ANNOUNCER: This film was made possible by the generous support of: David and Sherri Malgee.

Committed to sharing Gettysburg's history... And also... Thank you.

[Classical music] JEFF SHAARA: My father was a great storyteller.

He knew a good story when he saw one, and Gettysburg was a good story.

[Voiceover reading excerpt from The Killer Angels novel] VOICEOVER: "So help me, if I ever lift a hand against you, may God strike me dead.

The men began to run.

'Virginians!

With me!

With me!'

Instinctively, raising the black hat on the sword.

Armistead leaped to the top of the wall then he came down on the other side."

JEFF SHAARA: My father is telling me this as we cross the stone wall.

Armistead, in a very emotional way, had put his head on Hancock's chest and said "If I ever raise my sword against you, may God strike me dead."

VOICE OF MICHAEL SHAARA: I closed my eyes and for a few seconds I could almost see it.

JEFF: My father reads the monument and he starts to cry.

[Cannon fire] JEFF SHAARA: It's the place where Armistead fell.

That started the obsession with telling the story.

[Classical music intensifies over opening title] KEN BURNS: It's a great novel of the Battle of Gettysburg, and I was then at that time where I'm in this business of facts.

I mean, I make documentary films, it's about this, but I read it and it was just fabulous.

It changed, utterly, the trajectory of my life.

MARTIN SHEEN: The author has heard this, in...in...in the solitude of their own being.

It had a reality that I'd never, ever felt.

JEFF DANIELS: You can hear him talking in Killer Angels .

Hear them all talking.

And that was kind of the revolution, at least for me, of historical fiction.

He's not changing history the way that he's writing it; he's kind of putting Technicolor on black and white.

RONALD MAXWELL: There's no wonder it's still read all these years later, because the insights into humanity, the insights into the human condition, which stop you in your tracks when you're reading it, which make you weep.

This is what the great writers can do.

CAROLINE JANNEY: He's seeing war in all of its gory, horrific aspects, and yet the men, the the men who are fighting.

There are no villains in this story.

Everyone's a hero.

They're all- they're all brave American soldiers.

JEFF SHAARA: We're talking about a man who deserves our respect, but there was this other side, good and bad, and when the good was happening, it was really good.

It was The Killer Angels .

When the bad was happening, it was really bad.

The book does nothing commercially.

LILA SHAARA: It was hard.

It was hard, 'cause he really wanted, he wanted people to read his books.

JEFF: And it all blew up, and I realized, I need to get out of there, because he was gonna turn violent.

From that time until his death, I never spoke to him.

He created something that will stand for all time, I just wish he'd lived to see it.

[Sounds of marching footsteps and horse neighing] [Classical music] [Voiceover reading excerpt from The Killer Angels ] VOICEOVER: "On June 15th, the first troops of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee commanding, slip across the Potomac and begin the invasion of the North.

It is an army of 70,000 men.

It is an army of remarkable unity, fighting for disunion.

They've been consistently victorious against superior numbers.

They have as solid a faith in their leader as any veteran army that ever marched.

Late in June the Army of the Potomac turns north at last to begin the great pursuit.

It is a strange new kind of army, a polyglot mass of vastly dissimilar men, fighting for union.

Nothing like this army has been seen upon the planet.

It is a collection of men from many different places who have seen much defeat and many commanders.

They come up from the South, 80,000 men, up the narrow roads that converge towards the Blue Mountains.

It is the third summer of the war."

CAROLINE JANNEY: It's not history, it's fiction, and fiction comes from the Latin "fingere": to shape, to mold the past.

And both the danger and the beauty of Killer Angels is that it merges those things so seamlessly.

Much of the novel is narrated through the thoughts of those principal characters, as much as- as much as it is the dialogue between the characters.

What's at stake for the United States in June of 1863 is everything.

If the Confederate Army comes into the North and has a clear victory, the war really and truly could be over.

VOICEOVER: "Lee bent toward the map.

'What town is that?'

All the roads came together, web-like, at a small town.

Longstreet looked.

'Gettysburg.'

Lee looked up with black diamond eyes.

'We'll move at first light.'

Longstreet felt a lovely thrill.

Trust the old man to move.

They'd been together for a long time in war and they had grown very close.

They stood for a long moment side by side without speaking, not looking at each other, listening to the raindrops fall in the leaves.

After a while, Lee said slowly, 'when this is over, I shall miss it very much.'

'Yes.'

'I do not mean the fighting.'

'No.'

Longstreet watched the old man back to his tent.

Then he mounted and rode alone back to his camp to begin the turning of the army, all the wagons and all the guns, down the narrow mountain road that led to Gettysburg.

He sat alone on his horse in the night and he could feel the army asleep around him, all those young hearts beating in the dark.

He sat alone to await the dawn."

[Classical music] CAROLINE JANNEY: Lee is the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.

This is his army.

He seems to be unbeatable.

Longstreet is his closest and most trusted corps commander, the one who is putting forth plans that would prevent the slaughter that we all know is coming.

Buford is a Union general with the Army of the Potomac who shows up first.

He is the one who is going to help protect that high ground.

[Sound of horse galloping] VOICEOVER: "The Union commander, a tall blond sunburned man named John Buford, rode up the long slope to the top of the hill.

He looked down across flat, open ground.

He could see all the way to the Blue Mountains.

Superb ground.

He looked at the high ground.

The hills rose like watchtowers.

'We'll try to hold long enough for General Reynolds to come up with some infantry.

I want to save the high ground, if we can.'

This is the place to fight.

But could they hold long enough?

The last light of June burned in the west.

He sat on a rail fence, watching the night come over Gettysburg."

[Somber music] [Seagulls squawking] NARRATOR: Michael Shaara's grandfather came to America from Italy in 1902.

[Crowd cheering] JEFF SHAARA: My great-grandfather said "We came to America because we heard the streets were paved with gold.

And we got to Jersey City and we found out it was the Italians who had to pave the streets."

[Sounds of street workers] NARRATOR: Michael Shaara was born on June 23rd, 1928.

MICHAEL SHAARA: From then on it was always the same thing, I was always the little guy.

I never liked my brother very much, he was always kidded as the young one, and the funny one, and I was the smart, quiet one.

JEFF SHAARA: My father's brother said to me once when he and I were together, he said "your father, when he's happy, when he's up, he's like the most fun, happy guy to be around, entertaining, you know, he's the storyteller.

But when he's down, get the hell out of his way."

NARRATOR: After high school, Michael Shaara joined the Army's 82nd Airborne Division.

He fought 17 boxing matches.

He went to Rutgers University on the G.I.

Bill, where he met Helen Crumweed.

They married in 1950.

LILA SHAARA: Her family were well off Germans, and they weren't real happy about her marrying this Italian weirdo, [laughs] because, you know, he was educated, but he was an English major, he was a writer.

NARRATOR: In 1952, their son Jeff was born.

Daughter Lila was born in 1958.

LILA SHAARA: He really grooved on little kids, like the fun part of having little kids.

JEFF SHAARA: At that age, your father is God.

I mean your father is the almighty, all powerful, all knowing.

That's the way I thought.

That was the good time.

[Somber music continues] LILA SHAARA: My mother got a job as a social worker, and she was pretty much the main breadwinner my whole life.

JEFF: He was teaching creative writing and English.

He was a published author.

My job was to count the words, because you got paid by the word.

I learned how to type typing his manuscripts.

I loved the stories.

[Upbeat guitar music] NARRATOR: In 1964, the Shaaras drove north for a family vacation at the New York World's Fair.

Michael decided to make a side trip.

JEFF SHAARA: Well, you know, I sort of knew what Gettysburg was, but not really.

We're just tourists, there's nothing academic about what we're doing, we're just taking in the sights and seeing it all.

So you go to the National Cemetery, um you see the place where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address.

Little Round Top, I do remember that, because my father was telling me all about Chamberlain!

It was a surprise.

I mean I was having fun.

LILA SHAARA: But I just remember, you know, climbing on big rocks and stuff.

I remember cannons and going "Woah, it's a cannon!"

In those days too, you could still find bullets.

JEFF SHAARA: If you know the High Water Mark, the giant book up at the copse of trees on the High Water Mark, the big bronze monument.

There's one photo of me sticking my head up behind it, which means I had to have crawled up on it, which is, you're not supposed to do that these days.

That was cool for a- for a 12-year-old.

LILA SHAARA: But I don't remember like, the angels singing and a moment, you know, I just remember my dad being really into it, but, you know, he was into a lot of things.

I was a kid.

It's like, adults were weird, you know.

[Laughs] JEFF: In many ways, the monuments right here are responsible for The Killer Angels .

[Somber guitar music] JEFF SHAARA: Something happened to him.

My father began to talk about some of the stories.

He and I started at the Robert E. Lee monument, and we walked.

All the while we're doing this, he's telling me the story of Hancock and Armistead.

The two men had been best friends.

[Footsteps] When they had said goodbye to each other, Armistead, in a very emotional way had put his head on Hancock's chest and said: "If I ever raise my sword against you, may God strike me dead."

We're going across this field and Armistead's still going.

And he gets up, he crosses the stone wall.

My father is telling me this as we cross the stone wall.

And we look up and there is a little marker about 20 yards up in front of us.

My father, you know, reads the monument and he starts to cry.

It's the place where Armistead fell.

Well I was 12 years old, I've never seen my father cry.

My father was Armistead.

He was carrying the man with him across that stone wall, and the shock of seeing that really impacted him.

