When an author writes a book he has a message that he is trying to get across to This message is called a theme. In The Killer Angels Shaaras themewas freedom for the slaves. The Northerners truly believed that the slavesdeserved to be free, and their desire to set slaves free was the cause of the CivilWar. Just before the Battle of Gettysburg, Colonel Lawrence Chamberlain of the20th Maine gave a speech to a group of mutineers. He told them that the war inwhich they were fighting was unlike any war in history. The war in which theywere fighting was not for money, property or power. It was a war to set other menfree. After the battle began, Sergeant Tom Chamberlain asked a group ofprisoners why they were fighting. They gave no answer, but asked him the samequestion. Sergeant Chamberlain answered, To free the slaves, of course. TheSouth, however, was against freeing the slaves. The entire Civil War, whether thepeople were for or against the idea, was about freedom.The Killer Angels was informative, very fascinating and I liked it. I likedthe book because I learned many things from it. Id never thought much about theimportance of the Battle of Gettysburg until I read The Killer Angels. From thisbook I learned many things. I learned that the Battle of Gettysburg was the turningpoint of the Civil War. Prior to Gettysburg, the South had won most major battles. At Gettysburg, however, the North gained its first major victory. From then on,the North continued to gain momentum, winning virtually every battle for thefollowing two years of the war. The Battle of Gettysburg exhausted both armies;greatly decreasing their reserves of ammunition and soldiers. The North had morethan twice as many men as the South, and since the North was industrialized, theycould replenish their supplies of men and ammunition fairly quickly. The South,however, could not replenish their supplies quickly because of the lack ofindustrialization a...
