The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War

By Michael Shaara

“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
 
In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fought for two conflicting 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. Bright futures, untested innocence, and pristine beauty were also the casualties of war. Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—the dramatic story of the battleground for America’s destiny.

BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Jeff Shaara's Blaze of Glory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 9, 2010
• ISBN: 9780345513731

Michael Shaara

Michael Shaara (1928-88) was an American writer of science, sports and historical fiction. He served in the Korean War, was an amateur boxer and police officer. He later taught literature at Florida State University. The Killer Angels won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975.

Reviews for The Killer Angels

[kvrfan9 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Though I have previously read some accounts of the battle of Gettysburg, I never understood it so well until reading The Killer Angels. It provides an inspired approach to tell the story: through the eyes of key officers on both sides. By doing so, not only are the tactics employed better explained, but it is in the context of such immediacy that the reader feels he is in the midst of the incident.

It also helps explain how the revered Robert E Lee could have engaged in such an epic blunder, exemplified by the catastrophe of "Picket's Charge."

The Killer Angels won the Pulitzer Prize, and though I don't know what its competition was in the year it won, it certainly can be counted worthy.

[altheaann · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Well-executed, as an embellished recounting of what happened at Gettysburg...it seems well-researched, and gives insight into the minds of men at war. but it doesn't really have everything I look for in a novel.
I can definitely see that it would be LOVED by players of strategy
games, tacticians, and military buffs.
I doubt that there is a better book out there that gives a blow-by-blow recounting of the Battle of Gettysburg, so, four stars.

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Everyone I know who has read this book has enjoyed it, but I am not a war buff and I really thought that an entire novel dedicated to the battle of Gettysburg was a bit too much. But - I was wrong. This book is excellent! It's a wonderful peek into the minds of soldiers and leaders of both sides of this conflict. You get insight on why people fought and how hard it was to fight against neighbors and friends. Not a weeper, but definitely moving.

[publiusdb-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

While looking for some brain candy to read over spring break, I picked this up. It is not brain candy, but it is a fast read, and worth every minute invested. On the other hand, it might just have been the gripping writing that kept me turning pages.

[longhorndaniel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A truly excellent read!! If u have any interest in history then this is a MUST read; I developed an absolute man-crush on several characters most notably Longstreet but especially my new favorite character; Chamberlain; I mean a man’s man!!!! Also found several scoundrels and absolute worthless officers as well but I will let the reader form their own opinions there; All in all a book that not only makes you see the horrors of war but the passion of humankind at the same time; should be a must read on every high school curriculum in American History class!!!

[aglater-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this book, and I am not a Civil War history buff. I was alternating reading, and listening to the 1991 recording by George Guidall. His performance added a lot to my enjoyment. Great book.

[melissarochelle_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read from June 13 to July 06, 2011This is a solid book (great writing!), but I didn't think it was spectacular. While there is some great insight provided regarding decisions made by Lee, I feel like if I'm going to read historical fiction, I would like a little more character development...a little more emotion...a little more Gone with the Wind.I know! I'm such a girl...but I really think this is a book really meant for guys. It's not that I think women won't enjoy it, but I think it appeals to the less-emotional state of men. Does that make sense?I appreciate the holes the novel fills by trying to explain strategic aspects of the Civil War, but the maps included confused me more than helped me. And all the names! Hard to keep it all straight...With all of that said, I'm glad I read it...but more than anything it makes me want to read Gone With the Wind, some John Jakes, and even a little Ken Follett.

[alcracka · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Tolstoy still wins for "Best fight scene," but this is in the running. Quite a large cast of characters, not always well defined, so it was a struggle to keep track of everyone - but it's such a perfect telling of one thing - Gettysburg - that yeah, it's a five star book.

[imperfectcj · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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 explained 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 was peppered with lyrical, powerful passages, but two stood out for me as particularly moving.

One was 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 used language to be powerful, poignant, but not overdone at all. He has a light touch which let the scenes shine through. The writing was easy to read, the story rather less so.

I think I can at 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.