That started the obsession with telling the story.

VOICE OF MICHAEL SHAARA: And I sat on that hillside, like any tourist does, looking down where it came, and I got this chilled feeling.

I closed my eyes and for a few seconds I could almost see it.

[Classical music] VOICEOVER: "Wednesday, July 1st, 1863.

The first day: 'Of the coming of the Lord ...' Just before dawn, Buford rode down the line.

Then the guns began."

[Sound of gunfire] VOICEOVER: "He wrote to Reynolds: 'Rebel infantry attacked at dawn.

Am holding west of Gettysburg, expecting relief.'

Then he heard that high thin scream from far away coming out of the mist unbodied and terrible, inhuman."

VOICEOVER: "The scream of a flood of charging men: the Rebel yell.

He could see enemy troops moving in the fields across the way, spreading out as they came down the road, like a grey river spreading where it reaches the sea.

Sunlight glittering on jeweled guns.

Nothing to do but fight now, and hold this line.

He looked toward the south and there was Reynolds.

Matchless rider gliding over rail fences.

Reynolds turned in his saddle, looked back toward the hills.

'Isn't that lovely ground?'

he said.

'Keep at it, John.

Someday, if you're spared, you may make a soldier.'

It came over Buford like a sunrise that he had just received Reynold's greatest compliment.

They rode out together, placing the troops.

Reynolds moved off to the left.

He was out in the open, waving his hat, pointing to a grove of trees."

VOICEOVER: "A moment later Buford looked that way and the horse was bare backed.

Reynolds lay in the dirt.

He was dead."

[Gunshots continue] JANNEY: By the end of the first day, the Confederates have managed to push the Army of the Potomac onto the high ground, but the Union holds the high ground, and they're in a very good position.

VOICEOVER: "Buford rode slowly along the ridge.

He took off his hat, looked up to the stars.

He said, to John Reynolds, 'Well John, we held the ground.'

Then he rode off down the hill into the black beneath the trees."

[Tense guitar music] MICHAEL SHAARA: From then on, I started reading to find out what really happened in those three days.

What the war was all about.

And the more I read it, the more fascinated I got by the real story.

LILA SHAARA: He was teaching much of the time that he was writing the book, and so he would teach afternoon classes and then he would be up all night writing.

[Pecking of typewriter keys] JEFF: He was a four pack a day cigarette smoker.

He was always, tense.

He was always wound up.

[Pecking of typewriter keys] MICHAEL SHAARA: There are moments when something possesses you and you get carried away.

If you want it, you push and push and push, and the thing will come.

[Siren from ambulance] JEFF SHAARA: I was 13 when I came home from school, a friend of my mother's was standing in our kitchen.

She says "your father's had a heart attack.

He's in the hospital and your mother is with him."

LILA SHAARA: His heart was not beating under its own steam for 54 minutes.

JEFF: And what my father went through should have killed him.

MICHAEL SHAARA: And the first thing I said after I woke up was "What the hell is going on?"

NARRATOR: Recovering and unable to teach, he focused on writing his Gettysburg book.

Michael and Jeff returned to Gettysburg.

JEFF SHAARA: We flew up here.

He had a plane.

He was in sort of, rough physical shape.

There were things he just couldn't do.

He couldn't climb the Round Top.

So that was my job, I mean, as the kid.

The park was in kind of lousy shape, and a lot of monuments were covered up.

The ground right below the copse of trees from Pickett's Charge on the Union side was a mess.

Pickett had said, "That's where I was, that I made it up to the outcropping of rock", and that was my job: Find the outcropping of rock.

I'm on my hands and knees.

Found the rocks!

You know, that was very cool.

That was probably the coolest thing I did.

To be his right hand was very cool.

And, you know, to be able to do the things physically that he couldn't.

The impact of that experience for him taught me a lesson.

Walk the ground.

Walk in the footsteps, you know, see it the way they saw it.

It will change you, and it will- it will matter.

MICHAEL SHAARA: "What a piece of work is man?

The- in action how like an angel!"

And when Chamberlain says this, his father says "Man is an angel?

He's a murderin' angel."

At Gettysburg, some fine men were there, killing each other: The Killer Angels .

NARRATOR: Michael's work on the Gettysburg book dominated his family's life.

LILA SHAARA: Him writing was always, um, stressful in the family.

[Foreboding music] JEFF SHAARA: He would write from midnight to 5 a.m.

He used to set up his typewriter right in the middle of the living room.

When he wrote, he played classical music.

Beethoven was his favorite.

I'm in bed at 3:00 in the morning, music would start up.

[Classical music] JEFF SHAARA: And you could hear the typewriter too.

That meant he was working.

LILA SHAARA: When he was writing, that was the thing that was important in the house.

Nothing else was anywhere near as important as that ever.

JEFF SHAARA: When it's flowing, that was the good stuff.

