The Killer Angels - a post-Vietnam war novel?

Before we move on to focusing on to Major General John Buford, I will note that it is interesting to read this book as a post-Vietnam War book (technically, I suppose the book was being written even while that conflict was still raging). Gettysburg has become such a pivotal and mythical battle in the American psyche and this book in particular has shaped our modern understanding of the battle and the men who fought it. But Shaara seems very much to be making a point about how we understand war, those who fight in it, those who lead us to it.

In Chapter 4, which I will be posting about some time soon, he has an exchange between Longstreet and Lewis Armistead, and Armistead has bought into the idea that the South cannot be beaten because there is a Cause and because their boys are special. After comparing this conflict to the Crusades, Longstreet's response is "they never took Jerusalem" and "it takes a bit more than morale."

There were so many who believed that sheer force of will would bring us victory in Vietnam. And, obviously, there are those who believe the same about victory in Iraq. It is striking to compare these observations with those who believe that a cause and mission is all that is needed to win armed conflicts. Of course it is important to impart a sense of mission to soldiers, to make sure they know that they are fighting for something worthwhile. But that sense of mission needs to coupled with competence and strategy - and I think we failed in Vietnam in doing that and we are failing to do so in Iraq.

The Killer Angels, Chapter 2 - Michael Shaara

Chapter 2 - Chamberlain

Chapter 2 focuses on Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, trying to recover from sunstroke because he's from Maine and he walked too much the day before. Chamberlain has been informed that he is to take in a group of Mainers who are "mutineers." The mutineers had signed off for three years of service but their unit's enlistment had ended in two years. The 120 men still owe one year of volunteer service to the Army. Chamberlain is told to take them in, that he can do what he wants with them, and if they don't serve, he can shoot them. He knows he won't shoot them. He'd never be able to return to Maine if he did.

After they are brought to Chamberlain, he speaks to one of their number who has elected to speak for them, Joseph Bucklin. Bucklin represents an interesting counterpoint to the spy of the previous chapter:

...Bucklin said, "I'm tired, Colonel. You know what I mean? I'm tired. I've had all of this army and all of these officers, this damned Hooker and this god-damned idiot Meade, all of them, the whole bloody, lousy rotten mess of sick-brained potbellied scabheads that ain't fit to lead a johnny detail, aint fit to pour pee outen a boot with instructions on the heel. I'm tired. We are good men and we had our own good flag and these damned goddamned idiots use us like we was cows or dogs and even worse. We aint gonna win this war. We can't win no how because of these lame-brained bastards from West Point, these goddamned gentlemen, these officers. One one officer knew what he was doin: McClellan, and look what happened to him. I just as soon go home and let them damn Johnnies go home and the hell with it."

Putting aside the notion that McClellan actually knew what he was doing, Bucklin could represent all soldiers in all wars, not the least of which is the current conflict in Iraq. Soldiers get tired and they don't understand what they are fighting and those who are supposed to making the right decisions make the wrong ones. And the people who suffer for it are the soldiers themselves.

A little later in the chapter, though, Chamberlain ruminates on the answer to what they are fighting for:

...The faith itself was simple: he believed in the dignity of man... He had grown up believing in America and the individual and it was a stronger faith than his faith in God. This was a land where no man had to bow. In this place at last a man could stand up free of the past, free of tradition and blood ties and the curse of royalty and become what he wished to become. This was the first place on earth where the man mattered more than the state. True freedom had begun here and it would spread eventually all over the earth. But it has begun here. The fact of slavery upon this incredibly beautiful new clean earth was appalling, but even more than that was the horror of old Europe, the curse of nobility, which the South was transplanting to new soil. They were forming a new aristocracy, a new breed of glittering men, and Chamberlain had come to crush it. But he was fighting for the dignity of man and in that way he was fighting for himself. If men were equal in America, all these former Poles and English and Czech and blacks, then they were equal everywhere, and there was really no such thing as a foreigner; there was only free men and slaves. And so it was not even patriotism but a new faith. The Frenchman may fight for France, but the American fights for mankind, for freedom; for the people, not the land.

