The Killer Angels is a Civil War novel specifically centered on the Battle of Gettysburg. The novel is written as a human drama of some well known Confederate army officers and their Union army counterparts in the Civil War, notably from the Battle of Gettysburg. Thus, the novel is classified as historical fiction. While people who like history would be interested in this book, it is also enjoyable for people who are not drawn to the factual accounts of war, but prefer the presentation of the human emotions, struggles, decisions which are presented in this work of historical fiction.

This book was a trendsetter. Books about the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg usually contained the strategies and outcomes as facts. This novel includes …show more content…
He attended and graduated Rutgers University. He was a amateur boxer, police officer, author, and former paratrooper. He also was a professor of creative writing at Florida State University, winning their faculty-wide award for excellence in teaching. He was the father of Jeff Shaara, who also writes Civil War novels. In 1964, Michael Shaara vacationed with his family and walked the battlefields of Big Round Top and Little Round Top. He walked step by step through the area where Pickett’s Charge occurred. Shaara told his son, Jeff, the story of Lewis Armistead, a Confederate general who led his soldiers during Pickett’s charge up the hill toward a regiment commanded by Hancock, a Union officer and Armistead’s best friend. Jeff related that this was the first time he remembered seeing his father cry. On Little Round Top Michael Shaara became excited and felt he could personally relate to the information he read on Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. This inspired him to take seven years to write the Killer Angels. He was a wonderful storyteller, but not a historian. He wrote The Killer Angels for the same reasons Stephen Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage, to help the himself and the reader visualize the sights and sounds that may have occurred during the time period. Michael Shaara saw his book win a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in April 1975. Nineteen years after the book was …show more content…
Michael Shaara is biased toward the Confederacy. Most of the book is from the viewpoint of Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet of the Confederate army. While the Union perspective is presented from Chamberlain's viewpoint and also somewhat from Buford. The pro-Confederacy bias revealed itself in the concentration of the Confederates experience during the war more so than what the Union experienced. It also displays the Confederacy as treating their men better as it said that some of the Union troops where forced to march at bayonet point after refusing to fight. In contrast, when Stuart, whom the Confederates relied upon for valuable information went off on a joyride and returned he was only scolded for his actions. Lee was portrayed often as a forgiving father figure. This father figure was one which inspired men to fight to win Lee’s approval, love and respect. The larger majority of the book appeared to elucidate the Confederacy issues and decisions. The books also subtly attempted to explain that while some Southerners fought for slavery, a good amount fought for their states rights, for their land, their way of life, or simply refused to fight against their families and