And when the good was happening it was really good.

It was The Killer Angels .

VOICEOVER: "And then he began to move forward automatically, instinctively raising the black hat on the sword again, beginning to scream: 'Virginians!

With me!

With me!'"

JEFF SHAARA: The bad stuff was when nothing would happen.

He would stare at the typewriter.

He would go through six months of total inactivity.

You opened the door... [Sound of door opening] ...and you could feel it.

The house was like a tomb.

My father would be sitting in his chair, my mother would be sitting on a chair in the kitchen in sympathy.

He suffered mightily from depression.

LILA SHAARA: The deal was in the morning, you did not wake up dad because he had just gotten to bed.

He was very scary.

JEFF SHAARA: He was brutal, physically, to my mother and to me.

LILA SHAARA: When he crossed that boundary, we didn't know how far he'd go.

JEFF SHAARA: There was a time in the front yard of the house, he came and grabbed me by the neck, and he lifted me up and started punching me.

And, you know, by the time he let go of me, I mean- I was- I was on the ground.

LILA SHAARA: He was out of control.

And you could tell he was out of control.

JEFF SHAARA: He was terrifying.

He loved being able to infect people with that kind of terror.

I looked for every escape I had, to get out of that situation.

[Sound of airplane taking off] NARRATOR: In 1972, Michael, Helen, and Lila traveled to Italy.

Michael got a Vespa motor scooter.

LILA SHAARA: You couldn't tell my dad to do something or not do something.

I mean, my memory of it is not that, oh he took risks all the time; it's just that he was brave.

He- He didn't come home one day and a policeman came to the door and explained that he was in the hospital.

NARRATOR: Michael was in an accident.

JEFF SHAARA: And he's in pretty- pretty rough shape.

He couldn't make himself understood.

Very frustrating.

His mind is very irrational.

Fortunately for us all, The Killer Angels is complete.

NARRATOR: 15 publishers rejected the book.

JEFF SHAARA: I mean, he suffered from the rejection letters.

My mother would hide the mail so he wouldn't see the rejection letters.

NARRATOR: A small publishing house, The David McKay Company, bought it for $3,500.

JEFF SHAARA: Eureka!

I mean, this is like this wonderful thing has happened.

NARRATOR: The Killer Angels was published in 1974.

LILA SHAARA: They sent him a case of the first printing of the first books, and he signed one and gave it to me, and was obviously waiting for me to look in there, and I did, and I saw it and gave him a big hug.

The quote is 'To Lila (Old George)', because he called me George, he never called me Lila.

He would have loved to be a bestseller.

I mean, what writer doesn't want to be a bestseller?

[Somber music] NARRATOR: The United States was in the final years of the Vietnam War.

[Whir of helicopter blades] JANNEY: American soldiers are not the good guys.

There's a- an anti-soldier sentiment in the post-Vietnam era.

It does seem like he's trying to find something noble and pure, in perhaps, an impure war.

Maybe that doesn't strike quite the right chord at that moment.

JEFF SHAARA: This is a crushing disappointment to him.

He knew what he'd done.

He knew how good a story this was.

[Telephone rings] NARRATOR: A year later, [picks up phone] Lila answered the phone in the Shaara home.

LILA SHAARA: It was a reporter for the St.

Petersburg Times in Florida, who called and said "Is your dad home?"

or, you know, "Is Michael there?"

And I said "No", and he said, "So your dad's won the Pulitzer Prize."

And I said, "What?"

[Laughs] RADIO ANNOUNCER: Given the prize for fiction for his novel The Killer Angels , the book puts The Battle of Gettysburg in historical perspective.

Shaara, who has published seventy-five short stories, admitted that he was surprised to hear of the award.

MICHAEL SHAARA: I liked what I had done.

I was proud of it.

And it really- from then on, I didn't pay too much attention anymore to what people said.

NARRATOR: The Shaaras are invited to the White House.

Helen is seated by Bill Russell and Dick Cavett.

Michael sits by Henry Kissinger.

JEFF SHAARA: My father and Mr.- Dr.

Kissinger get into an argument.

It just figures that my father would do that.

LILA SHAARA: This is the actual Pulitzer Prize.

He got a thousand bucks.

That's all he got.

And even then, that was nice, but it wasn't like, life-changing.

JEFF: The success that follows the Pulitzer, all this good stuff.

None of that was the case with The Killer Angels .

I mean here he gets this Pulitzer, and the book doesn't sell.

LILA SHAARA: It was hard.

It was hard, 'cause he really wanted... he wanted people to read his books.

I think that caused him lots of pain.

NARRATOR: Michael's mental and physical health continued to deteriorate.

LILA SHAARA: His sort of narrative was of everybody betrayed him in the end.

You know, I had to be very careful not to betray him.

