The Killer Angels

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You don’t win glorious honorable battles fighting a defensive war and Lee was addicted to winning battles. The] novel received very little attention, and mixed reviews, thus it was a shock to both Michael and the literary community when the announcement was made that The Killer Angels had been awarded the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction" (Jeff Shaara). It was one of many times while reading this book that Michael Shaara crystallized some thoughts for me. This emotion definitely was felt by Shaara, who described his first visit to Gettysburg as an extraordinary experience. 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.

Most Southern Americans, as do most Americans today, had an expectation that they would be rich someday, the eternal optimists.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.

Unfortunately for the Union he didn’t have long to live or his name may have been further immortalized in Civil War history books. 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. The personalities of the generals and the tactical reasons for their success or defeat in battle are all part of the narrative. Especially the chapter detailing Pickett’s Charge, which is told from the perspective of one of Pickett’s brigade commanders, Lew Armistead.

It was a 2 year slog of trench warfare and horrible casualties while the Union slowly ground Lee's forces down.

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. It was used in a television series of the Civil War and in a movie version of the Battle of Gettysburg. He also tells the story of another officer forgotten by mainstream American history as one of the true heroes of the battle.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. 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 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.