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The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War
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| Item Number |
71570 |
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Item Description...
Overview
Portraits of Lee, Longstreet, and other Civil War leaders are interwoven with historical detail to provide a fictional recreation of the bloody battle at Gettysburg
Publishers Description
Winner of the Pultizer Prize
In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fought for two conflicting 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. Bright futures, untested innocence, and pristine beauty were also the casualties of war. Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece is unique, sweeping, unforgettable—the dramatic story of the battleground for America’s destiny.
“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 M. McPherson
“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
“Shaara carries [the reader] swiftly and dramatically to a climax as exciting as if it were being heard for the first time.”—The Seattle Times
“Utterly absorbing.”—Forbes
Michael Shaara was born in 1928 in Jersey City, New Jersey. After graduating from Rutgers University in 1951, he served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, was an amateur boxer, and a police officer. In 1960 he became a professor of creative writing at Florida State University, where he won a faculty-wide award for excellence in teaching. His writing career included the publication of some seventy short stories, beginning in the early 1950s in the heyday of science-fiction publications such as Astounding and Galaxy. Subsequent stories were published through the early 1970s in The Saturday Evening Post, Playboy, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, and others. His first novel, The Broken Place, was published in 1968. Other novels include The Herald and For Love of the Game (published after his death).
Michael Shaara died in 1988 at the age of fifty-nine.
1. THE SPY
He rode into the dark of the woods and dismounted. He crawled upward on his belly over cool rocks out into the sunlight, and suddenly he was in the open and he could see for miles, and there was the whole vast army below him, filling the valley like a smoking river. It came out of a blue rainstorm in the east and overflowed the narrow valley road, coiling along a stream, narrowing and choking at a white bridge, fading out into the yellowish dust of June but still visible on the farther road beyond the blue hills, spiked with flags and guidons like a great chopped bristly snake, the snake ending headless in a blue wall of summer rain.
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 Reynold's First Corps. He looked at his watch, noted the time. They were coming very fast. The Army of the Potomac 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.
He slipped back down into the cool dark and rode slowly downhill toward the silent empty country to the north. With luck he could make the Southern line before nightfall. After nightfall it would be dangerous. But he must not seem to hurry. The horse was already tired. And yet there was the pressure of that great blue army behind him, building like water behind a cracking dam. He rode out into the open, into the land between the armies.
There were fat Dutch barns, prim German orchards. But there were no cattle in the fields and no horses, and houses everywhere were empty and dark. He was alone in the heat and the silence, and then it began to rain and he rode head down into monstrous lightning. All his life he had been afraid of lightning but he kept riding. He did not know where the Southern headquarters was but he knew it had to be somewhere near Chambersburg. He had smelled out the shape of Lee's army in all the rumors and bar talk and newspapers and hysteria he had drifted through all over eastern Pennsylvania, and on that day he was perhaps the only man alive who knew the positions of both armies. He carried the knowledge with a hot and lovely pride. Lee would be near Chambersburg, and wherever Lee was Longstreet would not be far away. So finding the headquarters was not the problem. The problem was riding through a picket line in the dark.
The rain grew worse. He could not even move in under a tree because of the lightning. He had to take care not to get lost. He rode quoting Shakespeare from memory, thinking of the picket line ahead somewhere in the dark. The sky opened and poured down on him and he rode on: It will be rain tonight: Let it come down. That was a speech of murderers. He had been an actor once. He had no stature and a small voice and there were no big parts for him until the war came, and now he was the only one who knew how good he was. If only they could see him work, old cold Longstreet and the rest. But everyone hated spies. I come a single spy. Wet single spy. But they come in whole battalions. The rain began to ease off and he spurred the horse to a trot. My kingdom for a horse. Jolly good line. He went on, reciting Henry the Fifth aloud: “Once more into the breech . . .”