JEFF SHAARA: He had had a huge falling out with his brother, who I was very close to.

He called me and said, "Get over here."

I mean, it was an order.

[Intense music] JEFF SHAARA: Holy cow.

I don't know how long it took, two or three hours of him just berating me and saying, you know, "You will never succeed", you know, "You will never do anything on your own.

"You need me.

If I have an enemy, he's your enemy too.

Your enemies are my enemies."

And he was talking about his brother.

He said, "You have to make a decision whether you're going to be loyal to my enemies or loyal to me."

I said "No."

Holy cow.

That was the wrong thing to say.

And it all blew up, and I realized, I need to get out of there, because he was gonna turn violent.

At that moment, one of the proudest moments of my life, I turned around and I walked out.

At some point, if you're gonna have some self-esteem or, you know, some pride, something, you have to get away from that.

And I- And I did.

I was free.

It was the damndest feeling.

I mean, the- the weight was just off me completely.

And from that time, until his death, I never spoke to him.

[Classical music] VOICEOVER: "Thursday, July 2nd, 1863.

The second day: 'He hath loosed the fateful lightning...' Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Colonel, thirty-four.

One year ago, he had been a professor of rhetoric at Bowdoin College.

One week before the battle, he is given command of the Regiment, the 20th Maine.

He believed in the dignity of man.

He had grown up believing in America and the individual and it was a stronger faith than his faith in God.

In this place at last a man could stand up free of the past, free of tradition and blood ties and the curse of royalty and become what he wished to become.

The fact of slavery upon this incredibly beautiful new clean earth was appalling.

Chamberlain had come to crush it.

The American fights for mankind, for freedom; for the people.

'An army going out to set other men free.'"

JANNEY: The Army of the Potomac is situated in the shape of a fishhook.

There's fierce fighting.

The entire battle hinges on where Chamberlain and the 20th Maine are, especially at Little Round Top.

[Sounds of gunfire] VOICEOVER: "'Colonel?

You are the extreme left of the Union line.

Do you understand that?'

'Yes', Chamberlain said.

'You cannot withdraw.

If you go, they'll go right up the hilltop and take us in the rear.

You must defend this place to the last.'

Chamberlain nodded.

Here they come.

A great roar of musketry from behind the hill.

Full battle now.

Grey green yellow uniforms, rolling up in a mass.

His heart seized him.

Several companies, more and more coming up out of the green, out of the dark.

Suddenly the terrible scream, the ripply crawly sound in your skull.

The Rebel yell.

They came on.

Chamberlain limped along the line.

Signs of exhaustion.

Men down, everywhere.

He thought: we cannot hold.

The idea formed.

'Let's fix bayonets.'

Chamberlain raised his saber, let loose the shout that was the greatest sound he could make, boiling the yell up from his chest, 'Fix bayonets!

Charge!

Fix bayonets!

Charge!'

He leaped down from the boulder, still screaming, his voice beginning to crack and give, and all around him his men were roaring animal screams, and he saw the whole Regiment rising and pouring over the wall, and beginning to bound down through the dark bushes, over the dead and dying and wounded, hats coming off, hair flying, mouths making sounds.

Chamberlain saw grey men below stop, freeze, crouch, then quickly turn.

The Rebs had begun to fall back.

They were running.

He had never seen them run.

Chamberlain felt a shattering rush of emotion, restrained it.

'What is the name of this place?

This hill?'

'Little Round Top.'

'Well, I guess we'll remember it.'

His heart began to beat quickly, and he felt an incredible joy.

He said to himself: 'Lawrence, old son, treasure this moment.

Because you feel as good as a man can feel.'"

[Classical music ends] [Somber dramatic music] RONALD MAXWELL: Occasionally, a writer just stops you in your tracks.

The insight, the use of the language, the window into humanity, whatever it is, some writers just break through and you sit in awe of their ability, their skill, their genius.

That's how I felt when I read The Killer Angels .

It was a uniquely, crafted written expression of bringing to life these characters on this battlefield in this time, in this moment.

I thought, "Wow, this- this will make a great motion picture."

NARRATOR: Movie director Ronald Maxwell purchased the option to make The Killer Angels into a movie.

RADIO ANNOUNCER: A movie producer is obviously interested, Shaara says he's already got some ideas about who will best portray some of his characters.

NARRATOR: Every major movie studio and television network turned the project down.

MAXWELL: I had a- a producer friend of mine, he made a lot of movies, and at that time he told me "Ron, when ten people tell you you're drunk, lie down."

Uh but I wouldn't lie down.

I kept on going back with it.

"Oh, here comes Ron again with his Civil War movie."

NARRATOR: Michael Shaara grew increasingly frustrated and angry with the lack of success.

His physical and mental health worsened.

JEFF SHAARA: The guy interviewed me for The Washington Post and he said "you know, your father says you're dead."

