The Killer Angels is a novel written by Michael Shaara which tells the story of the four day battle of Gettysburg from June 30 and ended July 3, 1863.There were two armies in the novel the Union and the Confederate soliders who eneded up fighting in a town called Gettysburg located in Pennsylvania. In the novel, there are four major characters who were all Generals, General Lee, General Longstreet, General Pickett, and Colonel Chamberlain.The main cause of the war was the confederate wanting to split from the North and be an independent nation. The book allows the reader to see the problems, the decisions, and the reactions of individuals. The book begins with a Confederate scout and his job was to locate the position of the North and count the number of soldiers. The scout takes the information and informs the confederate generals. General James Longstreet wanted to go north to Gettysburg to plan a defense but General Lee wanted to attack instead. The union General, General Buford at the same time rode to Gettysburg to realize the confederates were getting close so he quickly came up with a plan to move to a hill to set up and wait for the confederate army. Unfortunately, the Confederates failed to obtain the high ground on the hills, which allowed the Union army to take defensive action. The novel goes back to when General Lee was wanting to attack the union army and Gen. Longstreet trying to convince Lee that it wasn 't the best option. Gen. Longstreet thought it
In the first chapter it shows the side of the southern Confederate armies. They start to compare the Civil War to the Revolutionary War. Their enemies, known as Northern Yankees, were nothing more than just dictators trying to destroy the south. It’s the same technique the British did to the colonists almost a century ago. This is what gave them their southern freedom, by walking in the shoes of their forefathers and fight for their liberties and constitutional rights. He then starts to talk about the Confederates lives by the letters and journals that they wrote during the Civil War. Each letter talks about different things; how the Southern soldiers felt about the war, talks about their enemies the Yanks, slaves,
Set in the American Civil War, Killer Angels gives the viewpoints of four Generals (Generals Lee & Longstreet from the South and Generals Chamberlain & Buford from the Union) as they fight through the battle of Gettysburg.
Each day of in the book is told from the viewpoint of the generals from the two sides; James Longstreet and Robert E. Lee on the Confederacy's side and John Buford and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
The killer angels is a world acclaimed novel that was written by an author known as Michael Shaara. In the year 1975, it was granted the Pulitzer Prize for creative writing. It gives us in details the occurrences of the four days in the Battle of Gettysburg. This was during the American Civil War that occurred in the year 1863. At this time, troops that comprised of both the Union and Confederacy were at war in town called Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. This is a piece of story that is driven by disposition and narrated from the point of view of various heroes (Hartwig, 1996).
Shaara made the battle of Gettysburg into vivid pictures through the actions of several generals and the events. In this book, Shaara’s way of writing pointed out that the outcome of the war was not an answer to determine who is good or evil. It is about how each character feel it and deal with the circumstance. Good people like Robert Lee could have made bad decisions based on his belief of honor; Harrison, an actor became a paid spy, was the one that was not supposed to be trustworthy performed heroically. These characters separated with their wives and kids, fighting against people from their own
The book The Killer Angels was published in 1975 by the Ballatine Booksand was written by Michael Shaara. The Killer Angels is a historic novel about the time of the American Civil War, more specifically The Battle of Gettysburg. Shaara wrote this historical masterpiece with the sole purpose of letting the reader know exactly how the war was for the men actually putting their lives on the line to get this great country of America to the stature it is today. In order to accomplish his goal of creating the ultimate historic journal of The Battle of Gettysburg, he went straight to the source. He went back and retrieved letters and documents written by the men themselves, who were I the war. What better way to tell a story about one of the most significant battles of American history, then getting the information straight from the warriors who were fighting in the tranches? The book is written from the viewpoints of Robert Edward Lee, James Longstreet, and a couple of other men who were in the war. Robert E. Lee was fifty-seven at the time of the war. He was a highly respected general of the Confederate Army. He was an honest, God following man who had great morals which made a great leader (Killer Angles XVI). He didn’t drink or smoke and would stay away from reading novels and plays because he felt it would make him weak minded for battle (Killer Angles XVI). This is what made him such a great leader, the fact that he lead by example of how a true gentleman and general should
The book's narrative depth, historical accuracy, and thematic resonance make it a seminal work in Civil War literature. However, while Shaara's vivid storytelling captivates the reader, his portrayal of the battle and its significance is not without its criticisms. At the heart of "The Killer Angels" lies Shaara's thesis: that the Battle of Gettysburg was a watershed moment in the Civil War, shaping the course of the conflict and the nation's destiny. Shaara presents this thesis through the perspectives of key figures such as General Robert E. Lee, General James Longstreet, and Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, whose internal struggles and external conflicts serve as microcosms of the larger forces at play. By delving into their thoughts, emotions, and experiences, Shaara humanizes these historical figures, allowing readers to empathize with their dilemmas and decisions.
