The Western Front', a novel about the First World War from the German POV; both books are included in the 4-volume WWI-Classics pack picture-linked above.
Lastly: 'Tree of Smoke', Denis Johnson's modern masterpiece set amid the chaos of Southeast Asia before and during the Vietnam war. For a clear-eyed, unflinching tale of the various costs that war demands, however, 'The Killer Angels' still stands alone.
August 2, 2023
"The Killer Angels" tells of the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg, as well as the events leading up to the fighting. The personalities of the generals and the tactical reasons for their success or defeat in battle are all part of the narrative. Lack of information and compromised health of some of the leaders contributed to some bad decisions.
Confederate General Lee was hoping to end the American Civil War with this battle, but the Union soldiers had seized the high ground. The book has excellent maps showing the positions of the various regiments over four days. The casualties during the three days of fighting were 23,000 for the Union and 28,000 for the Confederacy. The Battle of Gettysburg was fought on July 1-3, 1863 before the Confederate forces retreated. It's ironic that the conflict was just prior to July 4th, Independence Day, an American holiday which celebrates the independence of the United States from Great Britain. The American Civil War would continue for another two years.
Even people who do not usually read military stories will enjoy this book since it's so character-driven. It sticks to the facts of the battle, but shows real people making decisions and dealing with the emotional aftermath of such severe losses on both sides. "The Killer Angels" was an excellent Civil War novel.
Confederate General Lee was hoping to end the American Civil War with this battle, but the Union soldiers had seized the high ground. The book has excellent maps showing the positions of the various regiments over four days. The casualties during the three days of fighting were 23,000 for the Union and 28,000 for the Confederacy. The Battle of Gettysburg was fought on July 1-3, 1863 before the Confederate forces retreated. It's ironic that the conflict was just prior to July 4th, Independence Day, an American holiday which celebrates the independence of the United States from Great Britain. The American Civil War would continue for another two years.
Even people who do not usually read military stories will enjoy this book since it's so character-driven. It sticks to the facts of the battle, but shows real people making decisions and dealing with the emotional aftermath of such severe losses on both sides. "The Killer Angels" was an excellent Civil War novel.
July 22, 2023
4.5 ⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️
I utilized both a read copy and audio format.
Shaara brought these men to life as individuals whom you know intimately by books end.
His work inspired Ken Burns to develop The Civil War documentary series.
Narrator Stephen Hoye delivered amazing gravitas and drama to the characters and battles, especially the ending chapters. Easy to understand why he has won so many awards.
Now I'm going to rent the film version.
Not to be missed and a very timely read about our fractured country's terrible division.
Before the war we would say the United States are, afterwards and until now it's been the United States is, though today it appears we have only been in a long ceasefire.
I utilized both a read copy and audio format.
Shaara brought these men to life as individuals whom you know intimately by books end.
His work inspired Ken Burns to develop The Civil War documentary series.
Narrator Stephen Hoye delivered amazing gravitas and drama to the characters and battles, especially the ending chapters. Easy to understand why he has won so many awards.
Now I'm going to rent the film version.
Not to be missed and a very timely read about our fractured country's terrible division.
Before the war we would say the United States are, afterwards and until now it's been the United States is, though today it appears we have only been in a long ceasefire.
January 25, 2015
If I hadn't been sitting in a puddle of my own tears from so much personal tragedy, I'd probably have given this five stars instead of four. Another time, I could have simply focused on the excellent writing and superior character development. I was a bit too weighted down to give this historical novel the completely objective read I felt it deserved.
I never knew that being inside of Robert E. Lee's head would make me feel so sad, so damn sad. I never knew I could alternate sides so quickly in my compassion: one moment cheering for the North to take it, the next minute, unexpectedly hoping the South would prevail.
During this read, I fell, simultaneously, in love with the North's Joshua Chamberlain and the South's James Longstreet, and realized, for the first time, how profoundly the Civil War damaged our nation's landmarks and natural beauty.
I believe this book may have most accurately depicted the total and complete division, not only between families and soldiers, but between the leaders, who had forged tight bonds in school and in previous battles, where they had fought on the same side. This is a truly humanistic view of our civil war, and Shaara did not drop the ball in re-telling it.
I never knew that being inside of Robert E. Lee's head would make me feel so sad, so damn sad. I never knew I could alternate sides so quickly in my compassion: one moment cheering for the North to take it, the next minute, unexpectedly hoping the South would prevail.
During this read, I fell, simultaneously, in love with the North's Joshua Chamberlain and the South's James Longstreet, and realized, for the first time, how profoundly the Civil War damaged our nation's landmarks and natural beauty.
I believe this book may have most accurately depicted the total and complete division, not only between families and soldiers, but between the leaders, who had forged tight bonds in school and in previous battles, where they had fought on the same side. This is a truly humanistic view of our civil war, and Shaara did not drop the ball in re-telling it.
September 3, 2012
This is one of those books which changes the way people see a subject. It is a fictional account of the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, putting words into the mouths of some of the best-remembered participants, most notably Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet, and Union Generals Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and John Buford (actually Chamberlain was a colonel at this battle, but eventually attained the rank of Major General before the end of the war). The book violates a common perception of historical writing which says readers of war novels are more interested in the common soldiers' experiences rather than the generals who live in the lofty atmosphere of rear headquarters, moving armies around like chess pieces. Michael Shaara's book works by letting the reader into the private world of soldiers who are as torn by the emotions of decision-making in the pandemonium of battle and fear of the unknown as those in all war novels, only in this book they mostly happen to be the soldiers who are commanding all of the other soldiers in an engagement that has taken on a mythology which places it in the forefront of our nation's struggles and enshrines the very ground it was fought on as sacred as any piece of real estate in the United States.
