Gods and Generals

Beginning in 1858, the novel follows Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. Jackson, Winfield Scott Hancock and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain as sectional conflict moves towards secession and war. Lee struggles with loyalty to the United States and Virginia; Jackson leaves an obscure teaching post to become one of the Confederacy’s most effective commanders; Hancock and Chamberlain enter Union service from very different civilian lives.

Their paths run through First Bull Run, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, where military reputations are formed at enormous human cost. Shaara treats command as a mixture of conviction, ambition, faith and uncertainty, while the progression of battles reveals how quickly the war outgrew expectations of a short conflict. The book is the prequel to Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels.