By 1974, stories about Gettysburg’s epic battle had been shared and published for 111 years. With a gigantic collective history volume already in place, it seemed unlikely anything profound about that event could be added. In fact, authors wrote more books about the Civil War than all other American history subjects combined.
However, a novel by author Michael Shaara, released in 1974, altered that perception. His work, titled “The Killer Angels,” is a masterpiece told by a born storyteller. Beyond its powerful prose and historical insight, this book also inspired a legacy of other notable artistic projects from talented people that Shaara sadly never witnessed during his lifetime.
Michael Shaara was born in 1928. The New Jersey native came from Italian ancestry. During his childhood, he yearned to be a writer. He graduated from Rutgers University and published his first short story as a student. Earlier, Shaara served in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in Korea. Once back home, he became a Florida policeman for a stint, hoping to find real-life material for his writing.
Shaara’s first forays into professional writing focused on science fiction. He published short stories in popular pulp fiction of the post-war era. But with a family to support, and writing outlets paying as little as a penny a word, Shaara eventually accepted a teaching position at Florida State University.
He taught literature, but his own writing projects remained a motivating presence. In 1968, Shaara’s first novel titled “The Broken Place” was published. This was a story about a Korean War vet who returns stateside to fight as a boxer.
However, back in 1964, Shaara took his family on a road trip. They visited the Gettysburg battlefield for the first time. Walking the same ground where Pickett made his famous charge, Michael Shaara was enthralled. He returned home, determined to write a unique story on that famous battle.
Why Shaara was captivated by Gettysburg is easily speculated. It is the most famous small town in America with a picturesque setting. The mammoth battle fought there in July 1863 was a pivotal turning point in the Civil War. Military decisions and tactics carried out at Gettysburg resulted in appalling casualties and created the blueprint for the war’s eventual outcome. In November of that year, President Lincoln delivered his legendary Gettysburg Address, honoring the battlefield’s dead.
Diving headfirst into his new project in Florida, Shaara tunneled into a mountain of Civil War research. “The Killer Angels” book took seven years to write. Shaara was excited when he finally completed his manuscript, but a publishing contract proved elusive.
The country in the early ‘70s was emotionally exhausted from a prolonged war in Vietnam. Prospects for a new history-based war book didn’t light a fire under most publishers. Shaara persisted and received a modest book advance from a publishing house. Then, when his novel was released, the author awaited the reading public’s response.
“The Killer Angels’” initial reception was lackluster. The book didn’t vault up best-seller lists. After years laboring at his craft, at first it seemed Shaara’s novel was destined for only modest acclaim. Then in 1975, a telegram arrived to Shaara’s home. The author read it, astounded. “The Killer Angels” had won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Shaara and his wife were later invited to a State Dinner at the White House hosted by President Ford.
But the financial success and literary acclaim an author normally expected after a Pulitzer didn’t materialize. Shaara remained a teacher at FSU and pursued other writing subjects, including his love for baseball. He never wrote another war book.
In “The Killer Angels” novel, Shaara’s compelling narrative is gleaned from extensive research, but what shines is how he inhabits the minds of the book’s main characters. Early on, he introduces these men — military leaders from both north and south– with varying temperaments, goals, vices and motivations.
On the southern side, the pivotal man is Gen. Robert E. Lee, and Shaara describes him: He is a man in control. He does not lose his temper nor his faith; he never complains…He loves Virginia above all, the mystic dirt of home. He is the most beloved man in either army. In the fictional narrative, Shara constantly explores the deep waters of Lee’s mysterious well.
Lee’s right-hand man is Gen. James Longstreet. At Gettysburg, Longstreet still mourns the recent death of his three children back home, all perished in a single week from a fever outbreak. He also struggles with Lee’s aggressive Gettysburg battle tactics and lack of intel from the rebels’ dashing but absent cavalry commander, Jeb Stuart.
Virginia Gen. George Pickett, his name forever linked to Gettysburg with his doomed frontal assault, is described: Major General, thirty-eight. Gaudy and lovable, long-haired, perfumed. Last in his class at West Point, he makes up for a lack of wisdom with a lusty exuberance.
To add an outsider’s perspective, Shaara utilizes a jovial man named Arthur Freemantle, a British writer who journeyed to America to witness the Civil War spectacle firsthand. The flamboyant Freemantle admires the similarities he judges between the English and U.S. southern cultures. He shadows and amuses Confederate Gen. Longstreet.
Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is the shining character on the Union side. Shaara introduces Chamberlain’s studious personality, as this stoic leader of the 20th Maine (a college professor on sabbatical) is put in the critical position of protecting the Yankee’s vulnerable left flank.
Shaara describes 34-year-old Chamberlain as tall and rather handsome, attractive to women, somewhat boyish, a clean and charming person…he speaks seven languages and has a beautiful singing voice, but he has wanted all his life to be a soldier.
