The Killer Angels



The Killer Angels

Preamble

In author of this novel Sharaa has a point for the reader in which he states as his desire to understand the story from the point of view of someone who participated in the Civil War. This desire is similar to that of the author of another famous novel written over the Civil War, only after a decade of it. The name of that novel is The Red Badge of Courage and its author was Stephen Crane. This desire can be considered as a noteworthy predecessor of The Killer Angels, because The Red Badge Courage was the first ever fictionalization of the Civil War. The list of characters presented by Sharaa provides some important knowledge related to the main players of the war. Some of the biases and perspectives of this novel can be seen from these examples.

The author introduced only five Union characters; but, there were nine Confederate characters in the novel. In fact the only Union which can be read through the novel, after the initial few chapters related to John Buford, is of John Chamberlain. Likewise, there are only few chapters which are presented from the Unionist point of view and the novel also have numerous chapters revolving around the characters of the five Confederates amongst which one is from England, visiting the Confederates and the other a spy. Now we will talk about the main characters and their point of view on slavery (Shaara, 1974).

General Robert E. Lee

This man was the commander of the Confederate army and was amongst the most admired men in the Southern United States. He was the charm of Virginia. At the time of the battle, General Lee was fifty seven years old, and is suffering from heart problem, which may turn out to be deadly. Sharaa has agreed to the speculation of many historians that Lee might have suffered a mild heart attack during the war. He was an amazing tactician; however, the way he dealt with the issues of slavery often collided with the approach of another Confederate general, Longstreet, who had more visionary strategies and continuously advises to hold a defensive position. The author has characterized Lee as an intelligent commander, who is aware of the fact that his career is going to end soon.

Regardless of their significance, he never switched to the newer ideas of fighting presented by Longstreet and remained stick with the traditional approach. He is an inspiration for his troops, and keeps the morale of his troops high, as well. However, this confidence in his troops, led him to overestimate them. In a nutshell, this over-estimation led to the disaster of Pickett's Charge. He believed in setting the slaves free, as a military requirement. He was in the favor of slave liberation (Fellman, 2000).

Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain

Colonel Chamberlain is the lead person representing the Unionist in the novel. His description of the war is quite different from the one provided by Longstreet or Lee, because he apparently ...