The author was writing science fiction and straight fiction short stories for many major publications for years, supplementing his income teaching English Lit. at Florida State University, before he published his first novel, "The Broken Place" in 1968. It was a very good book but not commercially successful. His second novel developed from a family visit to the Gettysburg Battlefield. From my own experience, I can relate to those who see that place for the first time, and, if they have a sense of historical perspective toward the war which defined this nation, or are at least receptive to learning about the country's great struggle, they can feel a sense of awe just standing on that ground (and no doubt feel just as moved at other places that defined the national conscience). This emotion definitely was felt by Shaara, who described his first visit to Gettysburg as an extraordinary experience.
Shaara's desire to put his feelings on paper led to his decision to write a novel with a story told through the eyes of the leading characters. Burning the candle at both ends, teaching and writing, and in his own recollection consuming large quantities of cigarettes and coffee, he finished the novel seven years later. His health was already poor, having suffered a major heart attack at age 36, in 1965. He finally found a publisher, and the book found a small audience after its release. Winning the Pulitzer in 1975 helped, but the novel's primary audience continued to be history buffs and professional military scholars; it has been required reading at leading academies, including the U.S. Army War College and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, among others. The edition I read was loaned to me by a retired Army officer who had studied at the War College.
The author passed away from a fatal heart attack in May, 1988, still semi-famous. He had written another novel, "For the Name of the Game", eventually released as a movie in 1999 starring Kevin Costner. "The Killer Angels" finally had its day in 1993, with the release of the film "Gettysburg." The interest in this Ted Turner-backed film generated sales in the book, which went to Number One on the New York Times bestseller list.
"The Killer Angels" has been followed by two related novels from the author's son, Jeffrey Sharra. "Gods and Generals" is a prequel to the events of the Civil War, while "The Last Full Measure" begins where "The Killer Angels" leaves off. The action in both novels occurs through the experiences of the same characters used by Michael Shaara in "The Killer Angels."
Though a novel, this book is a favorite among Civil War readers, on a level with the best non-fictional works. One reason is its underlying faithfulness to historically accurate character portrayals, and accountings of the major turning points in the Gettysburg battle. It is no exaggeration to claim that the experience of immersing oneself into this book will give any curious reader inspiration to want to know more about the Civil War. For those who think the reading of history must always be boring, this book will dissuade those notions. Civil War writing just doesn't get any better.
The author was writing science fiction and straight fiction short stories for many major publications for years, supplementing his income teaching English Lit. at Florida State University, before he published his first novel, "The Broken Place" in 1968. It was a very good book but not commercially successful. His second novel developed from a family visit to the Gettysburg Battlefield. From my own experience, I can relate to those who see that place for the first time, and, if they have a sense of historical perspective toward the war which defined this nation, or are at least receptive to learning about the country's great struggle, they can feel a sense of awe just standing on that ground (and no doubt feel just as moved at other places that defined the national conscience). This emotion definitely was felt by Shaara, who described his first visit to Gettysburg as an extraordinary experience.
Shaara's desire to put his feelings on paper led to his decision to write a novel with a story told through the eyes of the leading characters. Burning the candle at both ends, teaching and writing, and in his own recollection consuming large quantities of cigarettes and coffee, he finished the novel seven years later. His health was already poor, having suffered a major heart attack at age 36, in 1965. He finally found a publisher, and the book found a small audience after its release. Winning the Pulitzer in 1975 helped, but the novel's primary audience continued to be history buffs and professional military scholars; it has been required reading at leading academies, including the U.S. Army War College and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, among others. The edition I read was loaned to me by a retired Army officer who had studied at the War College.
The author passed away from a fatal heart attack in May, 1988, still semi-famous. He had written another novel, "For the Name of the Game", eventually released as a movie in 1999 starring Kevin Costner. "The Killer Angels" finally had its day in 1993, with the release of the film "Gettysburg." The interest in this Ted Turner-backed film generated sales in the book, which went to Number One on the New York Times bestseller list.
"The Killer Angels" has been followed by two related novels from the author's son, Jeffrey Sharra. "Gods and Generals" is a prequel to the events of the Civil War, while "The Last Full Measure" begins where "The Killer Angels" leaves off. The action in both novels occurs through the experiences of the same characters used by Michael Shaara in "The Killer Angels."
Though a novel, this book is a favorite among Civil War readers, on a level with the best non-fictional works. One reason is its underlying faithfulness to historically accurate character portrayals, and accountings of the major turning points in the Gettysburg battle. It is no exaggeration to claim that the experience of immersing oneself into this book will give any curious reader inspiration to want to know more about the Civil War. For those who think the reading of history must always be boring, this book will dissuade those notions. Civil War writing just doesn't get any better.
November 15, 2019
The Killer Angels describes the turning point of the Civil War, the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg, through the eyes of key participants in the battle. Some of the more well-known ones include Robert E. Lee; Josiah Chamberlain, who was lieutenant colonel of the 20th Maine regiment; cavalry commander John Buford; and Confederate General James Longstreet. To me, the book wasn’t “action packed” but meandering and full of detail.
Most Americans and all Civil War buffs know about the Battle of Gettysburg. How on July 1, Confederate General A.P Hill disobeyed Lee’s order to not engage the enemy until all the Confederate forces could assemble. Instead, thinking John Buford’s cavalry was local militia, Hill attacked Buford’s men, who held strong positions on the high ground leading into Gettysburg. The delay allowed the Union army to reach Gettysburg. How on July 2, the Confederates attacked the Union’s left and right flanks. The most famous battle was the Confederate attack on Little Round Top and Josiah Chamberlain’s heroic charge downhill against them, sending the Confederates flying and saving the Union position. How on July 3, Lee ordered General George Pickett to lead a charge on the Union’s right center. The ill-fated charge marked the high-water mark of the Confederacy.
Even though The Killer Angels is fiction, some people consider the incidents in the book as fact. This point was brought home strongly to my wife, Lisa, and me when we visited Gettysburg this summer and were given a tour of the battlefield by an incredible guide. He took us to the position Chamberlain occupied on Little Round Top. He said it was the most visited site on the battlefield because of the novel and movie. He also mentioned that when Chamberlain led his charge downhill, the Confederates were already retreating. That wasn’t mentioned in the novel. He also told us that one visitor kept asking to see Sergeant Kilrain’s grave. The guide responded that Kilrain didn’t have a grave because he was a fictional character and never existed in real life. That didn’t make any difference to the visitor. He kept asking to see Kilrain’s grave.
Jeb Stuart did let Lee down by not showing up at Gettysburg until the third day because he was riding around the east flank of the Union army with his three best brigades. So he missed the first two days of the battle. In the book, when Stuart reports to Lee, Lee gives him a long harangue about how the cavalry is the eyes of the army. In real life, Lee simply looked at Stuart and said, “General Stuart, where have you been?” Lee’s moral authority was so great that the simple question brought Stuart to tears.
Pulitzer Prize winning The Killer Angels is a wonderful novel about the Battle of Gettysburg by a good writer. But readers should be careful not to confuse fiction with fact.
Most Americans and all Civil War buffs know about the Battle of Gettysburg. How on July 1, Confederate General A.P Hill disobeyed Lee’s order to not engage the enemy until all the Confederate forces could assemble. Instead, thinking John Buford’s cavalry was local militia, Hill attacked Buford’s men, who held strong positions on the high ground leading into Gettysburg. The delay allowed the Union army to reach Gettysburg. How on July 2, the Confederates attacked the Union’s left and right flanks. The most famous battle was the Confederate attack on Little Round Top and Josiah Chamberlain’s heroic charge downhill against them, sending the Confederates flying and saving the Union position. How on July 3, Lee ordered General George Pickett to lead a charge on the Union’s right center. The ill-fated charge marked the high-water mark of the Confederacy.
Even though The Killer Angels is fiction, some people consider the incidents in the book as fact. This point was brought home strongly to my wife, Lisa, and me when we visited Gettysburg this summer and were given a tour of the battlefield by an incredible guide. He took us to the position Chamberlain occupied on Little Round Top. He said it was the most visited site on the battlefield because of the novel and movie. He also mentioned that when Chamberlain led his charge downhill, the Confederates were already retreating. That wasn’t mentioned in the novel. He also told us that one visitor kept asking to see Sergeant Kilrain’s grave. The guide responded that Kilrain didn’t have a grave because he was a fictional character and never existed in real life. That didn’t make any difference to the visitor. He kept asking to see Kilrain’s grave.
Jeb Stuart did let Lee down by not showing up at Gettysburg until the third day because he was riding around the east flank of the Union army with his three best brigades. So he missed the first two days of the battle. In the book, when Stuart reports to Lee, Lee gives him a long harangue about how the cavalry is the eyes of the army. In real life, Lee simply looked at Stuart and said, “General Stuart, where have you been?” Lee’s moral authority was so great that the simple question brought Stuart to tears.
Pulitzer Prize winning The Killer Angels is a wonderful novel about the Battle of Gettysburg by a good writer. But readers should be careful not to confuse fiction with fact.
October 22, 2014
I was assigned this many years ago in high school & still have my 1975 paperback edition, so I was surprised by Jeff Shaara's introduction talking about how unknown this book was, especially when it won a Pulitzer Prize. I would guess he knows what he's talking about, but I've known many people to read it over the years. Of course, I lived only a couple of hours from Gettysburg which languished for years. Only recently has a real concerted effort been made to upgrade the facilities there led in a large part by Bob Kinsley.
I certainly don't believe Jeff's claim that his father was the first author to publish historical fiction of this sort. Way before this book, I was reading Harold Lamb's books, Scott's "Grandfather's Tales" & others like it. Michael, in his foreword, even talks about the similarity of his story to Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. I hate it when people make claims like this. OK, you're proud of your father & his work wasn't as well recognized as it deserved during his life, but don't distort the facts too much Jeff. It doesn't do the book any favors.
Shaara's descriptions are great & he really gets inside the heads of the people, sometimes too much. My biggest disappointment & the reason this isn't getting 5 stars is that Shaara crossed the line too often into fantasy. He went on & on about feelings that may have been real, but were certainly over done - just too much for a decent history. The book could have been shortened quite a bit & still retained the same power & flavor. I had to take a break in the middle because it got to me. I'm glad I continued, though.
The main themes of the battle are personalized.
- The leaders of the armies knew each other well enough to not only like & respect their opponents, but out guess each other & mourn their deaths & defeats even while striving to bring them about.
- Communications SUCKED & this caused the South's greatest strength, their independence, morale, & go-for-broke attitude, to bite them in the ass. Jeb Stuart was completely out of position blinding Lee & Hill drawing them into the battle against orders being the two most obvious examples at the start of the fight.
- The weariness of all concerned at this critical juncture 2 years into the war. Knowing the war dragged on for almost 2 more years afterward makes this even worse, especially given how the battle ended & the casualties they took.
- The heat was awful. I'm listening to this in July, the same month as the battle was fought, sweating my butt off doing light chores. It's hard to imagine men fighting in this weather amidst thick smoke, dust, dirt, & disease.
The reading is great & makes the story really come alive. The only problem was that I didn't have a very good map of the area in my head, so I went looking for one. This map & explanation of day 1 & 2 is pretty good, but it requires you to sign up to go beyond that. I didn't.
http://education-portal.com/academy/l...
