The historical novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara is about the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War. The book is written from the perspective of the people fighting and shares their thoughts and feelings about the battle as it goes on.
The book begins on June 29, 1863 with a spy informing the Confederate army of the location of Union troops near them. Two of the Confederate generals, James Longstreet and Robert E. Lee, are skeptical at first but then believe what the spy says he saw and begin to move the Confederate troops toward Gettysburg. The fighting begins in the morning on June 30 between a group of Union cavalry soldiers on foot and a small group of Confederate infantry. The Confederate soldiers begin the attack believing the Union soldiers are only a state militia. On July 1 the Union soldiers are outnumbered and fear reinforcements may not come soon enough. The Union reinforcements arrive just in time, but General Reynolds, the general who has been leading the Union soldiers that just arrived, is killed and the troops must attack without their commander. Robert E. Lee arrives in Gettysburg and observes the battle; he is informed by General Heth, who has been leading a group of soldiers, of how the battle started and what has happened so far. Lee instructs Heth to continue the attack along with another general. Later, Lee is informed that Heth has been injured and the Union army is fighting better than they have in the past. The Union army is pushed back by the Confederates and retreats to nearby hills. General Lee instructs another general to pursue them and take the hills as well, but fearing an attack the general does not follow the Union troops to the hills. Longstreet tries to convince Lee to move the Confederate troops southeast and cut off the Union troops from the capitol, but Lee sees that action as a retreat and refuses.
On July 2 the Confederate troops are ordered by General Lee to attack the Union troops in the hills. When the troops arrive at the hills they see the Union troops have moved to an orchard near one of the hills and are not where they had expected them to be. Longstreet decides it would take too long to reach General Lee and he believes Lee’s decision would still be to attack, so Longstreet tells the other generals to attack.
Meanwhile, the Union army moves a group of troops lead by Colonel Chamberlain to be the left edge of the Union line. They are instructed not to retreat for any reason. A while after they are put in position they are attacked by the Confederate forces. They hold off the first wave of soldiers, but they are followed closely by another wave. Every wave of Confederates they hold off another is right behind, and the Union soldiers begin to run out of ammunition. When they were low enough on ammunition that they couldn’t hold back another wave of soldiers the Union troops charged down the hill towards the Confederates with their bayonets.
In the morning of July 3 the Union moves the troops lead by Chamberlain to the center of the Union line so they can rest in an area without fighting. However, Lee’s plan is to attack the center of the Union line, he tells Longstreet the plan and Longstreet disagrees continuing to propose they move between the Union and the capitol. Lee refuses Longstreet’s plan and orders him to prepare for the attack. Meanwhile, General Ewell’s troops are attacked by the Union army as they prepare for attack.
After attacking the Union line with artillery the Confederates begin their march towards the center of the Union line. The Confederate soldiers were being hit with artillery from the Union and many soldiers were dying. Very few Confederate soldiers made it to the Union line and those that did were killed soon after getting there. Lee rode into the battlefield and tried to tell the troops that the loss was his fault though they didn’t accept it, and told him it wasn’t his fault. The Union stopped firing and the Confederates retreated. Longstreet told Lee he didn’t think they could win the war after that battle and Lee neither agreed nor disagreed.
The book was linked to the historical events of the time because it was about the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg. The novel helps bring more understanding of the war and what they were fighting for and why. It explains some of the reasons each side made the decisions they did during the battle.
I enjoyed how the book detailed the thoughts of the people in the battle instead of just presenting facts. It was helpful to be able to use the thoughts of the soldiers to understand the reasoning behind attacking in the way they did. Without the thoughts and opinions of the soldiers some of the choices wouldn’t have made as much sense. The arguments between the characters about how to go about the attack was also interesting because I could understand why the option that was decided on was picked over the other possibilities. The way the facts were correct with fictional information added to increase understanding was helpful in reading. I found it interesting that there were foreign observers of the war traveling with the armies; I had not known that before reading this book. I learned much more about both the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg from reading this.