I had a business that I- I had a coin shop.

I come to work one morning and there's a note slipped under the door: "Nowhere you can hide.

I'm gonna get you."

LILA SHAARA: I think Jeff was a target partly because he was older, and also partly because he was a boy.

The truth is, for my dad, of course it was a terrible loss.

That's why he talked about Jeff being dead.

He wasn't gonna admit he was wrong about anything or, he wasn't gonna see his part in all the violence and horribleness for Jeff.

He was not good at seeing his role in his own misery.

He knew something was wrong with him, he just couldn't get help for it.

We knew he was not doing well, and my mom woke up like at 3 a.m.

or 4 a.m.

knowing something was wrong, and went and looked, and he had- he was dead.

NARRATOR: Michael Shaara died in his sleep.

He was 59.

LILA SHAARA: He was dying my whole life.

I always expected him to die young, you know?

It was like I- I don't want to say I was waiting for it, but like, yeah of course he was gonna die young.

VOICEOVER: "Friday, July 3rd, 1863.

The third day: '...of his terrible swift sword.'"

JANNEY: On July 3rd, Lee decides that he will hit what he believes to be the most vulnerable spot, which is the very center of the line.

VOICEOVER: "Lee came out of the mists riding majestically forward in the grey light of morning outlined against the sky, gazing eastward toward the enemy line.

Longstreet rose.

They rode together toward the high ground.

Longstreet looked out across a flat field, fence posts, a ridge of stone black against the soft white flow of mist.

Lee lifted his arm, pointed up the ridge in a massive gesture.

'General, the enemy is there, and there's where I'm going to strike him.

We will attack the center.

Your objective will be that clump of trees, there.'

He pointed.

The center of the Union line, the center of the ridge.

Lee waited.

Longstreet spoke, and did not want to look him in the face, but did.

'Sir, I have been a soldier all my life.

I have served from the ranks on up.

I have to tell you now, sir, that I believe this attack will fail.

I believe that no fifteen thousand men ever set for battle could take that hill, sir.'

Lee raised a hand.

'We all do our duty.

We do what we have to do.'

Then Lee said slowly, in a strange, soft, slow tone of voice: 'To be a good soldier you must love the army.

But to be a good officer, you must be willing to order the death of the thing you love.

That is a very hard thing to do.

That is one reason why there are so very few good officers.

Although there are many good men.

You can hold nothing back, when you attack.

You must commit yourself totally.

I want this to be the last battle.'

Longstreet nodded.

Lee rode off.

Now Longstreet was alone.

It was all set and faded like the coming of the bloody heat, the damned rising of the damned sun, and nothing to do, [cannon fires] no way to prevent it."

JANNEY: Lee decides that he will hit the very center of the line.

Everything hinges not just on this battle, but on this one particular charge, that the entire country, that each individual man's future hinges, on this- this one moment.

VOICEOVER: "Lewis Armistead was a man to depend on, and there was this truth about war: it taught you, the men you could depend on."

[Sounds of cannon fire] VOICEOVER: "Armistead could see shells bursting on top of the ridge, on the Union lines.

'My old friend is up on that ridge.'

Armistead and Hancock: They had been closer than brothers before the war.

'Last time I saw old Win I took him by the shoulder and I said 'Win, help me, if I ever lift a hand against you, may God strike me dead.'

The order came down the line.

Armistead bawled with all his force.

'All right, all right now boys, for your wives, your sweethearts, for Virginia!'

He drew his sword, pointed it toward the ridge.

They came out of the woods into the open ground.

Advancing in superb order, line after line, a stunning sight, red battle flags, row on row.

A mile of men, armed and coming, the earth shuddering with their movement.

The first shell struck near him killing a mass of men.

'Close it up, close it up.'

One man down holding his stomach, blood pouring out of him, young face, only a boy.

The men coming steadily slowly, heads down as if in to the wind.

He could see the clump of trees.

He called for double time.

The men began to run.

Then he began to move forward automatically, instinctively raising the black hat on the sword again, beginning to scream 'Virginians!

With me!

With me!'

Troops yelling at last the wild rebel yell.

Armistead leaped to the top of the wall, then he came down on the other side.

And then, [gunshot] he was hit.

Blue troops were closing in.

Armistead's vision blurred: the world turned soft and still.

He saw again: a bloody tangle, men fighting hand to hand.

He looked down at his chest: saw the blood.

Tried to breathe, but now he could feel the end coming.

Blue soldiers stood around him.

A Union officer was speaking.

Armistead said 'Will you tell General Hancock, please, that General Armistead sends his regret.

Will you tell him how very sorry I am.'

The energy failed.

He felt himself flicker.

It was a long, slow falling, very quiet, very peaceful, but always the motion, the darkness closing in, and so he fell out of the light and away, far away, and was gone."

