The Killer Angels
Michael Shaara, 1974
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345348104
Summary
Winner, 1975 Pulitizer Prize
In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation's history, two armies fought for two 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. Shattered futures, forgotten innocence, and crippled beauty were also the casualties of war.
The Killer Angels is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—a dramatic re-creation of the battleground for America's destiny. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 23, 1929
• Where—Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
• Death—1988
• Where—Tallahassee, Florida
• Education—B.A., Rutgers University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize
Michael Shaara was born in Jersey City in 1929 and graduated from Rutgers University in 1951. He serveda as a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne division prior to the Korean War.
His early science fiction short stories were published in Galaxy magazine in 1952. He later began writing other works of fiction and published more than seventy short stories in many magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, and Redbook.
His first novel, The Broken Place, was published in 1968. But it was a simple family vacation to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1966 that gave him the inspiration for his greatest achieve-ment, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Killer Angels, published in 1974. Michael Shaara went on to write two more novels, The Noah Conspiracy and For Love of the Game, which was published posthumously after his death in 1988. (From the publisher.)
Before Shaara began selling science fiction stories to fiction magazines in the 1950s, he was an amateur boxer and police officer. He later taught literature at Florida State University while continuing to write fiction. The stress of this and his smoking caused him to have a heart attack at the early age of 36; from which he fully recovered. Shaara died of another heart attack in 1988. Today there is a Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction, established by Jeffrey Shaara, Michael's son and awarded yearly at Gettysburg College.
Jeffrey Shaara is also a popular writer of historical fiction; most notably sequels to his father's best-known novel. His most famous is the prequel to The Killer Angels, Gods and Generals. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
This is no antiquarian, distant book. When the 20th Maine countercharges at Little Round Top, when Pickett's men breach the Union line at Cemetary Ridge, Shaara has a sentient observe there to register the terror and the bravery, the precarious balance of machine and man thast made Gettysburg one of the last human battles.... Always there is the fileter of intelligent personality and the attendant minutia that give the immense motions of intellect and men their reality.
Thomas LeClair - New York Times (10/20/1974)
Shaara carries [the reader] swiftly and dramatically to a climax as exciting as if it were being heard for the first time.
Seattle Times
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 C. McPherson – Author, Battle Cry of Freedom
The best and most realistic historical novel about war I have ever read.
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
Remarkable.... A book that changed my life.... I had never visited Gettysburg, knew almost nothing about that battle before I read the book, but here it all came alive.
Ken Burns (filmmaker, The Civil War)
Discussion Questions
1. Why does General Longstreet doubt his own spy's report of the Union Army's advance toward Confederate troops in Pennsylvania? How important were spies in the fighting of this war—what purpose did they serve? Contrast their use with that of today...or their use in, say, World War II.
2. Talk about John Buford and the kind of soldier/man he was. As he tracks the Confederate Army, he stops to wave at a Rebel officer. Why would he greet an enemy in this way? What made him decide to choose Gettysburg as the spot to make a stand?
3. Why did officers under General Lee want J.E.B. Stuart courtmartialed? What was Stuart's function and why was he so important to Lee? What was his relationship with General Lee? What kind of figure was he—a "show boat" or a genuine hero?
4. How could Armistead and Hancock, on opposite sides of the fight, become close friends? In fact, discuss other relationships among friends and families that were split along North-South lines.
5. What was Fremantle's purpose in traveling with Longstreet and the Confederate army? What did he hope to learn?
6. Why does Trimble thank Longstreet for an assignment that could very likely hasten Trimble's own death?
7. How does Shaara portray General Lee in this work, especially Lee's decision to attack at Gettsyburg, despite Longstreet's advice not to? Why doesn't Longstreet want to fight at this particular spot?
8. How does Longstreet view war? Is his view different than Lee's?
9. Discuss Joshua Chamberlain and his countercharge on Little Round Top. How does a religion scholar and teacher become acclimated to a soldier's life—and be willing to take up arms and kill other men?
10. How does Shaara portray both sides of this horrific conflict? Is he balanced, or does he seem to favor one side over the other? Which character(s) does he seem to admire most?
11. Overall, who do you feel is the hero or heroes of this fictional account of Gettysburg? What makes a hero? And what prompts otherwise sane men to throw their bodies headlong into deadly flying projectiles? What motivated these men to put their limbs, literally, on the line?
(LitLovers has adapted and added to the questions from the Random House teachers' guide. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution to both souces. Thanks.)
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