[randystafford · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My reactions to reading this book in 1993. Spoilers follow.I don’t ordinarily read historical novels, so this was a change for me. Generally I prefer my history straight. Reading historical novels for history is like reading sf for science. You may learn something true, but you may also learn a lot of lies and distorted truths. However, I enjoyed this novel a great deal, and I’m told by Civil War buffs it’s very historically accurate. You can argue that doing a novel of a famous battle with all historically accurate characters whose feelings and thoughts and actions were documented by them and others is not that hard. Of course, the hard part is knowing what to include, what to disregard, what to distort. This is all covered by the old saying of art organizing experience. Shaara does a nice job not only of giving a concise (though somewhat condensed) version of the Battle of Gettysburg (and dispels the notion it started over a raiding of shoe warehouses in Gettysburg) complete with maps and a description of what the various officers on both sides hoped to achieve, but he also provides compelling portraits of the various characters and the reasons men fight. Opening epigraphs from before, after, and urin he battle show that men fight for abstract ideals, friends, and their state – literally in the Civil War -- and God. Shaara says the motivations of characters are his own. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain came across as a totally believeable, clever man who has some strange mental wanderings during combat. The characters of Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet were the best things in this novel. Longstreet, a proponent of defensive war, is Lee’s friend and th advisor trusted most. But Lee won’t listen to Longstreet in the Battle though he seeks out Longstreet’s advice. For his part, Longstreet admires and respects Lee, is faithful to him, but gradually we see Longstreet lose faith – though not devotion or love – in Lee as he orders increasingly futile moves culminating in Pickett’s Charge. Longstreet’s view of Lee is a seemingly (to me) novel one and thought provoking. He sees Lee’s great assets as his men’s devotion, his decisiveness, and confidence and faith in his cause; he’s the embodiment of the aristocratic Southerner’s view that faith in a cause and mere courage are enough to win. Longstreet knows these are not enough against the new technologies of war. Far from seeing Lee as devious (as the delightful British military observor Freemantle says), Longstreet sees him as merely being fortunate in not meeting a competent Union general. Longstreet’s character is increasingly depressed at the senseless tactics he sees the South use and the men who cheerfully go to their deaths using them. Lee seems, at times, a fantatical man who is convinced that Gettysburg is a sign of divine favor, a Southern victory that can be grasped with a willingness to sacrifice as much of his army as is necessary.The telling of Pickett’s Charge through the eyes of Louis Armistead was well done and moving as well as his love for his friend Winfield Hancock, an officer on the Union side who will meet him as he dies. I liked the opening bits with Harrison the spy and John Buford, a Union officer, who realizes Gettysburg’s topographical value. The fascination with the Battle of Gettysburg is obvious. Not only was it big (in both numbers and length) and significant, but there were many times when it hinged on small acts (relatively speaking given the size of the forces), a few minutes, and moments of hesitation, indecision, and competence. This battle had several turning points. An all around excellent, informative, well done book of battle and character

[ehousewright-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beyond helping you to understand the facts of this key battle (lots of maps showing positions on day 1, 2, 3) this book gets inside several major participants, showing some very positively (Chamberlain, Longstreet) and others (notably Ewell, Stuart and even Lee) as contributing to the negative outcome for the South.

It was striking to me how much “science” there was (is?) to “military science” . I’m not sure why this was so surprising to me. For example, quoting Chamberlain:

“Now here’s the move. Keeping up the fire, and keeping a tight hold on the Eighty-third, we refuse the line. Men will sidestep to the left, thinning out to twice the present distance. See that boulder? When we reach that point we’ll refuse the line, form a new ine at right angles. That boulder will be the salient. Let’s place the colors there, right? Five. Now you go on back and move your men in sidestep and form a new line to the boulder, and then back from the boulder like a swinging door. I assume that, ah, F Company will take the point. Clear? Any questions?”

Shaara also shows that there was very little agreement, especially in the South, about what the war was about. Most seemed amazed that slavery was brought up so often and a conversation with a Southern prisoner was related in which he declared it was about “rats” [rights], he wasn’t sure what they were, but knew some were being kept from him and that is why he was fighting.

Concerns about family and friends were highlighted—Chamberlain’s wife didn’t want him to go to war, preferring university life, Longstreet had recently lost his three children to a fever, Armistead had vowed that God should strike him dead if he ever fought his dearest friend. These all too human thoughts and concerns influenced their motivations, actions and decisions.