It is an extraordinary passage, especially through the light of today's politics. For one, the idea that Chamberlain's faith in American democracy is greater than his faith in God would run right up to those on the Christian Right who seek to tie those two things together. Secondly, the hatred of aristocracy as a rationale for fighting, even in an era in the U.S. where we seem to be trading presidential candidates from two families. And finally, the idea that the immigrants - the Poles, the Czechs, the English, the blacks etc. - can be just as American, and fight for the same ideals as those who are native born. And that they fight for the people, not the land.

Chamberlain eventually gets the men to fight, by expressing the sentiments he does above. And while the speech is described as inspirational, it is clearly the above passage that is the heart and soul of the chapter and Chamberlain's character. All but 6 of the mutineers decide to fight for Chamberlain's company, as they head out towards Gettysburg.

The Killer Angels, Chapter 1 - Michael Shaara

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 begins with a spy, a would-be actor, spying the movements of the Union Army. He is bringing this information back to Lt. General James Longstreet, right hand man to General Lee. The spy is not liked by Longstreet, and he is initially doubted, but eventually Longstreet takes him to Lee to communicate the information he has.

What comes through in this chapter is how feckless the spy, who the chapter is named after, is and how anxious and worried Longstreet seems to be:

If the spy was right, the army was in great danger. They could be cut apart and cut off from home and destroyed in detail, piece by piece. If the spy was right, then Lee would have to turn, but the old man did not believe in spies nor in any information you had to pay for, had not approved of the money spent or event the idea behind it. And the old man had faith in Stuart, and why in God's name had Stuart sent nothing, not even a courier, because even Stuart wasn't fool enough to let the whole damned Army of the Potomac get this close without word, not one damned lonesome word...

It seems that Lee believes in his standards but this is war, and Longstreet recognizes that to win a war, you have to do things that violate one's standards. On the other hand, we get a sense that the spy's commitment is less to the cause of the South and more to his own desire to act. Still, his commentary on how he acquires information is interesting:

The spy chatted amiably. He seemed to need to talk. He was saying, "Strange thing about it all, thing that bothers me is that when you do this job right, nobody knows you're doing it, nobody ever watches you work, do you see?...This current creation, now, is marvelous. I'm a poor-witted farmer, do you see, terrified of soldiers, and me lovely young wife has run off with a drummer and I'm out a-scourin' the countryside for her, a sorrowful pitiful sight I am. And people lookin' down their noses and grinnin' behind me back and all the time tellin' me exactly what I want to know about who is where and how many and how long ago, and them not even knowin' they're doin's it, too busy feelin' contempuous. There are many people, General, that don't give a damn for a human soul, do you know that? The strange thing is, after playing this poor fool farmer for a while I can't help but feel sorry for him. Because nobody cares."

One the one hand, the spy articulates in the last sentence the same sentiments that Rick in Casablanca does when he tells Ilsa that this crazy world doesn't care a hill of beans about the problems of three small people. It's war. Who cares about a farmer looking for his runaway wife when the war is in everyone's front yards. And it is hard not to understand where he is coming from with that.

On the other hand, this guy is able to get self-righteous about their lack of care even while he is taking advantage of it and "betraying" them with the information he is gathering. He's a spy. He's at risk, true, but one is somewhat able to understand why he is looked down upon by military folk because his way of fighting the war it is all about subterfuge and obfuscation. Therefore, it is difficult to understand how he feels superior to those that he perceive feel superior to him since he is precisely trying to take advantage of their normal human feelings.

The chapter ends without the spy, but with Longstreet and Lee discussing the information that they have, especially the news that Meade has been named the general of the Army of the Potomac. And the discovery that the town on the map that they will concentrate their forces on is Gettysburg.