I looked a bit further & found this wonderful overview of the entire battle.
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/...
They call it an animated map, but it has film clips & period pictures as well. The map part is perhaps the best for figuring out where the main players were & how the battle developed. After referring to it once, I didn't need to again. If you get a few of the main places in your head, the story is easy enough to follow.
The Wikipedia entry is very good for an overview, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_o...
The afterword sketches out what happened to the main players that survived the battle. Many of their endings were tragic, but there were a few happy ones. All in all, excellent & it's a book I highly recommend.
I certainly don't believe Jeff's claim that his father was the first author to publish historical fiction of this sort. Way before this book, I was reading Harold Lamb's books, Scott's "Grandfather's Tales" & others like it. Michael, in his foreword, even talks about the similarity of his story to Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage. I hate it when people make claims like this. OK, you're proud of your father & his work wasn't as well recognized as it deserved during his life, but don't distort the facts too much Jeff. It doesn't do the book any favors.
Shaara's descriptions are great & he really gets inside the heads of the people, sometimes too much. My biggest disappointment & the reason this isn't getting 5 stars is that Shaara crossed the line too often into fantasy. He went on & on about feelings that may have been real, but were certainly over done - just too much for a decent history. The book could have been shortened quite a bit & still retained the same power & flavor. I had to take a break in the middle because it got to me. I'm glad I continued, though.
The main themes of the battle are personalized.
- The leaders of the armies knew each other well enough to not only like & respect their opponents, but out guess each other & mourn their deaths & defeats even while striving to bring them about.
- Communications SUCKED & this caused the South's greatest strength, their independence, morale, & go-for-broke attitude, to bite them in the ass. Jeb Stuart was completely out of position blinding Lee & Hill drawing them into the battle against orders being the two most obvious examples at the start of the fight.
- The weariness of all concerned at this critical juncture 2 years into the war. Knowing the war dragged on for almost 2 more years afterward makes this even worse, especially given how the battle ended & the casualties they took.
- The heat was awful. I'm listening to this in July, the same month as the battle was fought, sweating my butt off doing light chores. It's hard to imagine men fighting in this weather amidst thick smoke, dust, dirt, & disease.
The reading is great & makes the story really come alive. The only problem was that I didn't have a very good map of the area in my head, so I went looking for one. This map & explanation of day 1 & 2 is pretty good, but it requires you to sign up to go beyond that. I didn't.
http://education-portal.com/academy/l...
I looked a bit further & found this wonderful overview of the entire battle.
http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/...
They call it an animated map, but it has film clips & period pictures as well. The map part is perhaps the best for figuring out where the main players were & how the battle developed. After referring to it once, I didn't need to again. If you get a few of the main places in your head, the story is easy enough to follow.
The Wikipedia entry is very good for an overview, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_o...
The afterword sketches out what happened to the main players that survived the battle. Many of their endings were tragic, but there were a few happy ones. All in all, excellent & it's a book I highly recommend.
June 14, 2016
I've read the book twice, it is a very moving historical novel.
The Killer Angels relates the thoughts and motivations of the leaders in the battle of Gettysburg, as well as details of the crucial actions across the battlefield over three days, as experienced by the leaders and soldiers. Of particular interest are the depictions of the Confederate leaders (Lee, Longstreet, Pickett, et al). Longstreet is presented as arguing against the decision by Lee to take the battle to the Union forces, who had the defensive advantage of the high terrain in the battle. In Longstreet's view, Lee is assuming the role in the battle which he always strove previously to force the Union into taking, that of attacking a good defensive position.
Lee appears to realize at some level that Longstreet is right, but judges that there is a good chance of success, and that success here can turn the war decisively in the South's favor. Shaara's narration of the battle's details make it clear that during the first two days many parts of the action could have gone either way, that it was a very close thing. But Pickett's charge on the third day, although it seemed to get very close to succeeding, in reality had little chance of success.
I can see that some readers could feel that there is just too much psychological speculation in the book. Certainly the thoughts presented are speculative, as they are in any historical fiction. The words could be less so, if they are at times based on written recollections.
But the overall feeling is of such intense realism that it is easy to forget that the book is, after all, a novel, not a work of historical scholarship, though Shaara no doubt engaged in much historical research in writing the work. For example, his portrayal of Longstreet as a reluctant participant in Lee's overall strategy at Gettysburg is almost certainly accurate, since Longstreet was viewed for decades after the war by Southerners as almost a traitor, particularly by the "Lost Cause" partisans, due to this very well-known reluctance at Gettysburg. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lo..., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lo... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cau...)
To this reader, the novel brings the battle to life in a way that no other book I have read on Gettysburg has done.
The Killer Angels relates the thoughts and motivations of the leaders in the battle of Gettysburg, as well as details of the crucial actions across the battlefield over three days, as experienced by the leaders and soldiers. Of particular interest are the depictions of the Confederate leaders (Lee, Longstreet, Pickett, et al). Longstreet is presented as arguing against the decision by Lee to take the battle to the Union forces, who had the defensive advantage of the high terrain in the battle. In Longstreet's view, Lee is assuming the role in the battle which he always strove previously to force the Union into taking, that of attacking a good defensive position.
Lee appears to realize at some level that Longstreet is right, but judges that there is a good chance of success, and that success here can turn the war decisively in the South's favor. Shaara's narration of the battle's details make it clear that during the first two days many parts of the action could have gone either way, that it was a very close thing. But Pickett's charge on the third day, although it seemed to get very close to succeeding, in reality had little chance of success.
