Killer Angels Essay, Research Paper

Report on “The Killer Angels”

Report on “The Killer Angels” by Michael Shaara When an author writes a book he has a

message that he is trying to get across to the reader. This message is called a theme. In The

Killer Angels Shaara?s theme was freedom for the slaves. The Northerners truly believed

that the slaves deserved to be free, and their desire to set slaves free was the cause of the

Civil War. Just before the Battle of Gettysburg, Colonel Lawrence Chamberlain of the 20th

Maine gave a speech to a group of mutineers. He told them that the war in which they were

fighting was unlike any war in history. The war in which they were fighting was not for

money, property or power. It was a war to set other men free. After the battle began,

Sergeant Tom Chamberlain asked a group of prisoners why they were fighting. They gave no

answer, but asked him the same question. Sergeant Chamberlain answered, ?To free the

slaves, of course.? The South, however, was against freeing the slaves. The entire Civil

War, whether the people were for or against the idea, was about freedom. The Killer Angels

was informative, very fascinating and I liked it. I liked the book because I learned many

things from it. I?d never thought much about the importance of the Battle of Gettysburg until

I read The Killer Angels. From this book I learned many things. I learned that the Battle of

Gettysburg was the turning point of the Civil War. Prior to Gettysburg, the South had won

most major battles. At Gettysburg, however, the North gained it?s first major victory. From

then on, the North continued to gain momentum, winning virtually every battle for the

following two years of the war. The Battle of Gettysburg exhausted both armies; greatly

decreasing their reserves of ammunition and soldiers. The North had more than twice as

many men as the South, and since the North was industrialized, they could replenish their

supplies of men and ammunition fairly quickly. The South, however, could not replenish their

supplies quickly because of the lack of industrialization and manpower. The supplies lost in

the Battle of Gettysburg ultimately lost the war for the South. I also learned that

Confederate General Robert E. Lee was not a good military tactician. Evidently, he thought

that, as in most of the previous battles, the Confederate army could win this one with a

series of charges. On the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Lee ordered the first

charge. In this charge, Confederate troops would make an uphill attack in an attempt to take

a ridge from the Federal army. With an uphill advantage, the Federal troops drove the

Confederate army into retreat. On the third day of battle, Lee ordered a charge that would

take his army across more than a mile of open field. On the other side of the field, however,

Federal troops released a continuous bombardment of artillery as the Confederate troops

made their way across. The Federal army wiped out most of the Confederate troops before

they were halfway across the field. By the time the remaining Confederates reached the

Federal army their numbers were so small the Federal army had no trouble defeating them.

A good commanding general would have seen that both charges were hopeless. In both

cases the Federal troops had fortified vantage points, while the Confederate army had no

sufficient protection. Had Lee seen this, he would not have ordered the charges. Instead, he

was too confident of the ability of his army and his overconfidence led him to defeat. Before

I read The Killer Angels I knew that the Civil War brought many friends to fight against

friends and family to fight against family. Until I read The Killer Angels, I never realized that

this was true even in the higher ranks. General Hancock of the Federal army and General

Armistad of the Confederate were extremely good friends. Before the war they served

together in California, but when they war began they parted ways. Throughout the Battle of

Gettysburg, both generals were constantly asking for permission to go under flag of truce to

the opposing army hoping to see the other. During the battle both generals were wounded,

and they never got another chance to see each other. General Armistad was mortally

wounded, and in his dying words he asked a messenger to send his apologies to General

Hancock that it had to end the way it did. The Civil War tore families and friends apart, all

the way up to the highest military ranks. The Killer Angels was an exceptional book, and I

strongly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the thoughts and fears of both armies

during the Civil War. The Killer Angels was filled with action, suspense and drama, and it is

perhaps the most accurate account of the Battle of Gettysburg.