Late that afternoon he came to a crossroad and the sign of much cavalry having passed this way a few hours ago. His own way led north to Chambersburg, but he knew that Longstreet would have to know who these people were so close to his line. He debated a moment at the crossroads, knowing there was no time. A delay would cost him daylight. Yet he was a man of pride and the tracks drew him. Perhaps it was only Jeb Stuart. The spy thought hopefully, wistfully: If it's Stuart I can ask for an armed escort all the way home. He turned and followed the tracks. After a while he saw a farmhouse and a man standing out in a field, in a peach orchard, and he spurred that way. The man was small and bald with huge round arms and spoke very bad English. The spy went into his act: a simple-minded farmer seeking a runaway wife, terrified of soldiers. The bald man regarded him sweatily, disgustedly, told him the soldiers just gone by were “plu” soldiers, Yankees. The spy asked: What town lies yonder? and the farmer told him Gettysburg, but the name meant nothing. The spy turned and spurred back to the crossroads. Yankee cavalry meant John Buford's column. Moving lickety-split. Where was Stuart? No escort now. He rode back again toward the blue hills. But the horse could not be pushed. He had to dismount and walk.
That was the last sign of Yankees. He was moving up across South Mountain; he was almost home. Beyond South Mountain was Lee and, of course, Longstreet. A strange friendship: grim and gambling Longstreet, formal and pious old Bobby Lee. The spy wondered at it, and then the rain began again, bringing more lightning but at least some cooler air, and he tucked himself in under his hat and went back to Hamlet. Old Jackson was dead. Good night, sweet Prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest . . .
He rode into darkness. No longer any need to hurry. He left the roadway at last and moved out in to a field away from the lightning and the trees and sat in the rain to eat a lonely supper, trying to make up his mind whether it was worth the risk of going on. He was very close; he could begin to feel them up ahead. There was no way of knowing when or where, but suddenly they would be there in the road, stepping phantomlike out of the trees wearing those sick eerie smiles, and other men with guns would suddenly appear all around him, prodding him in the back with hard steel barrels, as you prod an animal, and he would have to be lucky, because few men rode out at night on good and honest business, not now, this night, in this invaded country.
He rode slowly up the road, not really thinking, just moving, reluctant to stop. He was weary. Fragments of Hamlet flickered in his brain: If it be not now, yet it will come. Ripeness is all. Now there's a good part. A town ahead. A few lights. And then he struck the picket line.
There was a presence in the road, a liquid Southern voice. He saw them outlined in lightning, black ragged figures rising around him. A sudden lantern poured yellow light. He saw one bleak hawkish grinning face; hurriedly he mentioned Longstreet's name. With some you postured and with some you groveled and with some you were imperious. But you could do that only by daylight, when you could see the faces and gauge the reaction. And now he was too tired and cold. He sat and shuddered: an insignificant man on a pale and muddy horse. He turned out to be lucky. There was a patient sergeant with a long gray beard who put him under guard and sent him along up the dark road to Longstreet's headquarters.
He was not safe even now, but he could begin to relax. He rode up the long road between picket fires, and he could hear them singing in the rain, chasing each other in the dark of the trees. A fat and happy army, roasting meat and fresh bread, telling stories in the dark. He began to fall asleep on the horse; he was home. But they did not like to see him sleep, and one of them woke him up to remind him, cheerily, that if there was no one up there who knew him, why, then, unfortunately, they'd have to hang him, and the soldier said it just to see the look on his face, and the spy shivered, wondering, Why do there have to be men like that, men who enjoy another man's dying?
Longstreet was not asleep. He lay on the cot watching the lightning flare in the door of the tent. It was very quiet in the grove and there was the sound of the raindrops continuing to fall from the trees although the rain had ended. When Sorrel touched him on the arm he was glad of it; he was thinking of his dead children.
“Sir? You asked to be awakened if Harrison came back.”
“Yes.” Longstreet got up quickly and put on the old blue robe and the carpet slippers. He was a very big man and he was full-bearded and wild-haired. He thought of the last time he'd seen the spy, back in Virginia, tiny man with a face like a weasel: “And where will your headquarters be, General, up there in Pennsylvania? 'Tis a big state indeed.” Him standing there with cold gold clutched in a dirty hand. And Longstreet had said icily, cheerily, “It will be where it will be. If you cannot find the headquarters of this whole army you cannot be much of a spy.” And the spy had said stiffly, “Scout, sir. I am a scout. And I am a patriot, sir.” Longstreet had grinned. We are all patriots. He stepped out into the light. He did not know what to expect. He had not really expected the spy to come back at all.
The little man was there: a soggy spectacle on a pale and spattered horse. He sat grinning wanly from under the floppy brim of a soaked and dripping hat. Lightning flared behind him; he touched his cap.