I can see that some readers could feel that there is just too much psychological speculation in the book. Certainly the thoughts presented are speculative, as they are in any historical fiction. The words could be less so, if they are at times based on written recollections.
But the overall feeling is of such intense realism that it is easy to forget that the book is, after all, a novel, not a work of historical scholarship, though Shaara no doubt engaged in much historical research in writing the work. For example, his portrayal of Longstreet as a reluctant participant in Lee's overall strategy at Gettysburg is almost certainly accurate, since Longstreet was viewed for decades after the war by Southerners as almost a traitor, particularly by the "Lost Cause" partisans, due to this very well-known reluctance at Gettysburg. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lo..., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lo... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cau...)
To this reader, the novel brings the battle to life in a way that no other book I have read on Gettysburg has done.
June 26, 2023
The Classic Novel Of Gettysburg
Although it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1975, Michael Shaara's novel "The Killer Angels" (1974) was little-noted when it first appeared. The stature of the book has grown with time. It was used in a television series of the Civil War and in a movie version of the Battle of Gettysburg. The novel has been criticized on various grounds. Sharra's factual account of the battle and the importance he ascribes to Little Round Top can be challenged. Shaara focuses too much on the high command of the two armies and gives too little attention to the soldiers in the ranks. Shaara minimizes the importance of slavery to the conflict. For all these criticisms, this book remains a moving account of Gettysburg. It will continue to introduce many Americans to the Battle and encourage them to reflect and get beyond some of the factual limitations of the book. The book is taught in history and literature classes and properly so as it introduces new generations of Americans to their history. It has also appeared in this relatively new Modern Library edition to replace the old dog-eared paperback. The remainder of this review is drawn primarily from the review I wrote some time ago of the earlier edition.
This is an outstanding work of historical fiction that deserves the praise it has received. There is much more to this novel than can be captured in any movie or TV series on the Civil War. The book is a fitting introduction to the Civil War and to the Battle of Gettysburg. The book illustrates a lesson too easily forgotten --how fiction, creatively done, has the power to give meaning to fact.
The Battle of Gettysburg took place from July 1 -- July 3, 1863. Although some students of the Civil War tend to downplay its importance to the result of the conflict in favor of the the surrender of Vicksburg to Grant on July 4, 1863, Gettysburg remains a pivotal event in the war. It has been written about endlessly.
Michael Shaara's novel is in four large chapters, one for each day of the battle together with an introductory chapter setting the stage. The story is told in sections devoted alternately to the perspectives and roles of many of the leading protagonists: the Confederate Commanding General Robert E. Lee, his "old war horse" the controversial James Longstreet, and Lewis Armistead, more of whom below. Shaara also describes the British military attache Freemantle, who was a guest in the Confederate camp during the battle and who wrote an important memoir describing his experience. On the Union side Shaara focuses on Joshua Chamberlain, a bookish college professor from Maine who became the hero of Little Round Top, and General John Buford, the cavalry commander whose actions delayed the Confederate advance at the outset of the battle.
There are many excellent historical studies of the Battle of Gettysburg. The most important is the long study by Edward Coddington. Both Steven Sears and Noah Trudeau have written two recent extended studies of the battle. Detailed specialized studies have been written on every aspect of the battle including Buford's role on the first day, Little Round Top on the second day, and Pickett's charge on the third day. These and other works make difficult, challenging reading. It is worth thinking about how such studies differ in intent and content from the novelistic portrayal of the Battle of Gettysburg in "The Killer Angels."
The novel gives a vivid picture of each of the three days of the battle, but it is more selective, focused picture than we get in the histories. The novel concentrates on the events on Little Round Top -- the far left of the Union line on the second day of the battle, July 2. The hero is Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and his men from the twentieth Maine who hold of a furious Confederate charge over the boulders of Little Round Top led by William Oates of Mississippi and help save the Union position. Many years after the battle, Chamberlain and Oates would write extensively about Little Round Top and correspond with each other. Some historians tend to discount the importance of Little Round Top to the result at Gettysburg. Whether or not they are correct, Shaara's novel shows the human drama of the battle in the way a narrative history generally cannot. He captures the heroism on both sides at this revered site.
The novel also concentrates on Pickett's doomed charge on the third day of Gettysburg. He offers a portrayal of General Lewis Armistead, one the the three Confederate General's serving in General Pickett's division. In the pre-Civil War army, Armistead had been a great friend of the Union General, Winfield Scott Hancock who performed admirably on each of the three days of Gettysburg. Armistead died after crossing the Union line in the charge and, as legend has it, with his dying breath asked for Hancock's forgiveness.
The novel form allows the writer to concentrate on specific scenes, as Shaara does well in "The Killer Angels", to a degree the historian cannot. The novel also allows the writer freedom to explore introspectively. The novelist may describe the thoughts of the protagonists to a degree that goes beyond the historical record. Sharra exploits this possibility to the utmost. He gives the reader interchanges between Lee and Longstreet, for example, that are entirely plausible, that make them come alive, and that cast great light upon their activities and motivations during the Battle. We see a great deal of Colonel Chamberlain, of course. The reader hears Sharra recreating Chamberlain's innermost thoughts and is encouraged to think about the making of a hero.
The novelistic form also allows Sharaa to use characters to express their views of the meaning of the War. Sharaa gives the reader a picture of what both sides thought they were fighting for and invites the reader to think further about the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg and their significance.
This novel will not replace historical studies for those interested in learning more about the Civil War or about the details of the Battle of Gettysburg. But it is a thoroughly admirable novel which captures something of the harshness and the heroism of the War and of the American character. It will give the careful reader a good understanding, or a good way to work through to an understanding, of the events of these three days in 1863. "The Killer Angels" will encourage the reader to deepen his or her appreciation of, our country's history.