It isn’t necessary to be educated about military strategy to appreciate “The Killer Angels.” Troop maneuvers and weaponry descriptions are included but do not overwhelm the story. Instead, Shaara’s mastery of the emotional weight and internal conflict found in these characters dominates this novel. The author asks readers to absorb the significance of this American tragedy through these men by artfully describing their respective dreams and doubts.
The Pennsylvania landscape is an honorary character in the book. Shaara poetically captures the essence of the area’s natural beauty, framed amidst the savagery of war. Perhaps this cherished characteristic is one major reason why millions of history lovers have visited Gettysburg. They can never recreate the battle first hand, nor would they want to witness the carnage. But they can walk the same timeless landscape it was fought on. The massive rocks, the forested hills, the distant blue mountain ridges and the fertile valleys all remain at Gettysburg.
Michael Shaara died from a heart attack, aged 59, in 1988. Despite “The Killer Angels'” compelling story and Pulitzer Prize, it appeared at the time Shaara’s intelligent work would fade like a soldier’s hand-written letter mailed home from the front.
But documentary filmmaker Ken Burns read the book, and it moved him. He praised the work, calling it “remarkable…a book that changed my life.” Then, Burns created the ground-breaking nine-part 1990 miniseries, “The Civil War,” which aired on PBS. Using innovative storytelling techniques, Burns’ film was an instant national phenomenon. This success primed the pump for the eventual creation of a separate Gettysburg movie.
With renewed interest in the American Civil War, Shaara’s novel finally received mainstream attention a few years later. Cable TV mogul Ted Turner’s production company filmed the movie “Gettysburg” in 1993, based on “The Killer Angels” novel. After the movie aired, Shaara’s book sold more than a million copies and rose to the top of the New York Times Best-Seller List, 19 years after it was published. This feat introduced many new readers to the late author’s literary talent.
“Gettysburg” was a major motion picture, but it confronted a challenge all movies face when recreating a literary classic. How can a highly visual medium capture the internal nuances inherent in a deeply written narrative? The movie made a valiant effort, (the film faithfully follows Shaara’s storyline and borrows much of its original dialog. But the 4.5-hour film didn’t fully reach the pinnacle Shaara achieved with his words.
This conclusion is reinforced by famed Gulf War Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who called Sharra’s book “the best and most realistic historical novel about war I have ever read.”
In 2023, many of the movies’ principals returned to Gettysburg for the 30th anniversary and recounted their film-making experiences. With memorable performances by Martin Sheen as Gen. Robert E. Lee, and Jeff Daniels as Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, it was a movie worth celebrating.
But there is another fascinating chapter to “The Killer Angels” book and Gettysburg movie story, which originated in the 1990s and continues onward. Today, the Shaara name remains prominent among award-winning authors. That current celebrated author is Jeff Shaara, Michael’s son.
At a recent Adams County Historical Society talk in Gettysburg, Jeff Shaara recounted his story on stage as projected family pictures flashed on a screen behind him. Still images from that long-ago trip to Gettysburg, when he was 12, showed him climbing monuments and wandering the battlefield with his father, mother and sister.
After the success of the movie “Gettysburg,” movie producers wanted to capitalize on the excitement created by the adapted “Killer Angels” book. Jeff Shaara was tasked to write a new screenplay, a prequel to his late father’s Gettysburg story. Sharra had never written professionally, but his “Gods and Generals” manuscript was so well-received it was published as a stand-alone book, in addition to its movie adaptation. Jeff later wrote “The Last Full Measure”, a moving sequel to complete the Civil War trilogy inspired by “The Killer Angels.” A new writing career took off.
Shaara’s Civil War projects led to other books, and he has authored 20 military-centered novels and won numerous awards. He received the W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction in 2022 for his book “The Eagle’s Claw” and in 2018 for “The Frozen Hours.” “Gods and Generals” also previously won that same award.
While becoming a prodigious and acclaimed writer, Jeff far exceeded his father’s literary production, but he holds “The Killer Angels” in high regard. “That book is his monument,” Shaara said at the Gettysburg forum. “My writing would not exist if he had lived. I honor his legacy and never take it for granted.” In 1997 Jeff established the “Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction.” Shaara eventually moved to Gettysburg and married Stephanie, a local resident.
Another jewel in the necklace of Michael Shaara’s literary heritage is his daughter, Lila, who has authored two novels.
Considering these past books and movies inspired by Gettysburg’s heartbreaking battle, perhaps each successive generation will learn new lessons about what these real-life characters can teach them. Creators like Jeff Shaara, inspired to take the literary baton from his father, will continue to share fascinating chapters in America’s complex story. “You have to walk in the footsteps of these characters,” Jeff Shaara has said.
Michael Shaara first walked the Gettysburg battlefield 60 years ago. By sharing his artistic talent, he left a legacy that enhances local history and spreads its influences worldwide.
