The Killer Angels
2.0 Stars
1-1-2015

A somewhat mawkish war novel set during the three day Battle of Gettysburg. The PoV characters are mostly Confederate or Union leaders (e.g. Longstreet, Lee, Chamberlin), and the author creates fictional inner lives and dialog for the commanders and then places that within a recounting of the events of the battle as we know them. The book didn't really work for me. The tone was a bit off; it reminded me of reading Esquire, or maybe a bad Cormac McCarthy novel, where they try to add more stylistic touches and moral super-structure and metaphysical baggage to people and events than they will really support. On the other hand, the book wasn't all bad. I did like how it at least partially recognized that in many ways the war was a preview of the lessons of WWI, and that in general it was just a gigantic ongoing clusterfuck. The book also served its secondary purpose, which was to get me pumped up for playing Ultimate General: Gettysburg, a new and highly reviewed video game about the battle.

Post-script: After playing the game, it turns out I'm just as bad a general as the originals. To the brigade that I marched into an interlocking series of artillery emplacements, I am so, so sorry.