Robin Friedman
Although it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1975, Michael Shaara's novel "The Killer Angels" (1974) was little-noted when it first appeared. The stature of the book has grown with time. It was used in a television series of the Civil War and in a movie version of the Battle of Gettysburg. The novel has been criticized on various grounds. Sharra's factual account of the battle and the importance he ascribes to Little Round Top can be challenged. Shaara focuses too much on the high command of the two armies and gives too little attention to the soldiers in the ranks. Shaara minimizes the importance of slavery to the conflict. For all these criticisms, this book remains a moving account of Gettysburg. It will continue to introduce many Americans to the Battle and encourage them to reflect and get beyond some of the factual limitations of the book. The book is taught in history and literature classes and properly so as it introduces new generations of Americans to their history. It has also appeared in this relatively new Modern Library edition to replace the old dog-eared paperback. The remainder of this review is drawn primarily from the review I wrote some time ago of the earlier edition.
This is an outstanding work of historical fiction that deserves the praise it has received. There is much more to this novel than can be captured in any movie or TV series on the Civil War. The book is a fitting introduction to the Civil War and to the Battle of Gettysburg. The book illustrates a lesson too easily forgotten --how fiction, creatively done, has the power to give meaning to fact.
The Battle of Gettysburg took place from July 1 -- July 3, 1863. Although some students of the Civil War tend to downplay its importance to the result of the conflict in favor of the the surrender of Vicksburg to Grant on July 4, 1863, Gettysburg remains a pivotal event in the war. It has been written about endlessly.
Michael Shaara's novel is in four large chapters, one for each day of the battle together with an introductory chapter setting the stage. The story is told in sections devoted alternately to the perspectives and roles of many of the leading protagonists: the Confederate Commanding General Robert E. Lee, his "old war horse" the controversial James Longstreet, and Lewis Armistead, more of whom below. Shaara also describes the British military attache Freemantle, who was a guest in the Confederate camp during the battle and who wrote an important memoir describing his experience. On the Union side Shaara focuses on Joshua Chamberlain, a bookish college professor from Maine who became the hero of Little Round Top, and General John Buford, the cavalry commander whose actions delayed the Confederate advance at the outset of the battle.
There are many excellent historical studies of the Battle of Gettysburg. The most important is the long study by Edward Coddington. Both Steven Sears and Noah Trudeau have written two recent extended studies of the battle. Detailed specialized studies have been written on every aspect of the battle including Buford's role on the first day, Little Round Top on the second day, and Pickett's charge on the third day. These and other works make difficult, challenging reading. It is worth thinking about how such studies differ in intent and content from the novelistic portrayal of the Battle of Gettysburg in "The Killer Angels."
The novel gives a vivid picture of each of the three days of the battle, but it is more selective, focused picture than we get in the histories. The novel concentrates on the events on Little Round Top -- the far left of the Union line on the second day of the battle, July 2. The hero is Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and his men from the twentieth Maine who hold of a furious Confederate charge over the boulders of Little Round Top led by William Oates of Mississippi and help save the Union position. Many years after the battle, Chamberlain and Oates would write extensively about Little Round Top and correspond with each other. Some historians tend to discount the importance of Little Round Top to the result at Gettysburg. Whether or not they are correct, Shaara's novel shows the human drama of the battle in the way a narrative history generally cannot. He captures the heroism on both sides at this revered site.
The novel also concentrates on Pickett's doomed charge on the third day of Gettysburg. He offers a portrayal of General Lewis Armistead, one the the three Confederate General's serving in General Pickett's division. In the pre-Civil War army, Armistead had been a great friend of the Union General, Winfield Scott Hancock who performed admirably on each of the three days of Gettysburg. Armistead died after crossing the Union line in the charge and, as legend has it, with his dying breath asked for Hancock's forgiveness.
The novel form allows the writer to concentrate on specific scenes, as Shaara does well in "The Killer Angels", to a degree the historian cannot. The novel also allows the writer freedom to explore introspectively. The novelist may describe the thoughts of the protagonists to a degree that goes beyond the historical record. Sharra exploits this possibility to the utmost. He gives the reader interchanges between Lee and Longstreet, for example, that are entirely plausible, that make them come alive, and that cast great light upon their activities and motivations during the Battle. We see a great deal of Colonel Chamberlain, of course. The reader hears Sharra recreating Chamberlain's innermost thoughts and is encouraged to think about the making of a hero.
The novelistic form also allows Sharaa to use characters to express their views of the meaning of the War. Sharaa gives the reader a picture of what both sides thought they were fighting for and invites the reader to think further about the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg and their significance.
This novel will not replace historical studies for those interested in learning more about the Civil War or about the details of the Battle of Gettysburg. But it is a thoroughly admirable novel which captures something of the harshness and the heroism of the War and of the American character. It will give the careful reader a good understanding, or a good way to work through to an understanding, of the events of these three days in 1863. "The Killer Angels" will encourage the reader to deepen his or her appreciation of, our country's history.
Robin Friedman
September 18, 2022
Re-read this classic (for a third time) as research for a novel I'm writing.
September 16, 2021
Outstanding historical fiction
An even handed account of the Battle of Gettysburg through the eyes of various participants. Not just military moves but the personalities involved are explored in this fair minded, detailed account of the battle. Undoubtedly the modern woke crowd would dislike this book if they bothered to read it.
An even handed account of the Battle of Gettysburg through the eyes of various participants. Not just military moves but the personalities involved are explored in this fair minded, detailed account of the battle. Undoubtedly the modern woke crowd would dislike this book if they bothered to read it.
