The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War

Fabulous insight into the military mind, the minds of men, the minds of people dedicated to actions and ideals greater than themselves. Kurt Vonnegut is said to have revealed the secret of fiction as, "Create characters the reader cares about, then do something terrible to them." Mr. Shaara gives us a dozen characters worth caring about -- from both armies -- and then plunges them into one of the most terrible things to happen on American soil: the cataclysmic Battle of Gettysburg. The book is a model of storytelling, and beautifully written. My brother, who earned a Masters in American History just for the fun of it, warned me to start it early in the day because I would not want to put it down. Instead, I savored it for a week; thinking often during my days and nights of these men and their trials. I read a lot of history and biography, but this is the first book I have ever read on the American Civil War, a/k/a the War Between the States, unless you count the Red Badge of Courage. I was always repulsed by the massive slaughter of Americans by Americans over human slavery. I relented after a business associate suggested that the Gettysburg Battlefield would be a perfect location for one of our sales executive training sessions. He recommended the novel The Killer Angels and Gettysburg , the movie it inspired, as the first steps in my personal research. He assured me that The Killer Angels, though written in the style of a novel, was a highly accurate portrayal of the action and the command challenges at Gettysburg. Since he had taught Civil War history at West Point, I took his advice. [The first words of the book are: "This is the story of the battle of Gettysburg, told from the viewpoints of Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet and some of the other men who fought there. ... I have not consciously changed any fact."] Authors historical and especially military to often find it tempting to display their research and learning by filling each paragraph with jargon and arcania. Michael Shaara stays with concretes and vivid emotions. The writing is so clear that I stopped noticing the style. I was there in the camps, under the artillery, behind the stone wall. I marched, I bled, I prayed that Lee would not order the charge. Michael Shaara takes you there, as soldiers saw the war and army life, with its comradely and outdoorsy appeal as well as its sorrow and terror. "Yet you learn to love it. Isn't that amazing? Long marches and no rest, up very early in the morning and asleep late in the rain, and there's a marvelous excitement to it, a joy to wake in the morning and feel the army all around you and see the campfires in the morning and smell the coffee..." [p. 125] Leadership in those days, as it is today, was all about character, competence, and conduct. As Shaara wrote of Gen. Armistead: "He was one of the men who would hold ground if it could be held; he would die for a word. He was a man to depend on, and there was this truth about war: it taught you the men you could depend on." Other aspects of war are not so clear, such as the reason for the conflict and the motivation of the men who volunteered to fight. Shaara does a masterful job of bringing the complex and unresolvable issues to the reader through the thoughts and arguments of the participants. The conversation on causes and conscience between a Union Colonel and his master Sargent fills the best two pages of the book and explains the title, too. [See pp. 188-9] There's no better summary of their relationship than when the proud and practical Sergeant says, "Colonel, you're a lovely man. I see at last a great difference between us, and yet I admire ye, lad. You're an idealist, praise be." It takes both kinds to make an army. The Killer Angels offers many such insights to the minds of the men who were there, their agonized choices and their loss of choice to duty and circumstance. As when Longstreet was ordered by Lee to command his men into a charge sure to end in carnage and defeat: "What was needed now was control, absolute control. Lee was right about that: a man who could not control himself had no right to command an army. They must not know my doubts, they must not. So I will send them all forward and say nothing, except what must be said. But he looked down at his hands. They were trembling. Control took a few moments. He was not sure he could do it." Shaara gives us not just heroes, but humanity: raw and real. I would add to Vonnegut's recipe one requirement to elevate a good story into a classic text: "Show us people and circumstances which illuminate our own lives." The Killer Angels also excels in that, with insights for all of us, though mainly in safer careers and seeming to compete for lower stakes. Death seldom visits us in our jobs, yet don't doubt that you are giving your life for it, if only by the hour. The end is the same for us as it was for them; glory now harder to find. As Shaara has Lee say, "And does it matter after all who wins? Was that ever really the question? Will God ask that question, in the end?" [p. 360] Forgive me, please, my trespass. The Killer Angels spawns such thoughts. Therein lies its value.

Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels may be the best historical novel I've ever read. (The only close competitor would be Herman Wouk's Winds of War duology, but that is so different in nature as not to be comparable.) My admiration of The Killer Angels is of course widely shared. It won a Pulitzer in 1975 and many other awards.The Killer Angels tells the story of the Battle of Gettysburg from the points of view of some of the military leaders involved. There are 23 chapters. Seven are told from the point of view of Union colonel Joshua Chamberlain, six from the point of view of Confederate general James Longstreet. The third-most featured is Confederate commander-in-chief Robert E Lee, who gets four chapters. I was surprised that so much attention was given to two relatively obscure (to me, at the time) men. Now I know all you Civil War buffs out there are scoffing at me for calling Chamberlain and Longstreet "obscure". Fair enough. But I am not, I think, telling a lie when I say that a kid who learned what he or she knew about the American Civil War in public school in the northeastern USA might never have heard the names of Chamberlain and Longstreet, or at least not heard them in such a way as to be likely to remember a few years later. That was me.The Killer Angels was the first step in remedying this educational defect. Although still far from expert on the Civil War, I have read many a book (including, for instance, Shelby Foote's masterful Civil War trilogy, not to mention that I am at this moment reading Elizabeth Varon's new biography of Longstreet). And I spent one of the more memorable days of my life wandering around Gettysburg National Military Park.Chamberlain is in one way an obvious choice for point of view, because he led one of the most exciting and important actions of the battle, the Defense of Little Round Top. Longstreet is a less obvious choice. Longstreet's role in the battle became controversial because after the war he became a Radical Republican -- a prominent defender of the rights of black people. For this he was vilified as a traitor by Lost Cause Confederate veterans and retroactively blamed for the loss at Gettysburg. Shaara's picture of Longstreet is relatively sympathetic.If you want an exciting, readable, yet for the most part detailed and accurate fictional presentation of one of the most important battles in American history, you will not do better than The Killer Angels.

Incredible insights into the thoughts behind both sides of the war. I would have never picked this one up on my own but I am really grateful to have read it with the high school students in our co-op.

The Shaara’s are some of my favorite writers of historical fiction and this book is my absolute favorite of all of them. I love it so much that I recommend it to anyone I know who is going to visit Gettysburg. It can give you an understanding of the battle in a way unlike any other book that I have read. Reading it gives you a heads up as to how and where the battle played out over the those threes day in July of 1863. Historically it holds water with many of the historical books of the same battle. Shaara has a way of fleshing out historical personalities that draw you to them. You feel how they feel and feel for them. To me it is like you are there! Truly an amazing work about the battle of Gettysburg. I highly recommend it!

Beautifully written account of American history. A must read for all and would be a great book for High School history classes.

Wow! This fictional account of the civil war takes you right into the battlefield, gives insight into the men leading both armies, the horror, the pain and the destruction.

Purchased as a gift, I am told this was an interesting book, well written.Based on a true story it was very informative. My husband thought that the way it was written, with the different viewpoints from the different generals provided more detailed facts and reasoning rather than sweeping generalised statements.The illustrations added to the understanding of the text and by the end of the book, my husband felt he had learned a lot more of the civil war history.He's looking forward to going back and reviewing the different thought patterns of the various generals.The letter from the author at the start of the book sums the book up very well.Certainly a great book to give as a gift or a treat for yourself!Would definately recommend.

Das Buch bietet einen sehr genauen Überblick über den Verlauf der Kämpfe, die Personen werden gut beschrieben. Besonders sympathisch finde ich, dass es keine "Guten" und "Bösen" gibt, sondern Nord-und Südstaatler gleichberechtigt behandelt werden. Obwohl Englisch, ist das Buch sehr gut zu lesen.Auch die Karten sind gut gestaltet.

Es la mejor lección de liderazgo . Analiza los caracteres de los diferentes oficiales generales que participaron en la batalla para mostrarnos sus diferentes estilos de mando

This is my first read on the American Civil War. Although it's a novel about the war but nonetheless describes the battle of Gettysburg very well for anyone who's interested in the subject. Brilliantly written and a very emotional account I must say. I also saw parts of the movie based on the book (Gettysburg 1993) but I found the book definitely has more impact!