[Classical music slowly fades] [Ashokan Farwell by Jay Ungar and Molly Mason plays] KEN BURNS: It's Christmas Day, 1984.

I'm in western Michigan, visiting my dad.

I finally have time to finish the last 50- 60- pages of The Killer Angels , and then I closed the book and my dad walked into the room, and I said, "I know what I'm gonna do for my next film."

And he said, "What's that, son?"

And I said, "I'm gonna do the Civil War."

And he goes, "Oh!," I mean we talked about the Civil War a lot, and he goes, "Oh, what part?"

Very smartly asking, you know, and I said, "All of it."

And he kind of shook his head and walked out of the room like, "My idiot son", you know?

And I was fortunately not daunted by that sort of early criticism.

I just decided at that moment I'd make a film on the Civil War, and it's all due to the inspirational power of a novel in which all the conversation is made up, but the fact of it wasn't.

JEFF SHAARA: His death brought us all back together again.

Embracing, and hugs, and tears.

I mean, it never could've happened while he was alive.

When my father died, there was stuff to do.

I mean, his estate.

LILA SHAARA: We went to New York to try to organize the sort of- the publishing issues around his books.

RONALD MAXWELL: And Lila was there, and um, Helen was there, his wife, and I was introduced to, "This is Jeff Shaara, Michael's son."

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather.

The deceased young boy was suddenly standing in front of me.

I tried not to show my shock in that moment.

At that point, I was utterly committed to doing The Killer Angels , and I was told that there was this new PBS series that was gonna air in a few months, and the filmmaker, a documentary filmmaker by the name of Ken Burns, was going to come and speak to the roundtable.

And the segment he showed was about Joshua Chamberlain and when he spoke to- to us, he said he was inspired to do the whole series because he read Michael Shaara's book The Killer Angels.

I went up to him and introduced myself and said, "I have the rights to The Killer Angels , and I'm trying to make it as a movie."

TOM BROKAW: In so many ways, the Civil War was the definitive event in shaping America.

And yet, a little more than 100 years after it ended, it has been an ever-fading memory until this week.

Until a stunning documentary on the war between the states on PBS.

KEN BURNS: It took a really long time to achieve it, but it- it changed utterly the trajectory of my life.

JAY LENO: Please welcome Ken Burns!

[Audience clapping] [Patriotic music] JAY LENO: Oh well, I mean, it just goes to show that if you put something good on, and it's historical, and you make it interesting, people will watch.

KEN BURNS: That's the best news.

NEWS ANNOUNCER: This scholarly 11-hour Civil War documentary drew 14 million viewers a night.

Its young producer, Ken Burns, worked on the project five years.

KEN BURNS: If we see the history of a country the way we do the life of a human being, then the Civil War is the great traumatic event in our childhood.

SAM WATERSTON: And that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

NEWS ANNOUNCER: Many are calling the series a TV masterpiece.

NARRATOR: Ken Burns invited Ron Maxwell to an awards ceremony where Burns received a prize from media mogul Ted Turner.

MAXWELL: Ted Turner does at least five minutes, if not ten minutes, talking about "Why does nobody make movies on the Civil War?

This is proof that there's a big audience for it.

It's a great subject.

I don't understand Hollywood.

They don't do-" Anyway, he does the- he does my pitch for me.

NARRATOR: Burns introduced Maxwell to Turner.

TED TURNER: None of the Hollywood studios wanted to invest in it.

I like to prove the experts wrong.

I wanted to show that I could make a better movie than they could make.

NARRATOR: In 1992, production of The Killer Angels began in Gettysburg.

Thousands of Civil War reenactors participated in the filming.

MARTIN SHEEN: I read the book before I read the script and I thought oh my God, the author has heard this, in- in- in the solitude of their own being.

And they have- and they're really echoing it back.

So, it had a reality that I'd never, ever felt, and it was deeply personal and it could not be ignored.

And all the figures were historic, particularly the guy I was gonna play, Robert E. Lee.

JEFF DANIELS: Nobody was there.

Sunday morning.

Raining.

Walked up the hill.

There's the monument to the 20th Maine.

And you're in all these trees, and you can see down where they came.

And it felt similar to the feeling you have when you walk into a church.

An old church.

Church that's been there a long time, a cathedral.

You can feel a presence, whether it was those who had died there or whether it was Chamberlain himself, you know.

But you felt that you weren't alone, and I remember promising him that I wouldn't screw this up.

Chamberlain was a great unsung American hero.

I was proud to play him.

STEPHEN LANG: You feel like you're part of a- a larger story.

In many ways, we think differently, we live differently, but we agree that this is an important place to be.

It's an important story to tell.

Really, it's the battle itself, which is the star.

MAXWELL: When we were filming in the summer of '92, I invited Helen, and Lila, and Jeff to visit.

