The Killer Angels free essay sample

In The Killer Angels, one of the ideas and themes that Michael Shaara expresses is that no matter how loyal you are to the cause of what you’re fighting for and the war that you are struggling through, you always have a much more stronger loyalistic feeling and connection toward the people that you love the most. An example of this is when Chamberlain uses his brother, Tom, to plug a gap in the brigade line during a particular moment of battle. After subconsciously putting his brother’s life in danger, Chamberlain, in the period of time in which the rest of the book covers, cannot believe he did such a thing and continuously reprimands himself for it. Here shows that he valued his brother’s life more than performing well in the war because it bothered him that he had risked his brother for the battle. He would not have cared if he had wanted the war over his own flesh and blood. We will write a custom essay sample on The Killer Angels or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Also, many times throughout, a plentiful amount of the officers on both sides are found reminiscing about their families, sometimes in the wake of a battle. As seen in the particular fight wherein Chamberlain goes to sleep, remembering a word that his wife had wrote in a letter to him. Another point that Shaara points out in his book is that there were differentiating views between the Union and the rebels on the cause of the war. The Union thought it was about slavery whereas the people from the south were fighting for their rights. I found that I felt a strong agreement with Shaara on one particular opinion that he makes clear. Shaara asserts that the war would not have ended in defeat for the Confederacy if Robert E. Lee had listened to James Longstreet. Longstreet repeatedly suggests to Lee to move the troops around to the right and loop back behind the Union army to cut them off from Washington and attack from there. Lee refuses, turning down Longstreet each time. He will not listen to reason. Thinking that his way is the only way and no one knows better than him, Lee decides to make a full-frontal attack on the Union forces. Lee thinks that marching forward out in the open across a vast field heading straight into the frontward direction of the Union army will work. Longstreet points out that Union artillery will surely destroy most of the rebel troops before they even make it to where the Union lines are, and that when they do get there, there won’t be enough men left to put up a hardy enough fight to possibly win. He strongly feels that the Confederacy should move to the right since there was room in the west to get around them and attack them from behind. Apparently, Lee denies his theory. As I was reading, I was very satisfied with Shaara’s portrayal of the Union views of slavery: Chamberlain’s encounter with the black man. When Chamberlain’s soldiers discovered a sleeping black man and Chamberlain went to see him, he treated the man with the same respect as he gave his own men. Here you can tell that the people in the north viewed slavery as unnecessary because they did not treat black people as slaves but as equals.