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The Killer Angels Michael Shaara's book, The Killer Angels is a historical fiction of the Battle of Gettysburg, told from the point of view of various Union and Confederate officers who played a significant role in it. One of the best features of the book is Shaara's ability to manipulate one's emotions. One finds them self-cheering for both the Union and the Confederate armies at the same time. One becomes attached to the character personalities and thus makes it all the more difficult to be excited when a victory for either side occurs. Shaara pulls the reader into the story, one seems to actually hear the roaring of the cannon and experience the summer heat of Pennsylvania. The Battle of Gettysburg, fought July 1-4, 1863, was America's Armageddon, the single, blazing moment when the Civil War's central issue, one nation, or two, was decided. What happened is well known. After a smashing win in May 1863 at Chancellorsville, Virginia, Robert E. Lee became set on dealing a deathblow to the Union army, now in disarray, and staked everything on winning a huge victory on northern soil. Almost by accident, the two great armies made contact at Gettysburg, a site neither side chose nor wanted, and the greatest battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere began. The Union army was the first to reach Gettysburg, seized the high ground and, driven into the ropes by Lee's body punches, never let it go. Southern whites feared that a peacetime government of Republicans would interfere with slavery and upset the routine of plantation life.
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