"The Killer Angels" is several books in one. First, it is a splendid overview of the Battle of Gettysburg. From Buford's establishing the high ground, the armies converging on the previously inconsequential place, Lee overriding Longstreet's tactical advice, and Chamberlain's countercharge when the ammunition ran out to Pickett's ill fated charge on the final day, Shaara describes the battle in riveting detail. The sights, the sounds, the smells,the emotions....everything is portrayed in a narrative that puts the reader squarely in the middle of the battle.

But the book is so much more. Shaara climbs inside the heads of the key players--particularly Longstreet and Chamberlain. Longstreet, the old warrior who has inherited Stonewall Jackson's position as Lee's right hand, is a tactician far ahead of his time who has, for a variety of reasons, become somewhat jaded on life in general and on "the glorious cause" in particular. Chamberlain is the Bowdoin college professor who volunteered for the war and found that, despite its horrors, he truly loves it. And then there is Lo Armistead who swore he would never fight his friend and soulmate Win Hancock, but ends up having to do exactly that on the final day.

Shaara examines Lee in considerable detail--his struggle with breaking his vows to the Union because he could not fight against his homeland (Virginia), his physical problems as an overworked fifty-seven year old man with cardiac problems and his deep religious faith. He is also exposed as a mediocre tactician whose great strengths are his character, his ability to inspire his men and his ability to act decisively.

Through the British observer, Freemantle, the Southern cultural structure is observed as being very similar to that of Great Britain. In fact, Freemantle at one point envisions the Confederacy returning to the Queen if it were to win the war.

The depth of this relatively small historical novel is immense. The battle is explained with numerous helpful maps, and both the foreword and the afterword set the participants in their proper historical perspective. The narrative is simple but compelling. This is one of the very finest books I have ever read....in any genre. It absolutely deserved the Pulitzer Prize it won in 1975!!!

One of two books read in my entire lifetime that I consider a masterpiece.

This book's language is sweet, smooth-flowing, stunning in its simplicity and focus. The Battle of Gettysburg is well documented and has been written about since July 4, 1863..... but to someone unversed in warfare and battlefields, it brought home the bravery, certainty and uncertainty, fear, foolishness, conflicts, nobility, and humanity of the men struggling to survive the 3 days in Pennsylvania that turned the tide of the war.

I loved the structure of the novel - alternating chapters among the key figures of the war - Lee, Chamberlain, Longstreet, Buford, Armistead, The Spy, Freemantle. I appreciated the maps, the brief biographical notes at the beginning of the novel and the afterward describing the principal characters lives after the war.

I want to learn more about Longstreet and Chamberlain particularly and want to see Gettysburg.

I'm not sure I could have appreciated this book at any earlier time in my life so am grateful that I've read it now.

Michael Shaara's magnificent historical novel on the Battle of Gettysburg is history at its finest. Shaara gives us a study of leadership which gives us a personal perspective of courage and leadership. Union Colonel Joshua Chamberlain shows us a man of books thrust into war and how he handles a very critical moment when the fate of the battle hangs on what he decides. We witness Confederate General Longstreet struggle with personal tragedy and the curse of being strategically ahead of his time. The study of leadership on both sides is of such quality that today many collegiate R.O.T.C. programs have made Killer Angels a required text. A must read for any Civil War buff.

Okay i got into the civil war when i was an adolescent -- i loved the ken burns book/documentary and glory... I read the killer angels and loved it... granted i was twelve... i guess i wasn't into characters, and didn't see when they were poorly developed... i liked the military history, but didn't know that the author's portrayal of history was indeed FICTIONAL...

Zoom to today... i study the civil war in college now... i recently read the killer angels again... but i shouldn't have... i should have left my childhood affinity for that book alone... the re-read was a disappointment for several reasons:

#1 - I get into the technicalities of military history and the importance of certain troop movements & fights, however i think some of the most important details are wrong, or omitted... I know this is fiction, but really, it seems like it's trying to be historically accurate... but it falls short of that by succumbing to the same old biases and embellishments that plague Civil War history... For instance, I believe the significance of the Iron Brigade's fights on the first day were the fiercest and more historically important to the outcome of the battle than the other two days (just look at the 70% casualty rate). In comparison, to day 1 fighting, Chamberlain & the 20th Maine's fight was a skirmish. The actions of dead Western (Midwestern) men mentioned briefly in this fictional story, were the reason many a Maine man survived to tell their tall tales. Also the significance of Reynolds actions, the politics of rank between Hancock and Meade & him so integral to the Gettysburg story, are ignored as well. There are so many really touching, tragic & dramatic stories in Gettysburg, but this book focuses on few of them.

#2 - This is a poorly written piece of commercial literature. There's no real insight into any characters. The dialogue is laughable.


I will give it two stars, only because there is still a soft spot for it in my heart, because i read it when i was young... same with movie Gettysburg... just watched that again recently... ugghhhh.... everything bad and wrong about that book was magnified in the movie... i should have left my fond memories of that movie alone too....

I recommend: The Iron Brigade (Alan T Nolan), In the Bloody Railroad Cut at Gettysburg (Lance J Herdegen), and Noah Trudeau's thorough chronological study of Gettysburg... also, Herdegen has a brand new book out called "Those damn black hats" about the Iron Brigade at Gettysburg.

This book is great. The point of view is that of the other person. I had to buy this book for AP US History and I don't regret it!

Michael Shaara isn't a well-known figure in American literature. He spent most of his writing career producing short stories, mostly science fiction. He only wrote three novels while he was alive, the current book, a boxing novel titled "The Broken Place" and a futuristic doomsday thriller titled "The Herald". The boxing novel was critically successful but didn't sell well, and "The Herald" was an abject failure. He had one novella, "For the Love of the Game" which was published after his death, and made into a sappy Kevin Costner movie. However, among historical novelists, especially those writing about the Civil War, Shaara has a stellar reputation, right up there with Stephen Crane. "The Red Badge of Courage gets assigned to students to read sometimes, I'm sure, but "The Killer Angels" gets assigned also. The question is, why does the book have such a stellar reputation? The answer is because it's a very good book, was ground-breaking when it was written, and is relevant even now.