Truly an outstanding book.

[ab_gayle_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[shesinplainview · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful, powerful, better than a history book. You not only enjoy learning exactly what happened but you feel you know the characters personally as well.

[fieldsli · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fictionalized account of four days in July 1863 at the Battle of Gettysburg. The point of view of the Southern forces is represented by Generals Robert jE. Lee and James Longstreet, while Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and Gerneral John Buford are the focus of the North.

[robinthoman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A friend passed this paperback on to my for my enjoyment and it has become my new favorite historic novel about the events immediately before and during the 3 days of battles at Gettysburg told in a deliberate and understated fashion through the eyes and voices of Union and Confederate generals. An insight into the Fog of War can be gleaned from the thoughts and actions of these extraordinary heroic and substantially normal characters from our heritage.I would have returned to Roger sooner but my wife picked it up quickly after I finished and read it coincidentally throughout our June 29th to July 3rd vacation.

[iudita_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of the best books about war that I have ever read. It is the story of the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War. I loved this story because it was told from the perspective of the leaders on both sides of the battle. It is a very human story. The focus is on the strategy of the battle and the feelings and opinions of the men responsible for the decisions. I really learned a lot from reading this book. It was an amazing history lesson wrapped up in a moving and emotional story.

[meroof30 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book gets inside the heads of the military leaders involved in the Battle of Gettysburg. An historical novel that shows the true horror of a war that pitted relatives and friends against each other. I couldn't put it down

[cyderry · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"They all died, and they accomplished nothing."The words keep reverberating in my mind. This book is a fictitious though historically accurate account of the Battle of Gettysburg from the viewpoint of several of the highest ranking officers from both the Union and Confederate Armies.The reader sees the indecision and heartbreak related to the commands of Robert E Lee and General Longstreet for the Confederates and Col. Chamberlain for the Union. We are also gifted with the stunning facts that if a few changes had been made, the outcome could have been quite different. Robert E. Lee is frequently touted as a superb tactician but here we are exposed to a failure on his part to listen to his second in command with .But after all is said and done, "They all died, and they accomplished nothing."

[auntmarge64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Quite simply: Magnificent. The story of the Battle of Gettysburg, told from the viewpoints of several Union and Confederate officers; a novel, but based largely on memoirs and other primary materials, and studded with maps. The causes of the war are barely touched on. That's not the point. The focus is on the experience of this particular battle, of decisions being made and carried out, of love, fear, loyalty, and the pain of warring against friends. The book begins with a few pages about the major characters' real lives, and it ends with a few pages about those who survived, some not for long. The two primary figures are Lieutenant General James Longstreet, Lee's second-in-command, and Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, commander of the 20th Maine Regiment, which on the second day maintained the left flank of the Union line against a Confederate charge with a desperate charge against the Confederates themselves, using bayonets after running out of ammunition. Despite Longstreet's arguments, Lee decided on the third day to charge straight into the middle of the Union forces (Pickett's Charge), bringing about a decisive defeat and the turn of the war towards the Union. There is no political agenda here, no side taken. There are only men in an extraordinary situation. Intensely moving and beautifully rendered.

[carebear10712 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this novel. The Civil War fascinates me, as I think it does many others, and it makes me so sad. The section on Pickett's charge made me bawl. I obviously don't ultimately wish that the South had won, but reading this made me want to yell, "Don't do that!" My heart broke for Lee and Longstreet and all the other Southerners involved in the Civil War. I have fond memories of watching this movie with my Dad, but the book blows the movie away.

[scaryguy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The only downside to this book was my particular edition. It had enough typos to be noticeable. Shaara delivers a great account of the single most important battle of the American Civil War. His easy prose is enough to cradle the reader into the shadows of each scene, an invisible presence that takes part as if first hand. All the reader has to do is read out and touch the past.

[dbeveridge_6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is one of those life-changing books to me, a near perfect execution of history fictionalized. Like Vidal's "Lincoln," that this book gave me the gift of coming to know the people behind the names I known since I was an elementary school Civil War buff, particularly Lee and Longstreet. Heartbreakingly real.Note: I discovered this book when someone at National Geographic gave me a copy of the US Army's reading list for officers. It was at the top of the list.

