Preview

Michael Shaara's Goal In 'The Killer Angels'

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
375 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Michael Shaara's Goal In 'The Killer Angels'
Ahmed Farooq Summer Assignment
Mr. Premliser American History
The Killer Angels
Michael Shaara’s goal in writing The Killer Angels was to write about the men of the Civil War, not the war itself. A take on the war from the inside out, opposed to outside in. Shaara was able to show that there was no good vs. bad, there was just men who had dreams, and the will to fight for their homeland.
One way that Shaara shows that there were no bad side in the war was through the portrayal of confederate general Robert E. Lee. The book portrayed the general as an intellectual whose opinion of slavery was not of a supporter or of an opponent. In fact, the primary reason for Lee’s decision to lead the confederate army was his selfish
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Civil War Dbq
    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Civil War Dbq

    In Document 3 the rebels of the south were at least trying to fight back but Lee is just giving up and resigning while the confederates need him it is a rather selfish act..…

    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    What They Fought For Summary
    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages

    What They Fought For Summary

    This first entry into the book showcases the side of the southern Confederate armies, who were comparing the Civil War to the Revolutionary War. They saw their enemies, the Northern Yankees, as nothing more than tyrants trying to oppress the south. Just as the British had done to the colonists a century and a half ago. This gave them a "holy cause of southern freedom", a reason to step into the shoes of their famed forefathers and once again fight for their liberties and constitutional rights.…

    • 497 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Edward Pollard's 'The Lost Cause Regained'
    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Edward Pollard's 'The Lost Cause Regained'

    If Jefferson Davis was the ember, then it was Edward Pollard that provided the wind to start the firestorm in constructing this image of the South with his books The Lost Cause and The Lost Cause Regained. Pollard championed the idea of the South fighting for states’ rights, slavery was not cruel, and the South fought against great odds. Pollard, in his attempt to write history, stated “The Union was nothing more than convenience of the States, and had no mission apart from them.” Pollard saw the political division line between the North and South to be coincidental that this line separated slave holding states and non-slave holding states. Pollard paints the Confederate army as “ragged and poorly-equipped.” This was to contrast the Confederate…

    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Themes In The Killer Angels
    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Themes In The Killer Angels

    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…

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    What Is William Tecumseh Sherman's Legacy
    • 5047 Words
    • 21 Pages

    What Is William Tecumseh Sherman's Legacy

    It is a common belief among many historians that history is told through the eyes of the winners. Read any American history book or any world history textbook and they mainly tell you about the hero that saved the nation such as Wellington at Waterloo or General Washington in the Revolutionary War or General Patton in World War II. The case of the American Civil War is no different, especially for a man who changed the war. Ask anybody in the south, even the kindergartners and they will tell you about William Tecumseh Sherman, the man who burned everything. Ask anyone in the North and they’ll tell you how Sherman and Grant together helped the North win the war. General William Tecumseh Sherman constantly said that he disliked war yet when his time came in the Civil War he rose up from a man who was dubbed crazy to become a man who changed war into a concept of total war and would go on to become one of…

    • 5047 Words
    • 21 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Civil War Awakening Summary
    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Civil War Awakening Summary

    Among the events of world history, the Civil War in the USA is one of the central places. Due to this sombre and mourning event, the current population know the names of Abraham Lincoln, John Brown, Ulysses S. Grant, who stood at the head of armies of the northerners; know the names of General Robert E. Lee, who led the armed forces of the slave owners, fanatic Lincoln's assassin named John Wilkes Booth. It is known, how the war ended and who won it. This creates an extremely dramatic history of this war. It is associated with not only the names of the characters, personifying two warring camps, but many battles, sea battles, the most urgent political debate, skillful diplomatic game, and the Union Confederation (during the war, the North and South of the USA were called). It was seeking to obtain the support of the European powers (South) or, on the…

    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Why Ulysses S. Grant Won The Civil War?
    • 1078 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Why Ulysses S. Grant Won The Civil War?

    The civil war was not a fun battle. Many people died during that war. During the 1800’s the southern portion of the United States broke off and became its own separate country. They became the Confederate states of America or the Confederacy. The U.S. and the C.S. were very different countries. The C.S. heavily practiced slavery while slavery was banned in the U.S. The U.S. was more industry based while the C.S. was based on agriculture. The U.S. wanted the C.S. to rejoin with it. This lead to a civil war. The north ended up winning the civil war which contributes to Grant being a better general than Lee.…

    • 1078 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Letter To His Son Robert E. Lee Analysis
    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Letter To His Son Robert E. Lee Analysis