“Your servant, General. May I come down?”
Longstreet nodded. The guard backed off. Longstreet told Sorrel to get some coffee. The spy slithered down from the horse and stood grinning foolishly, shivering, mouth slack with fatigue.
“Well, sir”—the spy chuckled, teeth chattering—“you see, I was able to find you after all.”
Longstreet sat at the camp table on a wet seat, extracted a cigar, lighted it. The spy sat floppily, mouth still open, breathing deeply.
“It has been a long day. I've ridden hard all this day.”
“What have you got?”
“I came through the pickets at night, you know. That can be very touchy.”
Longstreet nodded. He watched, he waited. Sorrel came with steaming coffee; the cup burned Longstreet's fingers. Sorrel sat, gazing curiously, distastefully at the spy.
The spy guzzled, then sniffed Longstreet's fragrant smoke. Wistfully: “I say, General, I don't suppose you've got another of those? Good Southern tobacco?”
“Directly,” Longstreet said. “What have you got?”
“I've got the position of the Union Army.”
Longstreet nodded, showing nothing. He had not known the Union Army was on the move, was within two hundred miles, was even this side of the Potomac, but he nodded and said nothing. The spy asked for a map and began pointing out the positions of the corps.
“They're coming in seven corps. I figure at least eighty thousand men, possibly as much as a hundred thousand. When they're all together they'll outnumber you, but they're not as strong as they were; the two-year enlistments are running out. The First Corps is here. The Eleventh is right behind it. John Reynolds is in command of the lead elements. I saw him at Taneytown this morning.”
“Reynolds,” Longstreet said.
“Yes, sir.”
“You saw him yourself?”
The spy grinned, nodded, rubbed his nose, chuckled. “So close I could touch him. It was Reynolds all right.”
“This morning. At Taneytown.”
“Exactly. You didn't know any of that, now did you, General?” The spy bobbed his head with delight. “You didn't even know they was on the move, did ye? I thought not. You wouldn't be spread out so thin if you knowed they was comin'.”
Longstreet looked at Sorrel. The aide shrugged silently. If this was true, there would have been some word. Longstreet's mind moved over it slowly. He said: “How did you know we were spread out?”
“I smelled it out.” The spy grinned, foxlike, toothy. “Listen, General, I'm good at this business.”
“Tell me what you know of our position.”
“Well, now I can't be too exact on this, 'cause I aint scouted you myself, but I gather that you're spread from York up to Harrisburg and then back to Chambersburg, with the main body around Chambersburg and General Lee just 'round the bend.”
It was exact. Longstreet thought: if this one knows it, they will know it. He said slowly, “We've had no word of Union movement.”
The spy bobbed with joy. “I knew it. Thass why I hurried. Came through that picket line in the dark and all. I don't know if you realize, General—”
Sorrel said coldly, “Sir, don't you think, if this man's story was true, that we would have heard something?”
From the Hardcover edition.
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Item Specifications...
Pages 384
Dimensions: Length: 1.25" Width: 4.25" Height: 7"
Weight: 0.4 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Release Date Aug 12, 1987
Publisher Ballantine Books
ISBN 0345348109
EAN 9780345348104
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Availability 386 units.
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About this Author/Artist <b>Michael Shaara</b> was born in Jersey City in 1929 and graduated from Rutgers University in 1951. His early science fiction short stories were published in <i>Galaxy</i> magazine in 1952. He later began writing other works of fiction and published more than seventy short stories in many magazines, including <i>The Saturday Evening Post</i>, <i>Cosmopolitan</i>, and <i>Redbook</i>. His first novel, <i>The Broken Place</i>, was published in 1968. But it was a simple family vacation to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1966 that gave him the inspiration for his greatest achievement, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel <i>The Killer Angels</i>, published in 1974. Michael Shaara went on to write two more novels, <i>The Noah Conspiracy</i> and <i>For Love of the Game</i>, which was pub
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | excellent book, even if you are not a buff Aug 12, 2007 |
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. | | | | Historical Fiction at it's Best Jul 28, 2007 |
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! | | | | Great book! Jul 3, 2007 |
| 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. | | | | A fine basic view......... Jun 15, 2007 |
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. | | | | Remarkable achievement... May 3, 2007 |
| 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. | | | Write your own review about The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War
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