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Civil War Progression

Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
New York:  Random House, 1993
(Original publisher - New York: McKay, 1974)

     You can almost smell the gunpowder.  Michael Shaara brings the Battle of Gettysburg to life in this thrilling, Pulitzer prize winning dramatization of the Civil War's most famous battle.  Each chapter focuses on the perspective of one of the Battle's key leaders - Lee, Longstreet, Pickett, Chamberlain and Hancock.  In preparing to write this novel, Shaara researched the personalities of each of these men.  He tells us not only how they thought, but how they felt.  For example, Shaara reveals Longstreet's grave doubts regarding the wisdom of the attack and Robert E. Lee's leadership during the days and hours preceding the battle.
     The battle itself is described with such vivid imagery you can almost feel the fear of the men who know they are about to die.  Like a spy moving from one side to the other, Shaara takes us behind the lines of both camps.

Comment
     More American men died in this single battle than this country lost in the entire Vietnam War.  Shaara reveals that Robert E. Lee, in spite of his reputation as one of our country's great generals, ordered his men to fight a  battle that even his right hand man, General Longstreet knew had little chance of success.  The book is well-researched, but its' true strength is Shaara's ability to place the reader in the middle of the battlefield and help us appreciate the true horror of the Civil War. 

Reading Level:  4.7
Interest Level:  Young adult +
360 pages

Support the Following Instructional Objectives:

Describe the Cultural, Political and Military Progression of Events in the Civil War

  Excerpt

     The spy tucked himself behind a boulder and began counting flags.  Must be twenty thousand men, visible all at once.  Two whole Union Corps.  He could make out the familiar black hats of the Iron Brigade, troops belonging to John Reynolds' First Corps.  He looked at his watch, noted the time.  They were coming very fast.  The Army of the Potomac had never had never moved this fast.  The day was murderously hot and there was no wind and the dust hung above the army like a yellow veil.  He thought: there'll be some of them die of the heat today.  But they are coming faster than they ever came before.         

Links
Gettysburg National Military Park:  www.nps.gov/gett/

Picture courtesy of Gettysburg National Military Park, www.nps.gov/gett
Accessed June 5, 2002.

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