Monday, December 10, 2012

A BLAZE OF GLORY by Jeff Shaara


Book Review:

A BLAZE OF GLORY 
A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh

by Jeff Shaara

   Jeff Shaara, author of several war stories, is now working on a trilogy of books about the Civil War in the Western Theater.  This first novel is about the surprise attack on Union forces under Major General U. S. Grant by Confederate forces under General Albert Sydney Johnston fought on April 6 – 7, 1862.  The battle is called “The Battle of Shiloh” because a little church called the Shiloh church was headquarters to first the Union general staff and then the Confederate general staff.
   Grant’s forces had captured two Confederate forts and were massing at Pittsburg Landing, TN and no one suspected that Johnston was planning to attack.  Grant’s men had not set up any defenses and so the first wave of Confederate troops rolled over the Union positions quickly and drove them back towards the Tennessee River.  They were forced to abandon their camps and personal possessions in the panic that ensued when the Confederate troops attacked them.  Johnston was fatally wounded late in the first day of the battle and command of the Confederate troops fell to General P.G.T. Beauregard.  Beauregard decided to rest his troops overnight and not press their advantage.  Grant was able to form up his surviving troops and additional Union troops under General Don Carlos Buell arrived by riverboat during the night.  The combined Union forces routed the Confederate troops on the second day. 
   Shaara’s account is written, as much of his novels are, from the various viewpoints of the men from both sides who participated.  Shaara takes great care to thoroughly research the events of the battle.  He also examines the actual written records and personal letters of the participants, using these to allow him to make his characters more real to the reader.  And he has a gift of being able to relate the story equally well from either the Union side or from the Confederate side.  He describes the horror and the confusion of the battle and I found myself beginning to hear the cannon fire and smell the black powder smoke.  One of his best features is being able to describe the thoughts and actions of the generals as they make the decisions and give the orders and then he takes you to the battlefield and gives you the view through the eyes and experiences of a common soldier or low ranking officer.  You get to see the consequences of the general’s actions from ground level, as it were.  And he is not shy about revealing the horrifying details of wounded and dying men and what happened to them.

   Shaara has already written an impressive amount of historical fiction about the wars the U.S. has been involved in.  "Rise to Rebellion" and "The Glorious Cause" take us through the Revolutionary War.  “Gone for Soldiers” tells of the Mexican War.  The trilogy made up of his two novels, “Gods and Generals” and “The Last Full Measure” as well as his father Michael’s novel “The Killer Angels” takes us through the Civil War in the Eastern theater.  He wrote a single novel about World War 1 called, “To the Last Man” and a quadrilogy of World War 2 novels called: “The Rising Tide,” “The Steel Wave”, “No Less Than Victory,” and “The Final Storm.” 
   Jeff Shaara has a rare talent for putting you inside the events that make up these milestones of American history.  If you have any interest in historical fiction or war novels, I highly recommend “A Blaze of Glory.”

Steve Cram