"The Killer Angels" re-examines the Battle of Gettysburg. The author doesn't recount the course of the whole battle, instead focusing on a few of the main participants in the fighting, and what they saw and did. On the Confederate side, he spends most of his time discussing Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate army, and his chief subordinate, James "Pete" Longstreet. On the Union side, the high command of the Union army is almost absent from the plot. George Meade, the commander of the Union army, has only a few lines in the story and does really nothing. Winfield Scott Hancock, Meade's chief subordinate, is a minor character too. Instead, the action focuses on more junior officers: a cavalry general named John Buford, primarily, and a college-professor-turned-army -colonel named Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Buford--without definite orders to do so--started the fighting by opposing the advance of Confederate troops into Gettysburg. Chamberlain helped defend Little Round Top, the hill that anchored the southern end of the Union line, on the second day of the fighting. These two events, Buford starting the fight and Chamberlain saving the right flank, are the focus of the first two-thirds of the book. They are followed by Pickett's Charge, which is the climax of the book.

"The Killer Angels" has had critics over the years, those who don't like the writing style and those who don't like the liberties that Shaara took with the characters. He *did* make a few outright errors: Buford's men, for instance, weren't armed with repeating rifles. Shaara did something else, though, something significant. He changed the historical narrative, at least in emphasis, considerably. Prior to the publication of "The Killer Angels" no one paid much attention to John Buford's role in the battle. It was usually noted that he started the battle, but Buford got little credit for what followed. Anyone who knows anything about the course of the Battle of Gettysburg knows that the terrain heavily favored the Union defense against the Confederate attacks, even after the Confederates drove the Union from their original defensive positions. Here, finally, Buford got the recognition he deserved, and historians since are obliged at least to explain why they don't think he deserves credit, though most instead think he deserves it.

Also, the role of the spy, Harrison, was only briefly touched upon prior to this book. Almost nothing is known about Harrison, with even his first name being uncertain. What research has been done, what knowledge there is, can be traced back to people hungry for more information because of Shaara's book. There have actually been articles written discussing Harrison's identity (with photos of people who *might* be him). He's now entered the pantheon of minor characters of the Civil War, along with George St. Leger Grenfell, Abner Doubleday, the Comte de Polignac, and Hiram Berdan. Harrison can thank Shaara for this.

Third, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was a celebrity in late 19th-Century Maine. He was governor for multiple terms (the Democrats conceded that he was too popular to oppose, and endorsed him). He was an upper-level educational reformer, attempting to turn his school (Bowdoin College) from a school for preachers into what became a modern, liberal arts campus. But Chamberlain fell into obscurity in the early 20th century, and though there was actually a book written about the 20th Maine (Chamberlain's regiment at Gettysburg) in the 60s, almost no one, even Civil War buffs, had ever heard of him. For whatever it's worth, "The Killer Angels" made Chamberlain famous, in ways he probably never anticipated.

This is, in spite of its flaws, a truly great novel. It influenced the writing of other historical fiction considerably. I'm sure someone could discover a separate, earlier instance of the multiple-points-of-view narrative style on a battlefield, but I'm unaware of any, and regardless of that, "The Killer Angels" popularized it, so that almost no one tries the old single narrator style any more. Shaara's son Jeff and Philip Crocker ("To Make Men Free") use the same style and shamelessly copy Jeff's dad. Crocker dedicated his first book to Shaara, and acknowledges his debt at the front of the book. "The Killer Angels", however, is still the best.

If you want to put a face to the American Civil War start here. Sits on my nightstand and have read it over a dozen times to date.

Once in a while I get caught reading a book that I really do not enjoy, but the redeeming quality is their educational value. Like flossing your teeth, while not enjoyable, these books are at least good for you. Unfortunately, The Killer Angels, a story about the civil war battle of Gettysburg, was neither entertaining nor good for me. The writing is cheesy and was meant to be turned into a movie. Here is an example:
" The rain had stopped, the mist was blowing off. He thought: good." Who summarizes the characters' thoughts with one word? Show us - don't tell us.

As far as educational value, the reader does not really get to understand the main characters. The made up dialogue is embarrassingly unreal. There is little analysis of the battle strategy. There is also little reflection on the battle's significance with regards to the whole war. The three day movement of troops is tedious to follow. Skip this one.

If I would rate this book out of 5, I would definitely give it a 5 as the semi-fictional account (I enjoy a war book) was heartfelt and tragic, even if you knew what was going to happen. The Killer Angels is something that takes from fiction and non-fiction. All the people and their accounts are real, but it flows like a story and takes the perspectives of a few Generals. The generals' names are: Chamberlain, Lee, Buford, and Longstreet. The author was careful in their research, taking the diaries of the respective men he carved out a story portraying both sides of the war and used only what they knew. He added nothing except maybe the personalities of the commanders. He spends sometime in solidifying the ideologies behind the war. He makes no side the enemy, just to conflicting ideals union and of having the right to govern themselves. He makes this clear; the south was not fighting for their slaves but their freedom of property and choice. This is signified when Tom Chamberlain the brother of Joshua Chamberlain one of the commanders laughs as he said some of the prisoners say that they are fighting for their "rats", misunderstood by Tom as the accents are different. Confusion in the story is quite clear as you take on the aspects of the character that you are reading of only knowing what they know, feeling for instance Longstreet a surviving general whom is the South's last great general after the death of Jackson. Longstreet was forced to follow orders as part of an en echelon attack to flank the Union to break through and decimate the Union army. It was an inevitable failure as the men and their captains were getting nervous as one lieutenant put it with a hint of desperation "General will you look at the ground? We can't even mount artillery" (200). This was due to the longing to end the war, Lee who was the general saw Gettysburg as an opportunity, and everyone knew the war was going to end, but Gettysburg determined it all. One more interesting this was how it was generalized and not full of logistics. The Confederate troops barely heard about Vicksburg from where they were in Pennsylvania. It did not go into depth about logistics as the textbook did but it was informative about lives and how they went in the war. I would give it a 5 for it gave an accurate account most of the time, the personalities being fabrications as well as only adding the significant battles and not all of them made the account less accurate but gave it a good flow like a story should have.