February 19, 2016
“The Killer Angels” is a book that you have to stick with. The last 100 pages or so are far superior to the first 100, so don’t give up in the early going. The text is fine, but the early chapters seem like the characters are pontificating, some of them are, and the writing can be a little wooden. This is partly due to the fact that Mr. Shaara is establishing character, and due to the book’s formatting. The novel is set out in chapters from alternating viewpoints, and it works, but it takes time to get into the stride.
The text is divided in four parts, each one dealing with a specific day from June 29th to July 3rd 1863. The last two sections are easily the most engaging, and once you get to that point in the book you will plow through it. The section on July 2nd 1863 contains a nice scene where union troops encounter a black man for the first time. It feels quaint and dated and yet accurate and honest at the same time. The chapter dealing with Joshua L. Chamberlain’s defense of Little Round Top on the second day of the battle of Gettysburg is excellent writing, and will keep the reader completely in the moment.
The novel’s final part, July 3rd 1863, is easily the strongest aspect of the book. Mainly because it focuses mostly on the novel’s two best drawn characters, Joshua Chamberlain and James Longstreet. Longstreet’s last chapter in the text is gut wrenching and beautiful. If there was a hero for the Confederacy at Gettysburg Shaara paints him as that man. Shaara also does a nice job in Chamberlain’s last chapter in foreshadowing the great warrior that Joshua L. Chamberlain was to become in the remainder of the war. He gets enjoyment from the carnage of war, and is troubled and titillated by it. This complex emotional life is well drawn by the author.
Ironically, one of the least interesting characters in the text is Robert E. Lee and the chapters from his perspective are the most exasperating in the book. Perhaps that is because his decisions at Gettysburg seem so obviously bad from our vantage point, but I think it is also because he is such a poorly written character in this novel. Regardless, there are plenty of counterbalances to the chapters dealing with him. Especially the chapter detailing Pickett’s Charge, which is told from the perspective of one of Pickett’s brigade commanders, Lew Armistead. That chapter is among the book’s best. It is thrilling, harrowing, and immediate writing.
“The Killer Angels” is a book for people interested in historical fiction, and especially the Civil War. I am not sure that it you don’t already have an interest in those things that this novel would spark it. But it might. It is certainly the best novel of the Civil War that I have come across.
The text is divided in four parts, each one dealing with a specific day from June 29th to July 3rd 1863. The last two sections are easily the most engaging, and once you get to that point in the book you will plow through it. The section on July 2nd 1863 contains a nice scene where union troops encounter a black man for the first time. It feels quaint and dated and yet accurate and honest at the same time. The chapter dealing with Joshua L. Chamberlain’s defense of Little Round Top on the second day of the battle of Gettysburg is excellent writing, and will keep the reader completely in the moment.
The novel’s final part, July 3rd 1863, is easily the strongest aspect of the book. Mainly because it focuses mostly on the novel’s two best drawn characters, Joshua Chamberlain and James Longstreet. Longstreet’s last chapter in the text is gut wrenching and beautiful. If there was a hero for the Confederacy at Gettysburg Shaara paints him as that man. Shaara also does a nice job in Chamberlain’s last chapter in foreshadowing the great warrior that Joshua L. Chamberlain was to become in the remainder of the war. He gets enjoyment from the carnage of war, and is troubled and titillated by it. This complex emotional life is well drawn by the author.
Ironically, one of the least interesting characters in the text is Robert E. Lee and the chapters from his perspective are the most exasperating in the book. Perhaps that is because his decisions at Gettysburg seem so obviously bad from our vantage point, but I think it is also because he is such a poorly written character in this novel. Regardless, there are plenty of counterbalances to the chapters dealing with him. Especially the chapter detailing Pickett’s Charge, which is told from the perspective of one of Pickett’s brigade commanders, Lew Armistead. That chapter is among the book’s best. It is thrilling, harrowing, and immediate writing.
“The Killer Angels” is a book for people interested in historical fiction, and especially the Civil War. I am not sure that it you don’t already have an interest in those things that this novel would spark it. But it might. It is certainly the best novel of the Civil War that I have come across.
August 3, 2023
So this is tragedy. Yes. He nodded. In the presence of real tragedy you feel neither pain nor joy nor hatred, only a sense of enormous space and time suspended, the great doors open to black eternity, the rising across the terrible field of that last enormous, unanswerable question.
This Pulitzer-Prize winning historical novel - which inspired Ken Burns' Civil War documentary and served as the basis for the film "Gettysburg" - stands with All Quiet on the Western Front in delineating the horrors and costs of war on the human spirit even when the cause is just. Nitpicking minor historical inaccuracies is beside the point; Shaara emphasizes the internal thoughts and doubts of his chosen characters, focusing not on the grunt soldiers but instead mainly on mid-level officers who were not involved in creating the battle plans yet had to order their soldiers - friends and relatives and neighbors in many cases - to fight and die although the odds were difficult and challenging and maybe even hopeless. Although some claim that the story of the battle is inspirational, one wonders how an American reading audience in 1974 - while the country was still ensnared in the Vietnam conflict, a year before the fall of Saigon - received the story of an army awash in the hubristic glow of prior victories fighting a tactically inadvisable war with a lack of clear moral righteousness and scant support from the local populace.
You can hold nothing back when you attack. You must commit yourself totally. And yet, if they all die, a man must ask himself, will it have been worth it?