In the Pulitzer Prize winning civil war novel Killer Angels, Michael Shaara covers five days of the historic battle between the Northern and Southern United States at Gettysburg. Both the North and the South fought for freedom, although they did not have equivalent definitions of freedom. The North and the South were unwavering in their beliefs and their hope for a better United States, but what the two butted heads the most on was slavery. The South was a primarily agrarian region which relied heavily on the agriculture of crops like cotton and sugarcane, both of which required intense manual labor, unlike the North who was more so industrialized; however, as William Preston said, it was not cotton that was “the south’s king” but it was slavery that made them so prosperous. The South relied on slavery because having many workers to tend to these cash crops without having to pay them saved farmers and plantation owner’s money that they could use to buy more slaves that put out more work leading to more land for more crops, or to have more money to pay their taxes. Many Southerners like William Preston thought that owning other people was their divine right as white men. The Civil War was started over the North and South’s conflicting views on whether they had the “civil” right to own or not own slaves. The Northern and Southern states developed themselves much differently than one another because of their agrarian versus industrialized economy. As the states developed they
The book opened with a sodden Confederate spy as he blazed through the Union lines in the dead of night on June 29, 1863 toward the headquarters of Confederate general Robert E. Lee with
Michael Shaara’s fictional novel, The Killer Angels, is based on the Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War. The novel allows the reader to recognize the heart and courage of the more than two million men that fought in the war. Shaara focuses the reader to better understand the reason why these men fight and the meaning of the war. Ultimately, the reader observes that the war is fought on an individual level as much as a governmental level. These men are there to fight for what they believe is truly right. The Confederates fought for their rights to hold slaves, their freedom tyranny of the Federal Government, and their
This book brings characters to life and gives a detailed description of the battle.This novel has raised questions in my mind because I was unaware of the real battle; but it raises no new questions to society such as Hofstadter's writings. This novel gives a very accurate description of the Battle of Gettysburg. This novel also shows the importance of each battle and each division in each of these battles. Moreover
Wars have been fought for many different reasons through the years, and that holds true for the American Civil War (1861-1865). In Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Killer Angels, the reasons for fighting the war are brought about through the officers and soldiers at a famous battle site of the Civil War, Gettysburg. Gettysburg was one of the most documented battles of the whole war. It took place over a span of three days and can be viewed as a turning point from Confederate prominence to Confederate demise. As in any conflict, there are two sides to the story. The Union and the Confederacy each had their own views as to why they were fighting the war. Victors write the history so too often only the Union side is
The Killer Angels is an historical novel about the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War. The book captures the human nature of many historical figures over three fateful days in rural Pennsylvania in 1863. North and South, Yankee and Confederate; The Killer Angels provides a glimpse into the hearts and souls of some of the men who fought in this infamous battle and their own reasons for being in a fight to the death against their fellow countrymen.
The Battle of Gettysburg brought the dueling North and South together to the small town of Gettysburg and on the threshold of splitting the Union. Gettysburg was as close as the United States got to Armageddon and The Killer Angels gives the full day-to-day account of the battle that shaped America’s future. Michael Shaara tells the story of the Battle of Gettysburg through the eyes of the generals and men involved in the action of the battle. The historical account of the Battle of Gettysburg gives the reader a chance to experience the battle personally and not the history book manner taught in schools. A historical novel gives the facts straightforward and provides no commentary by the people involved in history. The
Queer Theory is the best approach by which to examine Angels in America because using Queer Theory allows us to see/ illuminates the difference between socially constructed gender and sexual acts based on sexual identity. Queer theory argues that gender is a cultural construct, that the social norms of men being masculine and women being feminine were manipulated as a culture to be seen as normal. In Angel in America, Roy Cohn is an attorney with power in his work place; he expresses a strong masculine character with “clout”, strong political power. He mentions that he is a powerful man and how with only a few phone calls he is able to get a hold of the president. These are expectations of how a masculine male is supposed to act, with power, confidence, and without fear. Being a man of politics, Roy lives up to the expectations of what society believes a strong man is supposed to be and how he is supposed to behave. When he goes to see his doctor and he is told that he has AIDS, Roy refuses to admit that he has AIDS and Homosexual. Roy tells his doctor, Henry, “You Think these are names that tell you who someone sleeps with, but they don’t tell you that.” (Pg. 51) He argues that his identity is not homosexual because they do not have “clout”; that he is a man of clout and has a lot of it. Roy states, “Homosexuals are men who know nobody and who nobody knows. Who have zero clout.”(Pg. 51) An example of Queer Theory, Roy tells his doctor that labels like Homosexual, Gay,