Way back in 1989 I had to read this book as part of a American Military History class. Since then I've read it 3 or 4 more times and I've recommended it to countless friends and students. Surprisingly, the audiobook was an entirely new experience for me - it was much more powerful than I remembered.

The audiobook was brilliantly read by George Hearn and uses music from the 1993 movie adaptation of the book. This really is a beautiful production. More than once I had to stop it for the tears that came to my eyes due to the tragedy and spectacle of the battle (I am a Civil War softy - I tear up every time I watch Glory as well). It lasts about 6 hours and is well worth the purchase.

Highest recommendation.

The author takes Chamberlain and Buford of the Grant's army and Pickett, Armistead, and Longstreet of Lee's arm and gives them a personality of the men they were rather then the legends. If Early had reported to Lee that Grant was on the move. Lee may have been able to take Gettysburg, but Washington would never have fallen to Lee's efforts. The outcome of the war would not have changed. This is a great book for students of the Civil War to read, because they can see the human side of these Generals and not just the facts of the textbook page. By Ruth Thompson author of "The Bluegrass Dream" and "Natchez Above The River"

Writing as a Small BusinessQualifying Laps: A Brewster County NovelSins of the Fathers: A Brewster County NovelTravelersThe Bluegrass Dream: A Wilderness Adventure of Early SettlersNatchez Above The River: A Family's Survival In The Civil War

I admit that I wanted something else when I got this. What I expected was your typical history on the Battle of Gettysburg. What I got, was something much better. Mike Shaara has written a marvelous novel. When I read this book, I knew the basics of how the Battle of Gettysburg went, but here, it came to life. Mike Shaara has a beautiful way of putting you inside the minds of men like James Longstreet, Robert E. Lee, Joshua Chamberlain, and several others. You feel like you are actually there and are defending Little Round Top, spying on the Union position, leading Picket's Charge, or discussing battle plans for the next day. All I can say to sum it up is that this is an execellent book that is great for Civil War buffs, or anyone who is looking for a good book to read. Trust me, you will love this book.

the book was brand new and i love it. the book came really fast. faster than i expected. this is probably the fastest thing to be shipped to me on amazon.

The Killer Angels is a fascinating novel with insight gathered from diaries and memoirs of the men who fought in the battle. It creates a personal view of the tense and personal drama between friends on either side of the cause, as well as the humanity, and the chivalry of the period. Once you start, it is nearly impossible to put it down.

This is another book I assigned my AP Dual Credit students for supplemental reading in class. They did not like it as much as I, but they are not as interested the Civil War as I am either. While somewhat fictional, Shaara's description of the battle is well done. They humanization of the characters involved enhances the story and creates a connection with the reader. I look forward to reading other Shaara books for the pleasure and knowledge.

Most times, I would much prefer to read a work of nonfiction as opposed to historical fiction. But after reading dozens of books about the Battle of Gettysburg, it was refreshing to read Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning Killer Angels. This fictional account gives us a viewpoint not to be found in nonfiction works.

What makes Killer Angels different is that each chapter is written through the eyes of the various leaders from both the Union and the Confederacy including Buford, Longstreet, Lee, Chamberlain, Armistead, as well as an English observer, Fremantle. Shaara used diaries, journals, letters and memoirs to recreate not only what was happening on the battlefield, but also, what these men were thinking, seeing and feeling. It's as if you're an eyewitness to history. Killer Angels does not attempt to cover every minute of the Battle of Gettysburg. In fact, Shaara focuses on four main aspects: Buford's establishing Union lines on good ground before the battle, Longstreet's ambivalence about fighting at Gettysburg, Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine defending Little Round Top and Pickett's Charge.

I found myself especially haunted by James Longstreet. Once a carefree, amiable man, he's still reeling from the recent deaths of 3 of his 4 children in one week. Robert E. Lee's number two man, he knows that a frontal attack (Pickett's charge) will be disastrous. He is tortured that Lee won't listen to his advice, and inconsolable after so many men are killed. "Along with all the horror of loss, and the weariness, and all the sick helpless rage, there was coming now a monstrous disgust. He was through. They had all died for nothing and he sent them...The army would not recover from this day."

I also gained an appreciation for Joshua Chamberlain. Chamberlain was not a trained soldier, but a college professor. But he was definitely a born leader. He started the Civil War as a lieutenant colonel and finished as a brigadier general. His heroics in leading his men on Little Round Top is a thing of legend, probably saved the Union and earned him a Medal of Honor.

I have found that once Gettysburg has gotten under your skin, you'll never tire of reading about this important battle that changed the course of the war. For fictional accounts, Killer Angels is about as good as it gets.

This is a great novel about the battle of Gettysburg. It is historically accurate, but includes Shaara's interpretation of the thoughts of the three primary characters (Lee, Longstreet, and Chamberlain). It's a great read for the Civil War buff, as well as those who slept through the the typically sketchy overview given this great conflict in school.
This one book not only provides a great background about a critical battle of the war, but also provides insights into how the war affected the people fighting it --- many of whom truly did find themselves opposing former friends and family in America's most bitter conflict.
You can read a lot of other good books on the Civil War and its battles, generals, or political and social backdrop, but you won't find one that captures the essence of the war in such an enjoyable and well-presented way.

To put it quite simply, there is no other book regarding Gettysburg which comes close to captivating the reader as much as this one. I could not put it down. This is one of those books that you will end up recommending to friends and they will thank you for it!

This was required reading for company grade officers by the United States Marine Corps in the 1980s. I suspect it still is. Having read the book, walked the battlefield, stood where Colonel Chamberlain's regiment fought, and seen the movie "Gettysburg", I've become absolutely fascinated how names of key commanders, dates, and other facts have become permanently relegated to memory. I am now able to visualize the big picture as well as the interconnectivity of the smaller pictures much better than if I had read a text book instead. I read one review where the reviewer had said that the book would have been even better if there was more coverage of Reynolds, Stuart, Ewell and others. I too would have liked more coverage in the book of some of these officers, but to keep the book in perspective, this was a bit of a ground-breaking experiment in writing style at the time of its first publication. Shaara was brilliant, if less than 100% comprehensive, in the story that he wrote. Gettysburg was an incredibly complex battle. If Shaara left some loose ends in his story, then that just means there are more angles to explore for future authors.