    In the selection, “Letter to his Son”, by Robert E. Lee, he told his son that he did not want to go to war because it was a tragedy waiting to happen. Lee said that he was being patient at the time because he knew he wouldn't be able to stop the war if it was to happen. The human cost that Lee addresses is that he fears the country will fall due to either anarchy or a lack of government. He also feared that “...mankind will not for years be sufficiently Christianized to bear the absence of restraint and force”. This quote shows that Lee believed that the war would prove to discard the government and allow people to act freely without punishment. He also thought that “Secession is nothing but revolution”. Robert E. Lee felt that one cost of the Civil War was that the people would lose “brotherly love and kindness”,…

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Jeb Stuart In The Battle Of Gettysburg
    • 1445 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Jeb Stuart In The Battle Of Gettysburg

    The Civil War is sometimes said to be the second war of American independence. This war was a nation fighting itself, North versus South, each side fighting for what they believed in. America suffered many tragedies from the war, but it also brought new advancements in technology and medicine, as well as battle strategy. The Battle of Gettysburg is often said to be the turning point of the Civil War. This battle was a major win for the Union, as it shattered the confidence of the South, which led to the Union winning many more battles and eventually winning the war. Jeb Stuart was a failure at the Battle of Gettysburg because he arrived two days late and failed to inform Lee of the Union’s…

    • 1445 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Victims - a True Story About the Civil War
    • 1897 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Victims - a True Story About the Civil War

    This book follows differing social structures within The Confederate States of America and how those clashing cultures led to multiple changes of strategy in the mountain regions of the Confederacy. All of these combined factors led to multiple tragic events within the Confederacy. The main social groups that are discussed in the book are Rural and Urban Confederates, Confederate Mountaineers, and Unionist. It is important to understand each of the different social groups before a full social analysis can be conducted. Once the social aspect of the mountain regions is understood, the specific strategies used by both the Union and the Confederacy can be discussed.…

    • 1897 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Why Is Gettysburg A Turning Point
    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Why Is Gettysburg A Turning Point

    They had a great moral due to their general Robert E. Lee who was defeating the union in previous battles. Throughout the war the south was mainly playing a defensive role and the north would try to choke the south with their Anaconda Plan. The battle of Gettysburg however, was the south’s most northern battle and it gave the confederate army a chance to play more of an offensive role and possibly capture the union’s capital (Document A). If the confederacy had actually achieved this, there would have been a great chance that European countries would have aided the south and they could have won the war. But unfortunately for the southerners this was not the case and their defeat at the battle of Gettysburg and allowed the union to have a greater chance at winning the war. This single battle became a turning point of the civil war because it gave the northerners a chance at victory and made it much easier to defeat the…

    • 935 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Killer Angels
    • 793 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Killer Angels

    Longstreet didn’t like the idea of fighting against men he once fought alongside. He talked to Lee about how they all took the oath, the oath to protect and defend the country. Longstreet said, “I must say, there are times when I’m troubled. But… couldn’t fight against home. Not against your own family. And yet we broke the vow.” (p.g.191) So neither Lee nor Longstreet was necessarily fighting because they liked slavery; they were fighting for their home and their people.…

    • 793 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Who Won the Civil War?
    • 588 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Who Won the Civil War?

    Even with all the advantages the union had in their position at the time of the war, although the union still almost lost to the rebellious southern states. Before the death of Stonewall Jackson the southern states had the upper hand in the war even without the man power and weaponry or the union. The southern states a new found province did not have the money or the industry to support a war. I believe the death of Stonewall Jackson in chancellor’s Ville changed the outcome of the war. Lee without his right hand man makes careless mistake which leads to his surrender to grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The Civil War was inevitable the north and south where doomed to battle over slavery issue sooner or later. Not because the north was worried about the rights or miss treatment of the slaves in the south but because of the power the south had in congress. This is explainable, because if slavery was the big picture then why didn’t Lincoln emancipate the slave in the northern states? If Lincoln would have freed the slaves in the northern states the union would have lost those states as well and indefinitely lost the war. “Antietam, though hardly the victory he had hoped for, gave Lincoln the excuse he needed to take a step that changed the character of…

    • 588 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Battle Of Antietam Of The Civil War
    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Battle Of Antietam Of The Civil War

    Even though the majority of deaths were from battles, a lot of people died from diseases. General McClellan’s strategy was to completely destroy Lee’s army. Even though the Confederates put up a really good fight, they were just outnumbered. Since the Union had a lot more soldiers they won, for instance the Union only put in less than three quarters of his force ,however, Robert E. Lee put all of his soldiers in the battle. Seeing how low Lee was on soldiers it assured the Union they were going to win.…

    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    WHARTON AES Telasi Power Trip Or Powe
    • 8692 Words
    • 39 Pages

    WHARTON AES Telasi Power Trip Or Powe

    It would take too long to explain why there was very little electricity and no heat…

    • 8692 Words
    • 39 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More

Related Topics