The Killer Angels - Essay Example

Shaara skilfully shows how the men feel about the carnage around them and their own role in it through interior monologues. The soldiers are under tremendous pressure and are constantly in action. They have so much to accomplish that they have little time to think about what they are doing. When they do get a chance, a whole stew of emotion and conflict comes out in them. They are always in such close proximity to death that their sense of mortality is greatly sharpened. This is true for soldiers on all sides of the war.

We can see it in Buford on the first day as he is trying to steel himself, listening to the Rebel artillery. He rode back to the Seminary, looked down the road. Nothing. Not much more time. He felt the beginning of an awful anger, an unbearable sadness, suppressed it. He rode back to the line. The fire was weakening. He stood irresolute in the road. An aide suggested he go to cover. He listened. (91) A man loses part of himself, an arm, a leg, and though he has been a find soldier he is never quite the same again; he has lost nothing else visible, but there is a certain softness in the man thereafter, a slowness, a caution.

I did not expect it with Ewell. I do not understand it. Very little of a man is in a hand or a leg. A man is in his spirit and he has that in full no matter what part of his body dies, or all of it. But, Lee thought, you might not understand. It has not happened to you, so you don’t understand. (144) There are many other examples of this self-searching, this internal conflict in characters throughout the novel. This is one of the ways Shaara skilfully draws us into the lives of his soldiers—by sharing their fears and doubts.

It is fair to say both sides are similar in this regard. One of the main differences between the two sides explored by Shaara is the more significant political doubt felt by some Confederate officers. This is