[godsrbored · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Killer Angels is a historical novel that tells the story of the Battle of Gettysburg through the eyes, conversations, and thoughts of the participants. The central character is a bookish, not particularly enthusiastic commander from Maine named Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain who -- by the vicissitudes of bloody warfare on hilly farmland -- finds himself and his unit at the very center, very pivotal point in the three-day battle.This story is amazing in its "you are there" quality. Through direct and indirect characterization, Shaara brings many of the most important personalities of the Civil War to vivid life, including the majestic Robert E. Lee and the doomed General Pickett.I have read The Killer Angels three times and could happily go take it off my shelf again and spend the afternoon reading it. Having recently seen the potential U.S. national standards for high school literacy, I was absolutely thrilled to see The Killer Angels on the list as an exemplar of American literature. Never was an honor so deserved for a piece of work.

[bookworm12_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Most Americans know at least a little bit about the Civil War. I may know a bit more than some, because when I was 12, my history buff parents took our family on a three-week tour of all the Civil War battlegrounds. Because of that I think I've always been especially fascinated by the Civil War. It was so full of contradictions, brother fighting brother, a nation turned against itself. The Killer Angels is the best book I've read on the subject. It shows how thin the lines were between the two armies. Soldiers frequently knew the people they were fighting against. The Killer Angels deals with the battle at Gettysburg, which is considered the turning point in the war. Shaara delves into the thoughts of the men who orchestrated the battle, specifically General Lee and General Longstreet on the confederate side and Col. Chamberlain on the Union side. Each of the men made decisions they regretted or struggled with and none of them walked away completely unscathed. I can pinpoint the exact moment when the book hooked me. Colonel Chamberlain is presented with 120 men who tried to abandon their posts and head home. He is torn about how to convince them to stay. He's instructed to shoot them if they leave, but instead he stands in front of them and gives a speech about why they are fighting and the beauty and truth of his words inspire all but six of the men to fight with him. It's no surprise this won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It's brilliantly researched and written. I understand why Shaara chose to make it a fiction book. Even though it's based on fact, making it a "fiction" book gave him the freedom to express the men's feelings and thoughts, which prevents the book from feeling dry. Shaara's main focus is on the leaders' decisions that led to the battle and the motivations behind those decisions. It's not a quick, entertaining read, but it's one that is so important to fully understand what our nation has gone through to get to this point. It's a heartbreaking story, because it's our country, destroying itself. One of the things that stood out to me the most was the confederate soldiers feelings about the war. They didn't believe like they were fighting for slavery, they believed they were fighting for their states freedoms. They were fighting because they loved their state and were loyal to it. Even though there were wonderful things that came about because of it, it was truly a tragic war.

[anitatally · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It takes a great writer to get me interested in a military battle, generals, strategies, etc. This author makes Gettysburg come alive by making the participants into real people.

[bell7_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Gettysburg. A three day fight in the middle of the American Civil War that was in many ways a pivotal moment that brought eventual northern victory. The Killer Angels focuses on each day of the battle from multiple perspectives: Joshua Chamberlain, the leader of a Maine division whose brother is with him; General Longstreet, a Virginian who argues with General Lee but does his duty as a soldier; General Lee, commander of the southern army who seeks God's will and fought for man and soil over country; and many others.This is the book on which the movie Gettysburg was based. Just as when I was watching the movie, there was so much going on and so many people that I sometimes lost track of who I was following. The maps were really helpful in understanding strategy, which gave a good amount of detail without getting overwhelmingly technical. Shaara's style was often staccato bursts of sentence fragments and not the prettiest-sounding prose, but his descriptions of warfare were heartbreaking and vivid.

