I have never been an American Civil War buff. I’ve never been able to keep Vicksburg and Fredericksburg and Gettysburg straight in my mind, and I’ve only had a passing interest in rectifying the situation. I knew that the Union won, the Confederacy lost, the war both was and wasn’t fought over the issue of slavery, and Sherman burned Atlanta. Seemed like enough.

But then a family member recommended Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize winning historical novel, The Killer Angels, and it presented a good opportunity for me to begin to satisfy that passing interest. I will be forever grateful for that recommendation. The Killer Angels is one of the most rewarding reads I’ve had in a long time.

The story takes place from June 29th to July 3rd, 1863, in and around Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Those days witnessed the leadup to and execution of the decisive battle of the Civil War, the battle of Gettysburg. Primarily through the eyes of Confederate General Longstreet and Union Colonel Chamberlain, but also from the perspectives of Robert E Lee and a few others, the reader witnesses this monumental battle. Witnesses it with stunning clarity and an uncanny sense of presence both on the scene and in the thoughts and emotions of the commanders who made it all happen. I felt as though transported to that fateful place and time, sharing the frustrations and doubts in the planning, the fear and exhilaration of the fight, the abysmal sadness or triumphant joy of the finish.

And the death. Although Shaara doesn’t dwell on it or glorify it, neither does he ignore that the story of Gettysburg is a story of death. Often death anticipated, sometimes death avoided, but mostly just death in obscene numbers and horrific ways.

Perhaps even more striking, though, is that death was faced so nobly, so honourably. One of the noteworthy achievements of this book is that it conveys effectively the martial honour of those soldiers, where it came from and how it shaped the individuals and the groups. In one scene a general who was leading his brigade’s advance came upon a soldier from another brigade who was crouched in fear, unable to face the enemy’s onslaught. The general appealed to honour: ‘Come on boy. What will you think of yourself tomorrow?’ While the pragmatist would rather think himself a coward than lose the ability to think, the man of honour would rather die than think himself a coward. Shaara brings this aspect of the Civil War mind to life with great authenticity. If you are put off by the notion of martial honour, thinking of it as eye-rolling machismo or romantic nonsense, The Killer Angels will make you think again. You’ll be put face to face with simple, beautiful, tragic honour. Without it the Civil War itself is almost unimaginable.

Related to honour is the depth of love and admiration the colonels and generals had for their men. A regiment was like a family and its leader was like a father. Together they faced extreme physical hardship, the killing of good soldiers on the other side (perhaps even a friend or a brother), and death itself. At the end of a particular day’s battle one regiment was moved to another part of the battlefield, but the colonel ensured that his C.O. knew they would have to return to the place, for they would bury their own dead. War was indeed a very personal, very intimate, thing.

The book also succeeds in bringing the reader into the intellectual aspects of the battle. The planning, the roles and expectations placed on different groups, the ways in which mental lapses led to setbacks, and desperation tactics led to decisive victories. The Battle of Gettysburg was won on the field, but lost in the mind. The other intellectual aspect that is of great interest is how different participants expressed for what it was they were fighting. Both sides thought of themselves as fighting for freedom, but each had a very different notion of freedom. Shaara reveals the Civil War mind, in all its variety, sympathetically, but not defensively or apologetically.

At times I had to remind myself that The Killer Angels is a novel. Everything about it rings true, as it should given Shaara’s extensive research into the battle and the minds of those who fought it. Of course, the book conveys Shaara’s own interpretation of the evidence for what went on and why, and there are other interpretations out there. But Shaara’s version is likely to hold sway in the minds of most of his readers, for his story is at once believable and highly engaging.

There are, as always, some quibbles. The editing of the book seems distinctly weak considering the calibre of both author and publisher. At one point a soldier squints into the western sun, but a few paragraphs later we discover it isn’t yet noon. At another point an individual slept either well or poorly the night before, depending on which page one is reading. And there are several typographical problems, one of which was the particularly distracting omission of the word ‘not’ from a key point in a pontification by Robert E Lee. The flow was interrupted and the impact lost. A second quibble is that the author admits he altered some of the language used because the original was too ‘windy’ and because ‘it was a naïve and sentimental time’ and the reader might think the religiosity too quaint. Undoubtedly it was Shaara who found it quaint, and for an author who so obviously valued conveying the minds of the characters, it is a remarkable choice to downplay the religious aspects of those minds.

Quibbles, though, only quibbles. Do not hesitate to read The Killer Angels. An experience awaits you.