I enjoyed Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War novel dealing with the three-day Battle of Gettysburg widely acknowledged as the turning point of the American Civil War. The book derives its title from Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain memorizing a Shakespeare quote in his childhood regarding man in action and his father's subsequent remark: "Well, boy, if he's an angel, he's sure a murderin' angel." Chamberlain then coins the term, "Man, the Killer Angel." Shaara's enthralling novel affects the leaders of the Battle of Gettysburg as these Killer Angels: the difficult choices they make, their courage and heroism, and finally their grief and agony. Michael Shaara recreates the battle from old letters and correspondences and I found the resulting prose, characterizations, settings and pacing singularly bewitching. We know the plot, but it's Shaara's style and delivery which affects a worthwhile and enjoyable reading experience. Although the book demonstrates the brutality and inhumanity of war, it also balances that with a feeling of camaraderie, thrill and excitement that nothing except war could bring. Very unlike Jakes' unilateral depiction of a monstrous war in his NORTH AND SOUTH series. And that's a good thing.

THE KILLER ANGELS deftly contrasts the Battle of Gettysburg from the Southern and Northern points of view; for the south and its generals, missed opportunities plagued their loss while for the north, much-needed luck vaulted them to victory. We follow most of the brilliant generals from the South including Robert E. Lee, Pete Longstreet and Lewis Armistead while from the North, it's mostly Col. Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th Maine and his climactic stand on Little Round Top on Day 2 of the Battle of Gettysburg. The North's hodgepodge of religions and races worked against their superior numbers while the South possessed a more cohesive, more united group of soldiers. Unlike the North, the South also had the brilliant commander their soldiers believed in: General Robert E. Lee. As opposed to Lincoln's capricious line of army commanders (at least before he settled on Grant), General Robert E. Lee has never lost a battle prior to Gettysburg, thoroughly whipping Yankees left and right. Known for a making a tough decision and acting on it, Lee's men believed in him enough to execute his decisions with alacrity and success.

Then it's a wonder the South lost the Battle of Gettysburg when they had every opportunity to win there as well. From Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's joyriding depriving Lee of his eyes and ears into Northern army movements, to Heth's decision to engage Buford's Union line on Day 1 when Lee specifically ordered no attacks until the entire Southern army congregated around Gettysburg, to a diffident Gen. Ewell's failure to pursue the Union army at the end of Day 1, to Lee's rejection of Hood's sensible plan to outflank the Union line on Cemetery Ridge outside of Gettysburg on Day 2, the loss at the Battle of Gettysburg represented one missed opportunity after another for the Southern army.

THE KILLER ANGELS intersperses an interesting political and philosophical discussion over the each side's motivations to fight in the war. We know the South isn't fighting to keep slavery despite what the North (and the rest of the world) believe, they're fighting for the Cause: state rights. Like Lee's beloved state of Virginia, they view state laws superior to the nation's and therein lies the divide. Meanwhile, as Col. Chamberlain's brother remarks, no matter what the "Johnnies" (Southerners) say they're fighting for, at the end of the day if they win, slavery continues and if they lose, slavery begins to die. For Englishman Fremantle, the South symbolizes a transposed Europe, while for Chamberlain's Sergeant Kilrain, the South represents a time when the name of one's father means more than your name. Kilrain is adamantly against such traditions.

I accualy liked this history book because it didn't put me to sleep. I liked this book because it had a accual story line. the book wasn't just facts thier were accual charecters. This book also shows the conection between the generals and the bravery of the soilders. The relations between General Lee and Longstreet is shown the best in the book excpecily with their freindship. Also the soilders bravery is shown in when General Renalds falls and still the 1st and 53rd infentry still fights to the end without fault.

The Killer Angels is Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, which was the turning point in the Civil War.

The narrative shifts among numerous commanding officers on both sides, with Longstreet and Chamberlain receiving the bulk of the attention. Shaara does a fantastic job of taking the reader inside the heads of these officers (and clearly differentiating among them personality-wise), and of showing the reader the emotions, the tactics and the chaos involved in war. He also does a solid job of incorporating background facts into the text (although some information is glaringly repetitious) without long and boring expository paragraphs, which occur only rarely.

Particularly early on, Shaara gets bogged down in his officers' rambling internal monologues. He also has the annoying sentence to put "he thought" in the middle of a passage that is already clearly monologue. For example: "Lee signed orders. I do too much myself. He was thinking: retreat is not even an option."

The biggest problem with The Killer Angels is Shaara's writing style, which is incredibly distracting. He piles on the sentence fragments with no regard for human life. Most egregious is the manner in which he puts periods in the middle of sentences. For example: "That hill will be a very strong position. Once it is fortified." Writers are taught that "he said" is preferable to "he shouted", "he whined", etc. But they're all better than Shaara's frequently-used "he gloomed".

Shaara's word choice in his imagery is often questionable, perhaps striving and failing to reach literary heights. He also overuses the word "handsome", particularly when describing characters. Never have there been so many "handsome" and "beautiful" men running around a battlefield.

All told, this The Killer Angels a well-researched, interesting read about one of the pivotal moments in U.S. history. It's not just for war buffs, although they will get more out of it than the average reader. It is unfortunate, though, that Shaara's writing idiosyncrasies are so off-putting.

TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT

This is a very engrossing read. I read it in three long sessions and couldn't put it down. The interesting aspect to me is that there is very little in the way of action until the book is two thirds over. The author keeps the pace moving with great descriptive narrative. This is combined with fictional but historically based dialogue and characterizations of historical figures. The overall presentation of the divergent points of view of several of the important officers in charge of the conflict is enlightening at some points. There aren't heroes or protaganists, only real men who are driven by their cause and their belief in divine providence, but still plagued with self-doubt.

I felt that, to a minor extent, the author glossed over and under-emphasized the hideous cost of the Battle of Gettysburg. I had read in the past that this was the biggest and bloodiest battle ever fought in the western hemisphere and throughout the three days and nights there were so many wounded men lying on the hills and fields that the air was permeated with grotesque sounds of human suffering and the creeks ran in blood. The author certainly does portray the confusion and horror of two of the major engagements but, at the same time, the main character's seem detached from the hideous nature of war.

