he conflict, and the motivation of the men who volunteered to fight. Shaara does a masterful job of bringing the complex and unresolvable issues to the reader through the thoughts, and arguments of the characters. The conversation on causes and conscience between a Union Colonel and his master Sargent is the best scene in the book, and helps explain the title. [pg.188-9] There's no better summary of their relationship than when the proud and practical Sergeant says, "Colonel, you're a lovely man." He shook his head. "I see at last a great difference between us, and yet I admire ye, lad. You're an idealist, praise be." [pg.188] It takes both kinds of men to make a great army. The Killer Angels offers many insights into the minds of the men who were there. They had their agonized choices, and their choices to disobey their duties and suffer the circumstance. A perfect example is when Longstreet was ordered by Lee to command his men into a charge that was sure to end the battle and carnage, "What was needed now was control, absolute control. Lee was right about that a man who could not control himself had no right to command an army. They must not know my doubts, they must not. So I will send them all forward and say nothing, except what must be said. But he looked down at his hands. They were trembling. Control took a few moments. He was not sure he could do it." [pg.311] Shaara gives us not just heroes, but real men doing heroic things. The Killer Angels also makes reader realize that all of us seem to compete, of course for lower stakes nothing as big as a war. Death seldom visits us in our jobs or at school, yet don't doubt that you are training your life for it. The end is the same for us as it was for them. As Shaara has Lee say, "And does it matter after all who wins? Was that ever really the question? Will God ask that question, in the end?" [p.360] The reader begins to get a greater understanding of life, and that y...