This Pulitzer-Prize winning historical novel - which inspired Ken Burns' Civil War documentary and served as the basis for the film "Gettysburg" - stands with All Quiet on the Western Front in delineating the horrors and costs of war on the human spirit even when the cause is just. Nitpicking minor historical inaccuracies is beside the point; Shaara emphasizes the internal thoughts and doubts of his chosen characters, focusing not on the grunt soldiers but instead mainly on mid-level officers who were not involved in creating the battle plans yet had to order their soldiers - friends and relatives and neighbors in many cases - to fight and die although the odds were difficult and challenging and maybe even hopeless. Although some claim that the story of the battle is inspirational, one wonders how an American reading audience in 1974 - while the country was still ensnared in the Vietnam conflict, a year before the fall of Saigon - received the story of an army awash in the hubristic glow of prior victories fighting a tactically inadvisable war with a lack of clear moral righteousness and scant support from the local populace.
You can hold nothing back when you attack. You must commit yourself totally. And yet, if they all die, a man must ask himself, will it have been worth it?
February 15, 2011
Normally when I hear a book won a major literary prize I run screaming in the opposite direction, but the topic has always interested me and the way the author dealt with the subject had me turning the pages like a novel.
Being an Aussie, the American Civil war was just something I was taught at school, it had no real relevance. Undoubtedly, US citizens have a totally different perspective from their much closer connection. So I understand if for some of you the book is overload of stuff you've been exposed to all your life.
Killer Angels by Michael Shaara is not a new book, in fact it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction back in 1975. It's based on the Battle of Gettysburg and looks at the action through the eyes of the significant characters of the different stages of the short but bloody battle.
In presenting history like this, the reader is very dependant on trusting the author to have done his research and is not cheating by switching a character's motivations or aims to fit the "story". In fact at times, I was imagining how Steven Spielberg would have filmed this. Would he have "killed off" certain characters just to make the drama more poignant?
It did read more like a novel. I couldn't wait to find out whether both Chamberlain brothers survived or whether Lee would ever admit his tactics were wrong.
If we can make the assumption that the author just "gives us the facts Ma'am", then after reading "Killer Angels" you definitely get a better insight not only into why one side lost and one side won, or why so many men were killed in senseless attacks, but it also tells you something about the stubbornness, courage and faith men can demonstrate.
To me the whole scenario in which the battle was fought seemed more like two macho guys arm wrestling in a pub to see who would take the pretty girl home. But maybe that's the whole point. The battle was senseless in some ways.
This wasn't for control of a strategic position or to capture a town and its produce, this was a war of attrition to see who could continue to field more men into the fight as carnage whittled away the numbers. Almost as if there was an underlying vote involved, but in this case, the winner was the one who could put the most bodies on the line.
The characters of the men involved shine through and in an epilogue we find out what happened to them afterwards. Having got to know them from the excellent way Michael Shaara got inside their heads to explain why they acted the way they did, we can extrapolate out how the rest of their life would have gone from the few facts included.
If more history was told like this, we'd all be clamoring to learn it at school.
Being an Aussie, the American Civil war was just something I was taught at school, it had no real relevance. Undoubtedly, US citizens have a totally different perspective from their much closer connection. So I understand if for some of you the book is overload of stuff you've been exposed to all your life.
Killer Angels by Michael Shaara is not a new book, in fact it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction back in 1975. It's based on the Battle of Gettysburg and looks at the action through the eyes of the significant characters of the different stages of the short but bloody battle.
In presenting history like this, the reader is very dependant on trusting the author to have done his research and is not cheating by switching a character's motivations or aims to fit the "story". In fact at times, I was imagining how Steven Spielberg would have filmed this. Would he have "killed off" certain characters just to make the drama more poignant?
It did read more like a novel. I couldn't wait to find out whether both Chamberlain brothers survived or whether Lee would ever admit his tactics were wrong.
If we can make the assumption that the author just "gives us the facts Ma'am", then after reading "Killer Angels" you definitely get a better insight not only into why one side lost and one side won, or why so many men were killed in senseless attacks, but it also tells you something about the stubbornness, courage and faith men can demonstrate.
To me the whole scenario in which the battle was fought seemed more like two macho guys arm wrestling in a pub to see who would take the pretty girl home. But maybe that's the whole point. The battle was senseless in some ways.
This wasn't for control of a strategic position or to capture a town and its produce, this was a war of attrition to see who could continue to field more men into the fight as carnage whittled away the numbers. Almost as if there was an underlying vote involved, but in this case, the winner was the one who could put the most bodies on the line.
The characters of the men involved shine through and in an epilogue we find out what happened to them afterwards. Having got to know them from the excellent way Michael Shaara got inside their heads to explain why they acted the way they did, we can extrapolate out how the rest of their life would have gone from the few facts included.
If more history was told like this, we'd all be clamoring to learn it at school.
Read
April 22, 2017tuck the 1987 edition under the quilt and let it sleep then
reread this edition by now...
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reread this edition by now...
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December 1, 2014
easily one of the best books i've ever read in my life. just completely floored me. i don't give a shit about history, war, america, the military... i don't care about any of this stuff. like, at all. but this book was amazing. i just cried the whole way through. for every single character. even the ones who lived. especially the ones who lived.
this was like a Bleak House, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page type situation. i forget books can be this good.
this was like a Bleak House, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Book of Ebenezer Le Page type situation. i forget books can be this good.
November 29, 2024
"Can you hear me, son?"
"I can hear you, sir."
"Will you tell General Hancock, please, that General Armistead sends his regrets. Will you tell him... how very sorry I am..."
sir that was ABSOLUTELY UNCALLED FOR, OVER THE LINE, OUT OF BOUNDS
full review on my blog: https://iamcharlesbakerharris.wordpre...
"I can hear you, sir."
"Will you tell General Hancock, please, that General Armistead sends his regrets. Will you tell him... how very sorry I am..."
sir that was ABSOLUTELY UNCALLED FOR, OVER THE LINE, OUT OF BOUNDS
full review on my blog: https://iamcharlesbakerharris.wordpre...
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