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Saturday, August 22. 2020

Another random book: Gettysburg


The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara


Tragic battle in a tragic war. Neither Gen. Lee nor Meade wanted this battle, but fate drew them in. 


Posted by The Barrister in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 14:18 | Comments (12) | Trackbacks (0)

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It is true that neither Meade nor Lee wanted battle at Gettysburg. However, both of them were looking for and expecting a battle somewhere in the vicinity.
#1 John Fisher on 2020-08-22 14:43 (Reply)
Great book.
#2 sennacherib on 2020-08-22 15:03 (Reply)
Excellent book. I have always thought the movie adaption "Gettysburg" was a very under-rated movie. Faithful to the source material, well acted and very easy to follow. Jeff Daniels and Tom Berenger deserved academy award nominations as Chamberlain and Longstreet. They brought a real humanity, mixed with their sense of duty, to their characters. I thought Martin Sheen was also very good as Lee. He imbued Lee with a sense of remorse but, like history showed, a fire when his blood was up. The re-actors gave the movie a very authentic feel. I think "Gettysburg" deserves to be on any list of the best war/historical movies.
#3 Anthony H Janney (Link) on 2020-08-22 16:27 (Reply)
I agree with the comments above, and will only say that I can never read the Foreword or the Afterword without being brought to the edge of tears, especially by the former. It concludes:

"All that month there is heat and wild rain. Cherries are ripening all over Pennsylvania, and the men gorge as they march. The civilians have fled and houses are dark. The armies move north through the heat and the dust."
#4 PubliusII on 2020-08-22 17:55 (Reply)
One of my all time favorite books, a civil war classic. The movie was very true to the book.

Sort of an 19th century band of brothers.
#5 Tim McCann on 2020-08-22 18:30 (Reply)
Tom Berenger did a great job in the movie, only wished the full trilogy could have been made....fat chance now.
#6 thud on 2020-08-22 18:49 (Reply)
Agree with all the comments. Great movie and book, fantastic cast in the film. Most sorrowfully, both book and movie portray what a horrible tragedy the war was - truly brother against brother, friend against friend.

I strongly recommend "Glory" as well - the story of the first all-black Union regiment - the 54th Massachusetts, and its commander, Robert Gould Shaw.
#7 Cleveland Watson on 2020-08-22 20:26 (Reply)
I was at Cemetery Ridge 2 years ago in November . Looking down the hill ,thinking of what they did. The high water of the Confederacy. I was overwhelmed to the point of tears. I don’t believe I could have charged up that hill. I had an ancestor in the University Grey's from Oxford MS. He died there. I had another relative on the left flank, from Vermont, a cavalry commander . He did survive. There is a statue. I do believe and pray he was far enough removed , he did not kill his cousin.
#8 Keith Wells on 2020-08-22 22:06 (Reply)
Indeed a great book that is pretty much true to the history of the battle and the war. If you want an incredibly readable history of particular battles, look for Gordon Rhea's books. They zoom into the campaigns and trace the movements of the armies before and after the battles. We think of battles as being predetermined to happen at a location like Gettysburg or Cold Harbor, but Rhea does an exceptional job of explaining how the armies moved and the stakes in their race to the ideal ground.

My favorite of all of them is https://www.amazon.com/North-Anna-River-Grant-13-25/dp/0807125350
#9 Dangerous Dean on 2020-08-22 23:13 (Reply)
Probably the best personal recollection of the Civil War was is "Fighting for the Confederacy" by Edward Porter Alexander.
The book was found at The Southern Collection at UNC.
One hell of a man and General. You can review it here:
https://smile.amazon.com/Fighting-Confederacy-Personal-Recollections-Alexander/dp/0807847224/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1AWF89NE4V2SU&dchild=1&keywords=fighting+for+the+confederacy+alexander&qid=1598152252&sprefix=fighting+for+the+Confederacy%2Caps%2C148&sr=8-2
#10 oolioo on 2020-08-22 23:15 (Reply)
An interesting follow up book to the great Killer Angels is this dual biography of Chamberlain and Oates the protagonists at Little Round Top >

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/435085.Conceived_in_Liberty
#11 slm on 2020-08-23 12:15 (Reply)
General Ewell came through my town and burned down the Army barracks and headed east toward Harrisburg. Ended up taking a right at Camp Hill to get his butt down to Gettysburg. Then JEB Stewart played to old 'cannonball in the courthouse' trick a couple days later. The damage is still there. Lee probably could have used him down in Gettysburg at the time. I always thought is was kind of interesting that the Confederates approached Gettysburg from the north and west. I think it was the Harrisburg Campaign in their minds until, as it often happens, the big battle happened is a smaller town nobody had ever heard of before.
#12 itsatax on 2020-08-23 19:24 (Reply)

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