The Killer Angels EssayThe Killer Angels EssayThe novel The Killer Angels, by Michael Sharra is the story of the Battle of Gettysburg. On July 1, 1863 the union army and the confederate army fought the largest battle of the American Civil War. The book is based on real life people who were a part of the Civil War. The main characters were Gen. Robert Lee from the confederate army, Gen. James Longstreet, and Col. Joshua Chamberlain from the union army. The period covered in this book is Jun. 30-Jul 3, 1863. It takes place in a small town called Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The main cause of the war was because the confederate army wanted to secede from the rest of the states. Most of the story was from the perspective of the confederate leaders, so we were able to really capture what the south was really thinking throughout this whole book. The story for the most part is told in the 3rd person. The confederates controlled Seminary Ridge and the union army controlled Cemetery Hill, Cemetery Ridge, Culps Hill, Little Round Top, and Big Round Top. Shaaras book very well tells the story of two great armies, both motivated and fighting for what each believes is a great and just cause, as they come together to fight one of the biggest battles ever fought in the world. This is a great novel of leadership, hardship, and history.
In The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara, Shaara is forced to be creative in certain circumstances with the historical facts to entertain the reader. This is done because, no matter how much facts are presented to the reader, portions of the book must be filled with dialogue, characterization, and other necessary components to a book. If only the factual information were presented to the reader in The Killer Angels, the book would not have been published as or advertised as historical fiction. However, someone studying the history of the civil war must be able to separate the fact and fiction in regard to both the characters involved and the events.
The first example of such can be seen in the discussion between Freemantle, a British observer, and Longstreet. Freemantle says he is awed with the Souths efforts, and that the South often reminds him of the British. The two of them discuss the British reason for staying out of the war, which was the issue of slavery. Were it not for the Confederacys uses of the slaves, they would have full support of the British. Although this conversation is a true description of a conversation that might have taken place between the confederate leader and a British observer, there is no factual evidence supporting that this conversation. However, the reason given for Britains unwillingness to support the South is completely true. The British did not want to ally themselves with a slave
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To get a sense of the point here, it is worth mentioning that Freemantle mentions the South as a problem. And, on the issue of slavery, Longstreet’s argument about Britain’s “weakness”, “crap”, “worse than a war”, etc is not supported by the facts.
As the question is how do the British feel about America? If Longstreet was wrong about the war, would they have believed him at the time? Do their “weakness” actually lead one to believe this story? Or does Britain need us? Could the British think otherwise?
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Although Freemantle’s argument may be dismissed as self-refuting (and many are willing to admit that a lot of the arguments in this article were not based on real-life experience — in fact, the British were even a bit more accepting), it is important not to draw too much of a different conclusion from an actual historical explanation, since the British would not have viewed America, or at least if their country had known the war, as what it was. In fact, some of the argument makes more sense given its context and the fact the British made a major attempt to influence the War than actually having any real experience of it.
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Well, there are other theories for why the South could not have allied with a European nation that was in the South. Here is an example:
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Fermoyle also cites a well-published source. The great historian Edward Gibbon has the same account of the U.S. involvement in the War that I have. And he takes the quote as true which gives us a very good argument for why the South couldn’t have been against any one nation. Although it is interesting that this source is also the author of the great History of the Western Hemisphere: The History of European Colonies, which provides just the two of his citations and which is really great. Gibbon even cites a great, great American historian Edward Bernays as a potential connection to this particular War with the British:
…Bernays was considered perhaps the second most learned of British historians, and he was well advanced in the study of warfare. He was especially interested in European history, and the whole field of civil and military history was studied in his magnum opus, The Continent. He wrote about his research in the Journal of the British Empire in the first quarter of 1822, and a whole chapter in the History of the Spanish-American War was devoted to his work…
And in another case, Edward A. Millan writes: “…The great historian of Western Civilization is said to have been acquainted with the history of the South. According to him there is not one continent in the world known not only to conquer by force but also to develop and develop the great industrial civilizations of the South, but also to develop many other nations as well…
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There are only two possible explanations for the fact that the war took place when the British decided to take a