I'm not sure whether the author was glorifying the battle, I think rather the author was trying to delve into the individual psyches of the men who were the real heroes and goats, the leaders who ordered men to their deaths. A certain amount of detachment must be necessary, one would assume, in order to send men to their deaths. Perhaps the biggest detached "goat" was General Lee who believed his army was invincible. The author does a good job protraying Lee's human side in the aftermath of the disasterous assault on the Union position during the third day of battle, Pickett's Charge. In a fleeting moment of weakness he's ready to hand over his sword to Longstreet, who doesn't want it. Longstreet secretly holds Lee accountable for losing the battle, the turning point of the war, an opinion for which he is later shunned in the south. The novel ends with the retreat of the Rebel Army, mortally wounded, limping back to Virginia towards inevitable defeat. Its leaders now resigned to their fates.

By all means, if you like historical fiction, pick this up. The characterizations of the major players including Lee, Longstreet, and Chamberlain are skillfully crafted. The author sets the events in motion from the first day of the battle with very little background and the story is very believable, coherent, and well researched. I can't say I am going to turn into a Civil War nut but if you were to read only one book to get a feeling for what the US Civil War was all about, read this one.

Excellent book, very well written. Shaara brings you right into the hearts and minds of the major players of the book. You get a great understanding of the Battle of Gettysburg, the leaders, and what affected their decisions. For Civil War enthusiasts, or even those with a casual interest, this is a MUST read.

"The Killer Angels" is to Civil War biographies and histories as dessert is to dinner. It's easy to digest and a sheer pleasure. Shaara brings two-dimensional historical characters to life. While technically fiction, the text is very loyal to the historical facts. I took on Killer Angels while in middle of Shelby Foote's trilogy, and Shaara did not appear to deviate from anything in Foote's "Stars in their Courses" account.

This is excellent writing that can be enjoyed by anyone, but those familiar with Gettysburg will have the advantage of context. Also, Civil War readers will enjoy characters that they've long read about coming to life in these pages, particularly Lee, Longstreet, and Pickett.

I was first exposed to the Killer Angels book ten years ago and of course saw the movie when it came out. This time, I listened to the unabridged Audible audio version. Stephen Hoye was excellent, mastering the (many!) accents as well as the moment.

Sometimes, I work backwards. In this instance, I, once again, saw the movie before reading the book. As pleased as I was with the film adaptation, director Ronald Maxwell's "Gettysburg," I was doubly impressed with the source novel "The Killer Angels" by Michael Shaara.

This was easily the finest piece of historical fiction that I have ever read. The author really did his homework. Many of the military commands and speeches contained in the book are supported by the historical record.
The novel is so clearly written that the motion picture screenplay adaptation simply repeated large portions of the book verbatim. That in itself is a rare accomplishment since Hollywood typically eviscerates good books when scripts are being adapted.

The details of the three day battle at Gettysburg are accurately portrayed and readers can gain valuable insights into the character of the principals, Lee, Longstreet, Pickett, Armistead, Hancock, Buford, Chamberlain and so many others. Shaara also provides one with an understanding of how armies take the field, march great distances, struggle to secure control of favorable terrain, scout enemy movements and try to decipher ambiguous data before committing to battle.

This is truly an outstanding book which richly deserves all of the praise that it has received. I read this book more than a decade and a half ago and I have not forgotten it.

Michael Shaara's modern classic "The Killer Angels" is about the famous Civil War battle at Gettysburg. It is the most important battle of the war because it is generally acknowledged as the turning point in the war for the Union. The book is told through Confederate Generals Longstreet and Lee, and Union soldier Colonel Joshua Chamberlain. This novel is the tragic three days struggle between thousands of Americans not over the question of right to succeed or even slavery, but (if General Lee is to be believed) who's side God was on. It is telling that by the third year it is just a contest to win, not really about causes anymore.

The characters are well presented. Lee is the old guard; a gentlemen who is willing to fight (and maybe die) for honor, his own, his state's (Virginia) and egotistically, for honor's sake, which leads to bad decisions on his part. Longstreet is presented as a man ahead of his time, a man who favors defensive strategy that may have worked better than Lee's straight ahead offense. Longstreet would have appreciated World War One's methods of trench fighting. History dose bare him out as trenches were used later in the war. Lee and Longstreet's continuous argument over strategy fuels most of the novel's moral center. And finally Colonel Chamberlain is the model citizen turned soldier. He is really the character most easily identifiable by the common reader. He is us basically, whose eyes the prism of action is passed through and explained by.

The action is intense. The bravery and danger of the wild Battle of Little Round Top is immediate and exciting, the best part of the novel. And by contrast there is the depressing and fatal Pickett's Charge, the straw that broke the Confederate Army for the war. It is so heart wrenching that, though well written, is still hard to read because of the futility of it.

While this is a work of fiction, many historians use Shaara's book as a guide to the Gettysburg battle and it is of interest to anyone who likes war-adventure novels, deep characters, and well researched histories.

If you have the slightest interest in the Civil War, don't fail to read the late Michael Shaara's book "The Killer Angels". It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1974.

For some reason this book had never crossed my path. It wasn't until Father's Day this year that I was even aware of its existence. My 27 year old son gave me a DVD that had both Gods and Generals and Gettysburg on it. In reading the jacket of the DVD I saw the movie was based on this book. After watching the movie, I headed off to the library. I was not disappointed.

This volume shows both the courage and determination of the Union and Confederate soldiers. It examines the story from both viewpoints. You are told the story through the key leadership of the battle. You will read about Robert E. Lee. You will learn what his decisions were based on. You will see why he was so beloved by his army. The book allows you to be present as Lee struggles with decision after decision from his headquarters. You can feel the frustration of Longstreet as he tries to convince Lee that defense is a better choice. You will get a picture of the flamboyant Pickett. You will feel Lee's and Longstreet's frustration with J.E.B. Stuart. I met a new hero in the book - Joshua Lawrence Chamberlin as I read about the 20th Maine Regiment and Chamberlain who with a bayonet charge on Little Big Top held the end of the Union line. Another new hero I encountered was General John Buford. You will experience his anguish as he decides to engage Rebel forces. He knows that he was seriously outnumbered. He is determined to save the only high ground in the area.

