The Killer Angels
Authors: Michael Shaara
Praise for
The Killer Angels
“The best Civil War novel ever written … The descriptions of combat are incomparable; they convey not just the sights but the noise and smell of battle. And the characterizations are simply superb.… Shaara has managed to capture the essence of war, the divided friendships, the madness, and the heroism of fratricidal conflict.”
—S
TEPHEN
B. O
ATES
, author of
With Malice Toward None
“[Shaara] writes with clarity and power.… His descriptions of the battle scenes are vivid and unsparing.”
—Newsday
“Akin to Hemingway … [and] Stephen Crane’s
Red Badge of Courage.
”
—The Houston Post
“A compelling version of what America’s Armageddon must have been like … surefire storytelling.”
—Publishers Weekly
“You will learn more from this utterly absorbing book about Gettysburg than from any nonfictional account. Shaara fabulously, convincingly brings characters such as Robert E. Lee to life and makes the conflict all too real.”
—Forbes
“Literary wonders will never cease. Would you think it possible that after all the hundreds of books written about the battle of Gettysburg, both fiction and nonfiction, that… [this] novel about the battle could come out fresh, utterly absorbing, with the strong possibility that it may even turn out to be a classic? Well, read Michael Shaara’s …
The Killer Angels
and find out.”
—The Frederick News-Post
(Frederick, Maryland)
“Narrated as expertly as though Michael Shaara had been a participant in the battle of Gettysburg.”
—The Journal Gazette
(Fort Wayne, Indiana)
“It’s at one and the same time an excellent, historical novel, a bitter anti-war tract, and a story filled with an amazing case of beautifully realized characters.”
—Daily Sun
(Hudson, Massachusetts)
“An approach so fresh it is stunning.”
—St. Louis Globe-Democrat
“The
Killers Angels
could well be the best Civil War novel of this decade.”
—The News Leader
(Richmond, Virginia)
“All in all it is a feast of reading, the best you will find for a long, long time.”
—The Chattanooga Times
“What makes Shaara’s novel an admirable effort, and one worth reading, is its sensitiveness to the time-spirit of the era. What it reveals is primarily men in context, men in action, and thought within the changing scenery of events. It is a genuinely appealing book.”
—The Charlotte Observer
“This is one of the best novels of the Civil War that I’ve read.”
—Daily Press
(Newport News, Virginia)
ALSO BY MICHAEL SHAARA
The Broken Place
The Herald
For Love of the Game
The Killer Angels
is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.
2011 Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Edition
Copyright © 1974 by Michael Shaara
Copyright renewed © 2002 by Jeff M. Shaara and Lila E. Shaara
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
B
ALLANTINE
and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in hardcover in the United States by David McKay Co., Inc., an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 1974.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51373-1
Cover design: Michael Boland/Boland Design Company
Cover illustration: Gilbert Gaul, Glorious Fighting, 1885 (detail)(Collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art/Gift of John Meyer)
Maps by Don Pitcher
v3.1
T
O
L
ILA
(
OLD
G
EORGE
)
… IN WHOM
I
AM WELL PLEASED
“When men take up arms to set other men free, there is something sacred and holy in the warfare.”
—W
OODROW
W
ILSON
“I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”
—E.M. F
ORSTER
“With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the Army.…”
—from a letter of R
OBERT
E. L
EE
Mr. Mason: How do you justify your acts?
John Brown: I think, my friend, you are guilty of a great wrong against God and humanity—I say it without wishing to be offensive—and it would be perfectly right for anyone to interfere with you so far as to free those you willfully and wickedly hold in bondage. I do not say this insultingly.
Mr. Mason: I understand that.
—from an interview with
J
OHN
B
ROWN
after his capture
ONTENTS
THE KILLER ANGELS
IST OF
M
APS
Situation June 1863: the routes of the armies
Situation Noon, June 30: Buford enters Gettysburg
The First Day—dawn: Buford’s defense of Gettysburg
Situation at 9:00
A.M.
, July I: Buford’s defense
The First Day—11:00
A.M.:
situation after the death of Reynolds
The First Day—3:00–4:00
P.M.:
attack of Ewell’s Corps on Howard’s flank
Chamberlain’s route to Gettysburg
Situation at the close of the First Day
The Second Day—morning: estimated Union position
The Second Day—morning: Lee’s plan for Longstreet’s assault on the Union left
The Second Day—4:00
P.M.:
actual line attacked by Longstreet after Sickles’ move forward
The Second Day—5:00
P.M.:
defense of Devil’s Den and Little Round Top
O
THE
R
EADER
This is the story of the Battle of Gettysburg, told from the viewpoints of Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet and some of the other men who fought there.
Stephen Crane once said that he wrote
The Red Badge of Courage
because reading the cold history was not enough; he wanted to know what it was like to
be
there, what the weather was like, what men’s faces looked like. In order to live it he had to write it. This book was written for much the same reason.
You may find it a different story from the one you learned in school. There have been many versions of that battle and that war. I have therefore avoided historical opinions and gone back primarily to the words of the men themselves, their letters and other documents. I have not consciously changed any fact. I have condensed some of the action, for the sake of clarity, and eliminated some minor characters, for brevity; but though I have often had to choose between conflicting viewpoints, I have not knowingly violated the action. I have changed some of the language. It was a naïve and sentimental time, and men spoke in windy phrases. I thought it necessary to update some of the words so that the religiosity and naïveté of the time, which were genuine, would not seem too quaint to the modern ear. I hope I will be forgiven that.
The interpretation of character is my own.
M
ICHAEL
S
HAARA
OREWORD
June 1863
I. T
HE
A
RMIES
On June 15 the first troops of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee commanding, slip across the Potomac at Williamsport and begin the invasion of the North.
It is an army of seventy thousand men. They are rebels and volunteers. They are mostly unpaid and usually self-equipped. It is an army of remarkable unity, fighting for disunion. It is Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. Though there are many men who cannot read or write, they all speak English. They share common customs and a common faith and they have been consistently victorious against superior numbers. They have as solid a faith in their leader as any veteran army that ever marched. They move slowly north behind the Blue Ridge, using the mountains to screen their movements. Their main objective is to draw the Union Army out into the open where it can be destroyed. By the end of the month they are closing on Harrisburg, having spread panic and rage and despair through the North.