Tag Archives: Michael Shaara

A Conversation with Dave Roth (part two)

Posted on August 23, 2017 by Chris Mackowski

(part two in a five-part series) I’m talking this week with Dave Roth, editor and publisher of Blue & Gray Magazine and recipient of this year’s Emerging Civil War Award for Service in Public History. Yesterday, Dave explained how he, … Continue reading →

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The Killer Angels: Soldiers Of Gettysburg – The Stage Play

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Sarah Kay Bierle

On July 2, 1863, Confederate General Longstreet’s divisions swept toward the left flank of the Union line anchored on Cemetery Ridge and resting precariously in the Peach Orchard, Wheat Field, and Little Round Top. As the story goes, Colonel Chamberlain … Continue reading →

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“Telling History” vs “Making Art”: Richard Ewell on July 1

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Chris Mackowski

My favorite scene in the movie Gettysburg comes when a fiery Isaac Trimble, taught as an over-coiled spring, appears before Robert E. Lee to recount the events of July 1. Frustrated by Richard Ewell’s inaction in front of Cemetery Hill … Continue reading →

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Telling History vs. Making Art: Killer Angels, real and fictional

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Chris Mackowski

Part five in a series. In my last post, I began to discuss Michael Shaara’s aesthetic choices for constructing The Killer Angels as he did, and how he adopted a Lost Cause-interpretation of Robert E. Lee as a central choice … Continue reading →

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Telling History vs. Making Art: Gods & Jacksons

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Chris Mackowski

Part four in a series. One of my favorite places to work at FSNMP is the Stonewall Jackson Shrine, the small plantation office building where the Confederate general died. It’s a story I love so much that I wrote a … Continue reading →

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Telling History vs. Making Art: “a tension between Art and Science”

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Chris Mackowski

Part one in a series As a battlefield guide at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park (FSNMP), I frequently speak with folks who’ve come to the battlefields because they’ve read The Killer Angels, which in turn inspired them to come … Continue reading →

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Review: Jeff Shaara’s A Blaze of Glory

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Chris Mackowski

By the time I was two hundred pages into Jeff Shaara’s new novel—roughly halfway—I wondered how an author could write so much and say so little. It picked up, thankfully. I wouldn’t have known that, though, had I not forced … Continue reading →

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Steve Earle, “Dixieland,” and the Irresistible Charm of Buster Kilrain

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Chris Mackowski

The myths of Gettysburg rear their heads in the most unexpected places. At a Steve Earle concert in Rochester, New York, a couple weeks ago, the folk-rocker launched into a pair of songs related to the Irish. Before he did, … Continue reading →

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