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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
challenging
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
Loved it! I couldn't believe how close the movie Gettysburg and the book were. A very close adaptation.Now I will need to read the others by Shaara.
I read this book once a long time ago and I’ve just finished reading this book now. At no time during either read—nor at any point during the period between reads—have I regretted the choice. A remarkably creative book, with a curious blend of philosophy and gut-wrenching descriptions. One might never understand what the three most violent days in American history were truly like, but this novel certainly paints its own very detailed portrait of what it could have been. I am left with only a quote that struck me peculiarly as a line fit for a Killer Angel, the eponymous descriptor that defines all the book’s (very real) characters.
“The more you kill, the more you do the world a service.”
“The more you kill, the more you do the world a service.”
Ever since I saw the movie Gettysburg at the age of 12, I had wanted to read, and possibly, own, The Killer Angels. I found a paperback copy of the book on shelf of used books in a local bookstore a few years later. I paid $3 for it.
Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. I'm a HUGE Civil War buff and this book helped to fuel my thirst for knowledge. I felt like I was there at the battle. I could picture it clearly in my mind(the movie helped with that since it is the book nearly word for word). Michael Shaara tells about the battle, the circumstances of each army, but he seems to add more than just a run of the mill history book. He breathes life into each character. He makes them human by using dialogue instead of a stuffy, boring, high school description of the battle and the people involved.
I still own my $3 copy of the book 5 years later and I still read it frequently. I'd recommend this book to any American History fan/buff.
Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. I'm a HUGE Civil War buff and this book helped to fuel my thirst for knowledge. I felt like I was there at the battle. I could picture it clearly in my mind(the movie helped with that since it is the book nearly word for word). Michael Shaara tells about the battle, the circumstances of each army, but he seems to add more than just a run of the mill history book. He breathes life into each character. He makes them human by using dialogue instead of a stuffy, boring, high school description of the battle and the people involved.
I still own my $3 copy of the book 5 years later and I still read it frequently. I'd recommend this book to any American History fan/buff.
Shaara takes an historical event-The Battle of Gettysburg-and writes about it in novel form, and the result is living the battle with the main characters. The characters were real people--Robert E.Lee, James "Pete" Longstreet, George Pickett, Lewis Armistead, Ambrose Powell Hill, Richard Ewell, Richard Brooke Garnett, J.E.B.Stuart, and Jubal Early--Confederate generals; General George Meade, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, John Buford, John Reynolds, and Winfield Scott Hancock--all Major Generals and all officers for the Union.
The story of the battle is told through their various points of view--the successes and the failures, as well as their personal struggles they must cope with while engaged in fighting. Lee is ill with heart disease; Longstreet still struggles with grief over the loss of three of his children in one week, due to an identified fever; Chamberlain missing his family in Maine and his realization he will do whatever it takes to win a battle--a realization he isn't comfortable with.
The Battle of Gettysburg lasted for three days in the suppressive heat and humidity of early July. it's one thing to read historical accounts about the battle; it's another to read about the battle as it unfolds and experiencing it from the point of view of the principal commanders involved--Chamberlain making a desperate decision when his men run out of ammunition and the Rebels are charging again in an effort to take Big Round Top--Longstreet arguing with Lee against Pickett's charge and being overruled--Armistead leading that disastrous charge in a last ditch attempt to break the Union lines--Lee's grief over the loss of men.
Recommended for readers of historical fiction and especially those with an interest in the Civil War.
The story of the battle is told through their various points of view--the successes and the failures, as well as their personal struggles they must cope with while engaged in fighting. Lee is ill with heart disease; Longstreet still struggles with grief over the loss of three of his children in one week, due to an identified fever; Chamberlain missing his family in Maine and his realization he will do whatever it takes to win a battle--a realization he isn't comfortable with.
The Battle of Gettysburg lasted for three days in the suppressive heat and humidity of early July. it's one thing to read historical accounts about the battle; it's another to read about the battle as it unfolds and experiencing it from the point of view of the principal commanders involved--Chamberlain making a desperate decision when his men run out of ammunition and the Rebels are charging again in an effort to take Big Round Top--Longstreet arguing with Lee against Pickett's charge and being overruled--Armistead leading that disastrous charge in a last ditch attempt to break the Union lines--Lee's grief over the loss of men.
Recommended for readers of historical fiction and especially those with an interest in the Civil War.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
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 depended upon 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.
<b> “”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.”</b>
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’s 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 serve 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.
The film sticks pretty close to the book, and is probably an improvement on it.