The Killer Angels

In Michael Shaara's fictionalized reconstruction of the Battle of Gettysburg in The Killer Angels the thoughts and motives of three individuals receive the greatest amount of attention: General Robert E. Lee, Lieutenant General James Longstreet, and, on the Union side, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. By the third summer of the war Lee and Longstreet are growing very tired of the fighting but Chamberlain, who is relatively new to the army, is far more enthusiastic. But all of them share a certain disillusionment at this battle. The reasons for which they are fighting may have seemed relatively clear to each of them at the beginning but, as they have had time to reflect, each understands that other motives drive him as well.

Shaara's choice of these characters as his main focus is intended to reflect the course of the war. The two professional soldiers from the South have been fighting for some time and, although they have been winning many battles and truly believe that Gettysburg could be the decisive battle of the war, they are eager to have it all over. They have begun to believe they can never win and know their careers are entirely over. Chamberlain, who had to take a leave from the college where he taught and pretend to go abroad in order to join the army, is still completely fascinated by the war. He is an eager newcomer who eventually, as Shaara notes in his epilogue, becomes "one of the most remarkable soldiers in American history" (354). The Union can

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ments. He reflects on a remark made to him by a Southerner who asked him, what if he was wrong? Chamberlain is too honest to assume that he is right merely because he believes something. He was thinking that it was necessary to wipe these people off the face of the earth and he still believes this, he asserts to Kilrain, but every now and then he is reminded of the question, what if he is wrong? The answer to that question comes from Kilrain who reminds him that this kind of prejudice is found everywhere. Kilrain mentions the burning of an Irish church in the North and Chamberlain shrugs it off. But he has assimilated the answer. The war against the South is necessary because they are pressing for their right to treat people in any cruel way they see fit. But Chamberlain, who is becoming a soldier, will only take on one case at a time. He ignores the full implications of Kilrain's remarks because they would interfere with him doing what he is there to do. He is satisfied that his purpose is moral and he takes strength from it. This narrowed vision of the professional soldier is something that Chamberlain, as an amateur, has to develop. But it is what drove Lee and Longstreet to join their own people in the fight to s

Category: Literature - T