Gods And Generals

Gods and Generals is a novel written by Jeff Shaara, the prequel to his father’s prize winning novel The Killer Angels. This is a story about the lives, passions, and careers of the military leaders from the first gathering of the Civil War, starting in 1858 and goes to the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg. This story follows four main characters, Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. Jackson, Winfield Scott Hancock, and also Joshua Lawrence Chamberlin. Robert E. Lee is a cavalry officer in Texas, on his 30-year in the U.S. Army. Thomas Jackson, also known as “Stonewall” Jackson, a professor at the Virginia Military Institute who desires the life he had as a solider of the Mexican War. Winfield Hancock was a quartermaster in a village in California. Lastly,

Jeff had no intensions of becoming a writer. His father wrote the book The Killer Angels in 1974, known as the best Civil War novel written at the time. In 1993 the motion picture Gettysburg was released, based of his father’s novel The Killers Angels. The movie was a huge hit, and since it was such a success Jeff was approached about having a prequel to his father’s novel, continuing the story. Jeff was talked to about finding someone to write a sequel and prequel, so he began searching. After he did some searching and thinking he decided that he could try to take on this project himself. Jeff had no previous writing experiences, he was a well-known coin and metal dealer in his town and graduated college with a degree in Criminology, so taking on this was a very difficult decision for him. In 1996 Jeff published his book Gods and Generals, the prequel to his father’s work. It quickly moved onto New York Times Bestseller list and stayed there for fifteen weeks. Later in 1998 Jeff wrote the sequel to his father’s book The Last Full Measure which also hit New York Times Bestseller List for several weeks. This surprised Jeff, he did not think his books would be that big of a hit. Since his books were big hits he decided to continue his writing career and has wrote fifteen books all that have been on the bestsellers list. Also in 2003 his first book, Gods and Generals became a major motion picture. Taking on the project of creating