I was emotionally involved in the book from the beginning to the end. This is the book that blurs the line between historical fiction and creative non-fiction. It is simply great reading. While the movie was good, the book is great. Michael Shaara had the vision, did the research, and wrote one of the best books ever. Thank you!

If you have the slightest interest in the Civil War, don't fail to read the late Michael Shaara's book "The Killer Angels". It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1974.

For some reason this book had never crossed my path. It wasn't until Father's Day this year that I was even aware of its existence. My 27 year old son gave me a DVD that had both Gods and Generals and Gettysburg on it. In reading the jacket of the DVD I saw the movie was based on this book. After watching the movie, I headed off to the library. I was not disappointed.

This volume shows both the courage and determination of both the Union and Confederate soldiers. It examines the story from both viewpoints. You are told the story through the key leadership of the battle. You will read about Robert E. Lee. You will learn what his decisions were based on. You will see why he was so beloved by his army. The book allows you to be present as Lee struggles with decision after decision from his headquarters. You can feel the frustration of Longstreet as he tries to convince Lee that defense is a better choice. You will get a picture of the flamboyant Pickett. You will feel Lee's and Longstreet's frustration with J.E.B. Stuart. I met a new hero in the book - Joshua Lawrence Chamberlin as I read about the 20th Maine Regiment and Chamberlain who with a bayonet charge on Little Big Top to hold the end of the Union line. Another new hero I encountered was General John Buford. You will experience his anguish as he decides to engage Rebel forces. He knows that he was seriously outnumbered. He is determined to save the only high ground in the area.

I was emotionally involved in the book from the beginning to the end. This is the book that blurs the line between historical fiction and creative non-fiction. It is simply great reading. While the movie was good, the book is great. Michael Shaara had the vision, did the research, and wrote one of the best books ever. Thank you!

I am not a civil war buff, but I enjoy historical fiction, and I decided to read this book for its Pulitzer Prize and what it might teach me about the Battle of Gettysburg. On these fronts it delivered as advertised. Although the book is about 90% brooding and waiting for battle and only 10% battle, the writing is compelling enough to hold one's interest through the brooding and to teach me more than I ever knew about the strategies, generals, turning points, blunders and significance of Gettysburg --- or at least the author's views on these points.

Nonetheless, I found myself consistently detatched from the characters and the action. The story is told exclusively from the perspective of the officers in the battle and, for the most part, from that of the southern officers. This is not to say it has a southern bias; indeed blame is placed on Southern hero Lee and the book elevates Southern "scoundrel" Longstreet. It is just that, ultimately, I was not capable of sympathy or admiration for their bravery, honor and nobility, in which the book invests heavily. My own views about slavery and the south are just too strong. Its like reading about the qualms and struggles of German aristocrats in the Nazi army. Interesting, but they are so fundamentally on the wrong side that neither admirable traits nor understanding of their perspective can produce empathy, redemption or even forgiveness. And, as to the horrors of war and soldiering, the gritty, more soldier oriented view of, say, a Cold Mountain, remained foremost in my mind.

I remember seeing the movie "Gettysburg" when it first opened
in the early nineties. It magnificently brought to life the "glory"
and tragedy of thousands of men in a napoleonic charge. The
book matches the movie in that respect, but it also provides
insights into the motives of several of the main participants in
a way that a movie cannot (mostly generals Lee and Longstreet
on one side and Colonel Chamberlain on the other). My understanding
is that the book is as true to history as a novelization can be.
However, it is also extremely readable - I wish somebody pointed
me to it when I was reading about the civil war in highschool.
I am looking forward to reading Jeff Shaara's two books that
complete the trilogy.

I remember seeing the movie "Gettysburg" when it first opened
in the early nineties. It magnificently brought to life the "glory"
and tragedy of thousands of men in a napoleonic charge. The
book matches the movie in that respect, but it also provides
insights into the motives of several of the main participants in
a way that a movie cannot (mostly generals Lee and Longstreet
on one side and Colonel Chamberlain on the other). My understanding
is that the book is as true to history as a novelization can be.
However, it is also extremely readable - I wish somebody pointed
me to it when I was reading about the civil war in highschool.
I am looking forward to reading Jeff Shaara's two books that
complete the trilogy.

Ever wonder what it was really like those 3 days in July at the Battle of Gettysburg? Was it hot, what did the men wear, what did they eat, how did they pass the time, who were the leaders of the regiments? Good historical fiction brings characters to life. Great historical fiction like that of Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Shaara makes you believe you are there.
You've learned about the battle in school, now read Killer Angels and feel what is was like to be part of the battle. Read about Robert E. Lee, what his decisions were based on and why he was so beloved by his army. Be present as he struggles with decision after decision from his headquarters. Feel the frustration of Longstreet as he tries to convince Lee of another course. Learn about the flamboyant Pickett and the egocentric J.E.B. Stuart. Go to the Union camp and read about the 20th Maine Regiment and Chamberlain who with sheer determination hold the precious ground on Little Big Top with a bayonet charge. Imagine and feel Buford's decision to engage Rebel forces, knowing that he was seriously outnumbered but determined to save the only high ground in the area.
I was mesmerized and emotionally involved in the book from the beginning to the end. It isn't just a story of a battle, it's the story of our nation and the men who fought and died for what they believed in. A great novel!

THe Killer Angels makes the battle of Gettysburg come alive for the reader. Shaara takes historical facts and injects the human dimension which makes the novel both educational and a page turner. Highly recommend that people of all ages read this masterpiece and immerse themselves in the most turbulent period of our nation's history.

The great Douglas Southall Freeman stated in 1936 that Gettysburg was the most studied battle in the history of the world. Despite all that has happened in the past 70 years, that is probably still true. I first encountered this fine book a number of years ago, when I was Medical Officer for The Basic School at Quantico. It was, and probably still is, required reading for the Second Lieutenants. Whole volumes of "nonfiction" have been written about each day of Gettysburg, but this novel contains more truth than most of them.

This volume looks at Gettysburg from both Union and Confederate viewpoints. The courage and determination of both sides is well shown. The high placed mistakes on the Condederate side are well known; those on the Union side are less evident, but still real. The South should have won; The South should have been completely destroyed. Both statements are true, but neither event happened, and the war went on. The issue of who was "right", and who was "wrong" will never be settled. I suppose it's obvious that I vote with Longstreet and Hood. And yet, I still maintain that Robert E. Lee was the greatest soldier who ever lived.

