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twinspin 's review for:
The Killer Angels
by Michael Shaara
History as romance, this novel glorifies the men and emotions of the Battle at Gettysburg and justifiably is considered as one of the finest novels about war ever written by an American. The late Michael Shaara heroically portrays James Longstreet and Joshua Chamberlain as officers leading men to service on both sides and also tragically shows Robert E. Lee as an aging general who dooms the South to failure on the Pennsylvania fields in the hot summer of 1863.
It's a great novel, but I guess my only fault is whether it's making Gettysburg more important than it really was. The Civil War would continue for almost two full years after Gettysburg and the South even had moments following its loss where those in the North wondered whether they would win the war. You don't get that sense in reading The Killer Angels and even in some of the history textbooks. Immortalized by President Lincoln with his Gettysburg Address and glorified in novels such as Shaara's, Gettysburg deserves to be remembered for the horrific losses it incurred. But it still was just one huge battle in a war that can't be fully defined in a 350-page novel.
It's a great novel, but I guess my only fault is whether it's making Gettysburg more important than it really was. The Civil War would continue for almost two full years after Gettysburg and the South even had moments following its loss where those in the North wondered whether they would win the war. You don't get that sense in reading The Killer Angels and even in some of the history textbooks. Immortalized by President Lincoln with his Gettysburg Address and glorified in novels such as Shaara's, Gettysburg deserves to be remembered for the horrific losses it incurred. But it still was just one huge battle in a war that can't be fully defined in a 350-page novel.