When looking at the back cover of Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels, positive reviews of the book, and a brief summary can be seen. The summary begins, “In the four most bloody and courageous days of our nation’s history, two armies fought for two conflicting dreams.” But after reading the book, one would realize that every single soldier on either side for their own personal reasons, that may not have had anything to do with the war.
The individual reasons were numerous, but three main ones stuck out. In The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, the three reasons that men fought were homeland, ideal, and glory. Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the Battle of Gettysburg, fought the bloody battle for his homeland. When reading about Lee in the forward, it states, “He loves Virginia above all, the mystic dirt of home”
…show more content…
Though this quote may sound contradicting to the belief that Lee was fighting for his homeland, it actually supports that where he came from was his cause for going into battle. There is a famous saying that goes, “A house is not a home”, which can be interpreted as a person’s home is where their family is and their memories are, not their address. So when Lee says he is fighting for the “children and the kin”, he is still fighting for his homeland, because to him, his home is not Virginia. His home is where the people he loves are. And I admire Shaara for pointing this out, because in my mind, no man would go into war to protect four walls and a fireplace. A man would go into war to protect his family, his