We can play "what if" unto eternity...if Jackson isn't shot at Chancellorsville, he is on the left the first day...but, if Dick Ewell does his job, it doesn't matter. And, if JEB Stuart isn't joyriding, maybe the whole battle never happens. Maybe Lee ordered the wrong attacks, but if they're made earlier...And, we forget that Pickett's Charge almost worked....Here's one my fellow Confederates won't like [I have support for it in a footnote in vol. 2 of "Lee's Lieutenants"]....at the time of Chancellorsville, President Davis was thinking of giving Jackson his "fourth star", and Braxton Bragg's job....Jackson was a great fighting General, but mainly because Lee was his boss...as an Army Commander...Jackson was just as difficult and unpleasant as Bragg, without Bragg's strategic and logistical ability...Jackson has gone down as a martyr; if he had lived, he may well have destroyed The Army of Tennessee, and gone down as "Tom Fool", which was his nickname at VMI.

This is an "essential" book. I have said quite the opposite of other very fine Civil War books, that are written for the professional. Only one significant error of fact: from Pickett's words, we are left with the impression that General James Kemper was killed in The Charge; Kemper recovered, later served as Governor of Virginia, and lived out his days. If you have the slightest interest in the Civil War, don't fail to read this.

Novelizations of real events usually do not interest me much. I'd rather have the "non-fiction" historically researched work instead in most cases. "Killer Angels" is an exception. Compelling and fast-moving and thoroughly credible, it is a great introduction to the Civil War for those who have not yet become hooked on the work of historians. Mr. Shaara died too soon, but his son has carried on his peculiar contribution to American history, and done so almost as well as his father did.

The author brings the Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War to life in this wonderful novel. He uses the alternating views from the officers of both sides of the conflict, thus making you feel as you are right with them, culminating in the horrific and tragic end of the battle.

There is a whole lot more to the tale than you remember from our history lessons in school (public schools = nothing much learned), and I was truly saddened by the incredible loss of life due to the mistakes of the priveleged few, the generals. No wonder they say Gettysburg is one of the most haunted places in America.

Highly recommended, an entertaining read and an excellent history lesson in the bargain.

The author brings the Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War to life in this wonderful novel. He uses the alternating views from the officers of both sides of the conflict, thus making you feel as you are right with them, culminating in the horrific and tragic end of the battle.

There is a whole lot more to the tale than you remember from our history lessons in school (public schools = nothing much learned), and I was truly saddened by the incredible loss of life due to the mistakes of the priveleged few, the generals. No wonder they say Gettysburg is one of the most haunted places in America.

Highly recommended, an entertaining read and an excellent history lesson in the bargain.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel!

- Shakespeare, Hamlet

This wonderful war novel focuses on the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. As the novel opens, a large Confederate expeditionary force moves North through Pennsylvania, seeking to force a major confrontation with Union forces. Intelligence on enemy movements is hard to come by, as the Confederates have lost touch with their cavalry, but a spy brings them information that leads them to turn East to meet a Union army moving North from Washington.

The story focuses mainly on the Confederate generals but author Michael Shaara alternates his focus between the Confederate and Union officer corps. As he does, the reader's alternates his sympathies as well. Both sides fight well, and both sides have their heroes. Indeed, the officers themselves feel sympathy for their counterparts, who are their former brothers in arms. There is superb military action in the book, stirringly portrayed, but Shaara also writes about the enjoyment that a military man feels for the beautiful country he fights in, his sense of duty, the bonds between him and his fellow soldiers, and the simple pleasures of eating, drinking, and sleeping when opportunities to do these things are scarce.

Shaara also has much to say about what has been called the fog of war: the lack of reliable information, the failure to use information when it is available, errors in judgment, and unreliable subordinates. A major theme of the book is path dependence: the tendency of past decisions to limit current options. The decision to strike far into Union territory makes it hard for the Confederate forces to be patient: their supply lines are long, and enemies surround them. With the Union troops occupying the better ground, Lee presses for an unambiguous victory that his generals think is unattainable, leading to a well known outcome: Gettysburg was the Confederacy's high water mark in the military conflict between the States, and the South was never able to mount a major offensive campaign again.

This is a must read for history lovers. While the book is not literally true in all aspects, I believe Shaara captures the spirit of the characters and provides the reader with a look into a brutal, unforgiving and heroic period of our nation's history. If you like this novel, move on to Shaara's son Jeff's companion pieces, Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure. Jeff also wrote books on the the Mexican-American, Revolutionary and both World Wars. Enjoy the whole set, but The Killer Angels is the keystone.

I used to reenact in the Civil War and our unit did "Gettysburg", the movie was based off the book "Killer Angels". As a unit assignment to get into character we all read the book, cleaned up our gear, and went off to Gettysburg to do the movie.

You are given unrealistic dialog between soldiers. This reviewer has done his share of time in the military. From over the span of ages of soldiers the talks are pretty much the same: women, food, what a pain the weather is, and where to get something to drink. Instead of getting a realistic narrative we get verbose semi-political speech. The talk between the soldiers sounds like something out of a coffee house, not what you would actually hear at a camp fire. At the movie set many of the reenactors would start talking about the book and its good parts. I never joined in the conversations about the book.

Personally, I would invest the time of reading "Angels" into reading the excellent series of Civil War books by Shelby Foote. They are far better documented and actually come with proper annotations of the Civil War historical events.

To reenactors and civil war fans this book will rate 5+ stars. You'll love the debates on the reason for the civil war (southern independence) and the way the officers grouse about giving out orders or their coming battles. About the only dialog I did like was when General Lee had it out with Stuard.

Personally I didn't really like the book. Oh, it's very good. It's just not my cup-of-tea. 95% of the civil war fan and reenacting crowd will love it. If you want a fanciful way that soldiers may have talked before a battle then this is the book for you. Company "Haytch" is the best of the lot for reenactors.

I used to reenact in the Civil War and our unit did "Gettysburg", the movie was based off the book "Killer Angels". As a unit assignment to get into character we all read the book, cleaned up our gear, and went off to Gettysburg to do the movie.

