Rating: 
Summary: The Killer Angels
Review: This story is a fictional version of Gettysburg based on the writer's imagination of what critical characters would have thought and done during this battle. As the work is based on the writings and reports of the battle by its participants, it is easy to forget that large parts of the "Killer Angels" are untrue. Instead, as you read this story, you will be transported back to the fields of Gettysburg where, when you are done, you will remember the battle as if you were there yourself."The Killer Angels" is especially good at showing the chaos of war and the impact and effect of individual solders on a battle fought by over 200,000 men. While both sides had its heros and villains, a few in particular stick out after reading this story. Burford, an unknown commander, seized the high ground on the first day of this battle. His men alone and unsure if aid would arrive, saved the best ground for the Union. Yet later General Sickles, a Union commander, abandoned a position on top of a hill, Little Roundtop, because for some strange reason he didn't like it. But for the actions of a little known Colonel named Chamberlain, the Union may have been flanked on the second day of the battle. Newly appointed General Meade, for that matter, incredibly wanted to abandon this beautiful position after the second day. Only when all of his commanders disagreed, in writing, would he agree to stay. Jeb Stuart, a calvary general, was missing during the critical first few days of battle. As such, the South did not know what forces they were facing, where they were, or where the best terrain was. Their earlier efforts were gravely hampered by this ignorance. Incredibly the author, deftly, attacks the legendary General Lee. Lee was warned, repeatedly, by Longstreet that they South could flank the Union. Lee refused, however, to alter his battle plans. Later Lee was warned not to have Pickett's men cross of a mile of land under the barrage of Union cannons and devastating rifle fire. He made his decision, put it in God's hands, and watched as an army, his army, was destroyed before his eyes. To his credit Lee does later admit his errors. In its 36th printing, this book has been popular since its release in 1968. If you have any interest in the Civil War or Military History, I think you will enjoy this novel as you witness human courage, loyality and honor under the most extreme circumstance possible, the fires of perhaps the most important battle in the Civil War.
Rating:
Summary: Great for a beginner Civil War buff
Review: Middle of last year I started reading Shelby Foote's Civil War trilogy (I have 400 pages left of Volume III). The only break away from the huge volumes has been The Killer Angels, and I read it right after I finished Foote's chapter on Gettysburg. Shaara's writing really brought the details of the battle to life as well as help me look inside the minds of several commanders on both sides of the fight.
Rating: 
Summary: Killer Angels...it doesn' t get any better!!
Review: Shaara has produced a small miracle in this book about the Gettysburg battle of July 1-3, 1863. The passion, the mistakes, the acts of heroism are all here with such smooth and powerful prose that you actually feel you are listening in on Lee and Longstreet, or standing next to Chamberlain at Little Round Top. This is living history at it's best. Told mostly from the side of the South, Shaara does give us a slice of Union action in one of history's most surprising "last stand" battles, The Battle of Little Round Top and Chamberlain's defense of it. As for Pickett's Charge, Shaara gives you the full tour. The decision before, the action during, the high emotions afteward as diaster befell the Rebs. If you have never, ever read a Civil War book before...buy this one. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: The best novel I have read about the US Civil War
Review: I live in Gettysburg PA, the town famous for an epic battle. Killer Angels reviews the battle of Gettysburg from the viewpoint of generals to often ignored: Longstreet, Buford and Chamberlain. It gives a good overview for the battle but is worthy for a much greater reason - it protrays accurately much of the time period - what the battle may have been like. It is a novel that portrays the Union and Confederate sides well, makes the reader sympathize with both sides, a difficult matter (especially for a Yankee like myself). I cannot recommend his son's books as highly but this novel, covering a period of four days is brilliant and well deserves the Pulitzer Prize it received.
Rating:
Summary: An engrossing novel
Review: While in college, I took a synthesis course on the human response to war. Most of the books we read were World War II and Vietnam. How on Earth this book wasn't included, I have no idea?
Sometimes this country takes for granted the Civil War. This book puts everything in perspective. Brother on brother. Generals fighting against their friends. It's the most important war in this country's history and maybe even the world's in the last 1,000 yaers.
Read this account about the Battle of Gettysburg to find out why.
Rating:
Summary: The beginning for a Civil War buff.