[thewanderingjew_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A friend told me that the best Civil War novel ever written was Killer Angels. After reading it, I totally agree. The novel is expertly read by Stephen Hoye. It is well written and informative without ever being tedious. The Civil War practically danced across the pages with a ferocity that captivated me. I could smell the smoke from explosions, feel the dust in the fields and see the bodies sacrificed and bloodied. The narrative is so brutally honest that it touches a nerve. Why was this war fought, to free slaves, to prop up and support the economy, to guarantee man’s rights according to the interpretation of the Constitution? If cooler heads prevailed, could there have been another way to solve the country’s problems? This book, which was written four decades ago, is still very relevant.The Battle of Gettysburg was brutal over the course of four nightmarish days. The author captured the minds and hearts of his characters as he made them real and put the reader on the battlefield. The battlefield erupts as if the reader was in its midst. The soldiers and officers take on a life of their own. It is not fraught with filthy language or unnecessary sex; it is not fraught with silly dialogue. It is fraught with emotion and a reality you can almost reach out and touch.I felt the pain in General Lee’s arm, the exhaustion of General Longstreet. My heart ached for Longstreet who had to follow orders even though he knew it would lead his men to death. He had to witness and accept the folly of foolish generals and politicians, like Stuart who failed to warn General Lee of the troop movements of the Union, who managed to miss this key battle and might have been the catalyst for their defeat. Then it ached alternately for the opposite side, the Union, for Chamberlain as he tried to protect his brother, fought a battle that he didn’t think he could win, took a hill and held it against all odds. I felt his courage as he yelled fix bayonets and charged the enemy on what he thought was a suicide mission, without ammunition, and yet winning that decisive battle, defeating an enemy greater in number by sheer force of will. Was it fate, destiny? I began to understand the weight of the burden the generals bore, the decisions that concerned life and death that had to be made, and the arrogance that was the catalyst for failure. In the end, though, it felt like luck prevailed for one side or another very capriciously. The reader will witness the excitement of the soldiers who loved the violent action, the beauty of the exploding shells and the flight of the bullets whizzing by. The reader may wonder at their madness but will know and understand that they are loyal and devoted to their cause, no matter what side they are on, the Union or Confederacy. You can taste the frustration and fear of the generals as they contemplate decisions that will take men’s lives and then wonder at the coldness of their resolve afterwards, knowing that it was their only choice at the time, or so they thought.I love this book because even though it is a fictional military novel, it is based on fact. It isn’t crude or so violent that it becomes unreadable, and it has only a rare moment of questionable language. These soldier's behavior seemed so civilized; the officers were thoughtful and well educated, and many were West Point trained, though perhaps inexperienced in battle, and ridiculed at times. While there was honor as well as stupid blind obedience, there was also loyalty and devotion to a cause. They had to trust one another to survive or fall, and most did both honorably.The sad thing is that friend was forced to fight friend, becoming sudden enemies. Family members suddenly found themselves on opposite sides. In the end it epitomized the futility of war. There is so much loss and suffering to attain a goal. Hopefully, someday, we will find a better way to resolve conflict.

[deaconbernie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jeff's father has written a book about just the Battle of Gettysburg. It plods in places but places one right in the battle. Clearly, the way Lee fought the battle was not the best way but amazingly, except for a few criticisms and his own admission of failure, Lee is not blamed. It's almost as if Lee was a god. Shaara insinuates health issues for Lee through out the first 3/4 of the book. He also describes a Confederate army that has no concept of defeat and an inability to accept its limitations.

[christineellei · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This summer a friend and I were trying to decide on a destination for a short trip. We knew it had to be reasonably close, because we only had what amounted to an extended weekend but it also had to be far enough to make it seem like a mini vacation. We were suffering from a terrible case of the "been there, done thats" when my friend mentioned a long time desire to visit Gettysburg. A desire brought on by playing a video game of all things. Although I had no overwhelming desire to visit Gettysburg, it turned out to be a fascinating destination, which led me to pick up some books to find out more about what I had learned while visiting. I generally shy away from three genres of books ... westerns, sci-fi and war ... this was definitely an exception to the rule.

Where GODS AND GENERALS (Jeff Shaara) focuses on the years leading up to the Civil War, Michael Shaara’s book covers primarily the three days of fighting at Gettysburg. The events immediately before and during the battle are “seen through the eyes of Confederate Generals Lee, Longstreet, and Armistead and Federal General Buford, Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain, and a host of others”. (Quote from the book cover)

While the book seems to be well researched (Despite my visit to Gettysburg I am still in no position to judge this fact with any accuracy) it is a work of historical fiction. I was not looking for a history book; I was looking for a book to give me the flavor of those years and possibly some understanding of this period in U.S. history. My needs were met.

[ibkennedy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Remarkable stories. One of my favorites.