I didn't like the book Killer Angels. I thought the book was verbose. You're given unrealistic dialog between soldiers. At the movie set many of the reenactors would start talking about the book and its good parts. I never joined in the conversations about the book.

Personally, I would invest the time of reading "Angels" into reading the excellent series of Civil War books by Shelby Foote. They are far better documented and actually come with proper annotations of the Civil War historical events

We purchased this book on the recommendation of a friend. It was worth the read and when we finished passed it on to someone else who we knew would enjoy it as much as we did. This book made us feel as if we were walking in the boots of both sides of this war...the North and the South. We felt what they felt, we saw what they saw, we smelled death as they smelled it, and it was a very gripping book to read as we could not lay it down until we finished it. Never having been Civil war buffs, this book put us there and gave a renewed desire to visit Gettysburg and know more about the reality that was a part of this great nation. A must read.

Everyone needs to read this book! It is one of the best historical fact based novels ever written. I have bought many copies to give out to young adults interested in history and older adults that wanted to learn more about history. If you are planning to go visit Gettysburg this is a must read before you go.

This is a major war novel; many have seen the movie based on this novel. The use of several viewpoint characters provides differing perspectives on a complex battle, even as no single person has a sense of the totality of the struggle. This is both a strength and a weakness, but it ends up serving the author's purpose well.

There are some errors in the novel that jar one a bit. On page 100, General John Buford notes that General Simon Cutler's Iron Brigate is approaching the field of battle. First, that was not General Cutler's given name (it was Lysander Cutler). Second, General Sol Meredith was the commander of the Iron Brigade (as the soldiers of that Midwestern combat group saw themselves, the First Brigade of the First Division of the First Corps of the Army of the Potomac)--not Cutler.

The novel gives a sense of the desperation of both forces, as it was clear that this would be a major battle in the course of the war. Primary viewpoint characters include General Robert E. Lee, General James Longstreet (commander of the Army of Northern Virginia's hard hitting First Corps), Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (Colonel of the 20th Maine regiment, anchoring the far left side of the Union position on Little Round Top), and General John Buford, the cavalry commander who determined to hold the position at Gettysburg on the First Day.

The book traces the battle over the three bloody days, culminating with the misnamed Pickett's Charge, with a grieving Longstreet ordering a charge that he believed would fail.

All in all, very useful as a human view of the battle. While there are errors in the volume, it serves a positive purpose of humanizing one of the most important military engagements in American history.

Well worth reading. . . .

This is a great read!! I highly recommend it! It reads like a fiction. Shaara makes you feel like you are there with his first person narrative. I have passed the book around to several friends and they all agree that this book is fabulous!

I didnt like the author's writing style. He could have made a brilliant adventure on every page, but gets lost in too many details rather than the overall picture of events. Still a good read, I just wasn't "blown away" like so many people said I would be.

With the specter of the movie "Gettysburg", an epic and my absolute favorite Civil War movie ever, looming over the novel which inspired it, I was not surprised that the movie had stayed almost maniacally true to the novel as compared with other novel to movie adaptations. The story is the same as the movie, and you experience the same flux of emotions.

As is the strength of novels, you get even more insight into the minds of brilliant, but doomed and so very exhausted old mind of General Lee, the apprehensive, easily angered but infinitely calm General Longstreet, and the constant thinker Lt Colonel Chamberlain. The majority of the book is told from the perspective of Longstreet and Chamberlain, with fleeting glances told from the perspective of Armistead, Lee, Harrison, Buford, but mostly just Longstreet and Chamberlain.

It was easy for me to transfer the faces and voices from "Gettysburg" into my mind's eye when reading it, and surprisingly easy to accept the dialogue from the novel rather than replacing it with the more familiar dialogue of the movie.

What keeps me from making this 5 stars is what I mentioned as being "third-grade prose" in my review for the book "Eagle in the Snow": the prose is very very VERY stilted, and difficult to keep up with when an entire paragraph is made up of dozens of little mini-sentences made up of two or three words. It's highly infuriating to read text that reads exactly like this:

(Chamberlain)
"Slept, but did not know how long. Woke to the sound of the continuing guns. No difference. Looked out across the rock, smoke everywhere, Union guns firing, men moving among the guns, hunched, a bloody horse running eerily by, three-legged, horrible sight, running toward the road. Another horse down with no head, like a broken toy. Man nearby, lying on his back, one hand groping upward, oddly reaching for the sky. Chamberlain closed his eyes, slept again. Opened them and lost all sense of time, had been sleeping since Noah in the sound of the guns, had slept through the mud and the ooze and thousands of days since Creation, the guns going on forever, like the endless rains of dawn."


(Lee)
Lee was moved. My good old soldier. He was embarrassed. He said quickly, "You won a victory, General." Ewell looked up. His eyes were strained. "It was not a large victory, it might have been larger, we might have pushed harder. But it was a victory. I am satisfied. The men fought well. This was your first day. It is not as easy as it sometimes seems."


Perhaps this is Shaara's writing style, which must take getting used to in reading his other novels, or perhaps Civil War novels are always written in similar style. Whatever it is, it's a very dull and infuriating style of writing, sparing lush and luxurious prose for dull, placid, and point-blank stats to a lush and luxurious story. Going overboard in a book is NOT a bad thing; this book was great, but could have been much better.

The Gettysburg Campaign told in detail and with a very readable style. I couldn't put it down. The author is very sympathetic to Longstreet and makes him appear the sage while Lee appears stubborn and inflexible. Hard to imagine that Lee would have had Longstreet attempt the assault on Little Round top if an end run around behind the position could have been accomplished as easily as Longstreet (and the author) suggests.

The book is a good starter for understanding Gettysburg, but it has raised as many questions for me as it has answered, which, in my opinion, is what a great history book should do.

I read this book because it was on the Marine Corps Commandant's Professional Reading List, and I used to be a Marine. I was never interested in the Civil War very much, but now I am, thanks to this book. It is wonderful. I read the whole book in two days, I could not put it down. It is a disection of the Battle of Gettysburg as witnessed by its main leaders on the battlefield. I couldn't recommend it enough.