Review: I have little to add to the raves but this: Despite a good education, I had little other than a cursory knowledge of the Civil War until I read this book, a quarter-century ago. I spent the next five years reading everything I could find on the nation's seminal event. Thank you, Michael Shaara
Rating:
Summary: A Grand Tragedy
Review: As the existence of 259 reviews and a close to 5-star rating indicates, this is a book that will just blow you away. It's hard to imagine that anyone who reads it could fail to be deeply moved. It is quite simply one of the finest works of historical fiction ever written by any author. The best historical fiction can convey insights that may prove elusive for even the best writers of straight history, who are limited to what can be definitively known about the thoughts and motives of historical actors. One of the most impressive aspects of Shaara's book, for me, was the persuasive way he recreated the process by which Robert E. Lee convinced himself that the ill-fated assault history knows as Pickett's Charge had a reasonable chance of success. Indeed, the Confederate side of Shaara's novel reads like a Greek tragedy. General James Longstreet plays the role of chorus (or perhaps Cassandra), while Lee is the noble hero, but with an unusual twist: for his tragic flaw is not personal hubris or overconfidence in his own ability, but his fierce belief in the ability of the men he led to do more than what was humanly possible. The book rests on four great characters. In addition to Longstreet, Lee's key subordinate, the others are Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, who commands a regiment of Maine volunteers; the Union cavalry General John Buford, whose stand west of Gettysburg on the first day of battle critically shapes the course of events that follows; and Lewis Armistead, an older Virginian who commands one of the brigades of Pickett's division. It is a tribute to the power of Shaara's characterizations of the latter three men that he has done much to rescue them from the historical obscurity into which they were fading. Now, there is a new statue of Buford on the field at Gettysburg west of the Lutheran Theological Seminary; Chamberlain's life has been chronicled in a major new biography, and his own war memoirs are back in print; and more visitors to Gettysburg undoubtedly make a point of seeking out the humble monument along Cemetery Ridge that marks the place where Armistead fell mortally wounded at the climax of Pickett's charge. This is a book of great set-pieces -- Chamberlain's defense of Little Round Top, the final Confederate assault on Cemetery Ridge -- but the genius of Shaara's writing lies in its basic elements. His pacing is brilliant: alternating sentences of Proustian length with mere fragments, subordinate clause marches after subordinate clause, as the following excerpt from his legendary description of Pickett's Charge demonstrates: "Kemper's men had come apart, drifting left. There was a mass ahead but it did not seem to be moving. Up there the wall was a terrible thing, flame and smoke. [Armistead] had to squint to look at it, kept his head down, looked left, saw Pettigrew's men were still moving, but the neat lines were gone, growing confusion, the flags dropping, no Rebel yell now, no more screams of victory, the men falling here and there like trees before an invisible axe you could see them go one by one and in clumps, suddenly, in among the columns of smoke from the shell. Far to the left he saw: Pettigrew's men were running. . . . Armistead moved on, expecting to die, but was not hit. He moved closer to the wall up there, past mounds of bodies, no line any more, just men moving forward at different speeds, stopping to fire, stopping to die, drifting back like leaves blown from the fire ahead." Once you've read Shaara's fictional account of Gettysburg, I also recommend the treatment of the battle by Shelby Foote in the central chapters of the second volume of his Civil War trilogy. The Gettysburg chapters have also been published as a separate book, "Stars in Their Courses." It is as moving and beautifully written as Shaara's book, and has an equivalent ability to surprise you with fresh information and insights. If you haven't previously understood why the Battle of Gettysburg has the hold it does on America's historical imagination, these two books will make it clear.
Rating:
Summary: Great history and storytelling all in one book!
Review: A friend who lives near Gettysburg recommended this book to me. Although I love history, I had avoided war accounts thinking they'd be boring. Was I ever wrong! This account of the Battle of Gettysburg is great storytelling, and brings to life the men that fought this war. A stirring account that you'll want to read again and again!
Rating:
Summary: Civil War Comes to Life
Review: When I picked up this book, I really knew little or nothing about the Civil War or the major players. I knew Lincoln, Grant and Lee, and I knew which side won. I'll admit that I expected it to be a snooze, but I've seldom been more wrong. I was actually so interested in the characters, that I looked up photos of them so that my mental picture would be accurate. It's not easy to make blow-by-blow battle accounts engrossing, but Shaara manages this and more. Even though I knew the outcome of the battle, this was still a suspenseful account. One book won't make me an expert on it, but this novel really brought the Civil War to life for me.
Rating:
Summary: This book is an insight into the Humanity of soldiers
Review: The Killer Angels provides insight into the very men that shaped our country's history. It stripped away all the preconceived notions of the slave mongering, and morally decrepit Confederate Army. Many characters in this book could simply not fight against their family, even thought they swore an oath at Westpoint to defend the Union. Others merely wanted to defend their states' honor. Others believed that it was their constitutional right to govern themselves that they were fighting for. It is very possible that the underlying cause for the War was slavery, but not because men hungered to own other men as property. I have read some reviews by people for whom this book was required reading, and they have not been fair reviews. I truly feel sorry for anyone who does not have the capacity to understand this fine work of literature. And it is certainly Literature. This book is written so that you may glimpse into the mind of men with great burdens upon them, and makes you one of them. At the end of this book I had a lump in my throat because I feel now I can better understand the enormity of the burden these men faced. Read this book. You owe it to yourself. Whether you are interested in the Civil War, or any war for that matter.
| 