JEFF SHAARA: This is the coolest thing I've ever seen.

And you know, I- I go back home, and I thought about it only for a couple days, and I wrote Ron a letter just thanking him, being impressed with making a movie, with all of what's involved in making a movie, being impressed with him, and watching what he was doing, being grateful and tribute to my father.

MAXWELL: I got a long, moving letter.

In a sense, it was a kind of, a reunion with his father.

[Upbeat guitar music] JEFF SHAARA: The movie comes out in 1993.

It premieres in Washington.

I was there with my mother.

My mother sat next to me with her arm like this, gripping me.

LILA SHAARA: To see actors saying these things.

It was very weird.

It was very surreal.

NARRATOR: In 1993, Gettysburg opened in theaters.

It was a hit.

The broadcast premiere on TNT was the highest rated cable miniseries ever.

Tourism boomed at the Gettysburg Battlefield.

This success spurred The Killer Angels book to reach number one on the New York Times' bestseller list.

JEFF: 19 years after it was published, and 5 years after my father's death.

He didn't live to see it.

JEFF SHAARA: I took the soundtrack to Gettysburg , and I took it out to the grave, and I played it.

And whether he heard it or not, who knows?

But I just thought, you know, "This is your movie, you know?

You de- You- At the very least, despite of everything else you've done in your life, you deserve to see this."

NARRATOR: The success of the Gettysburg movie led Ted Turner and Ron Maxwell to begin planning more Civil War movies.

MAXWELL: So I started thinking about this writer, and that writer, and another writer, and then I went back to that letter that he sent me.

[Somber guitar music] MAXWELL: And it had a certain literary quality to it.

JEFF SHAARA: I called Ron back.

I said, "You know, I think this is something I'd like to try to do."

And Ron's response was, "I've been waiting for your call."

MAXWELL: I said, "Jeff, I know this is a wacky idea.

Why don't you write the book?"

JEFF SHAARA: I started walking the battlefield, you know, see it the way they saw it.

I remember laughing at the blank computer screen and saying you know, "What am I doing?"

Well, I took a shot and I wrote the book he should have written.

MAXWELL: A few months later, he hands me the first couple of chapters starting in the Mexican War.

I'm going, "Wow, this is, like, uncanny."

He could capture his father's style.

LILA SHAARA: I was perfectly fine with Jeff doing it.

I was surprised that he wanted to do it so much.

I felt like "That way lies madness."

JEFF SHAARA: I finished the manuscript, and I'm talking to the publisher in New York and, you know, in the meanwhile, Killer Angels , number one bestseller, so the publisher is happy to talk to me.

So, I'm talking to the publisher, and I- I told her what I was doing, and I said, "Yeah, I'm working on the prequel, you know, and Ted Turner wants to make a movie" and so forth, and she says, "Oh, well, send us the manuscript."

My whole life changed with that phone call.

Gods and Generals comes out in the spring of '96, debuts on the bestseller list.

I mean, I know full well people wanted more of The Killer Angels .

I was being cut enormous slack by critics, by the public.

It's almost as though they were rooting for me to do this, to follow up Killer Angels with something worthwhile.

KATIE COURIC: Your dad died in 1988, and the last years of his life were really lonely, sad years, and you all were pretty much estranged.

In fact, during one interview, he said that you were dead.

Um how difficult was that to, sort of, come to terms with your relationship and write this book?

JEFF SHAARA: Well, the relationship has actually gotten better because I think I- in many ways, I feel like my father had a hand in writing this book.

I mean I- I have a very difficult time taking credit for all the good things that- that surround this book already, all the wonderful things that have happened, because very often during the writing, I felt uh my father was in the room.

Um, it was- It was a very strange experience.

KATIE COURIC: And uh finally, what do you think your dad would think of this, Jeff?

JEFF SHAARA: I hope my dad would be very pleased that I began this project.

I think he would be proud of the- the reception it's received.

And I just hope he's paying attention somewhere.

KATIE COURIC: Well, I think he'd be very proud indeed.

JEFF SHAARA: Thank you.

KATIE COURIC: The novel is Gods and Generals , a novel of the Civil War.

Jeff Shaara, thanks so much and best of luck.

JEFF SHAARA: Thank you.

I'm visiting my mother in Tallahassee, and I remember I'm in the kitchen of her house, and I told her that I was, you know, about to sign a new contract, and she said, "Why is the good stuff happening to you?"

And I realized, somewhat painfully, that what she was talking about is the good stuff never seemed to happen to my father.

I didn't have an answer for that.

I didn't- I didn't have a response to that.

I think I'm earning it.

I mean, I am doing the work.

I would hear from other people: "Oh, your mother's so proud of you."

Tell me.

[Pensive music] [Leaves rustling] JEFF: It's funny -cause a lot of people have suggested over the years that because of my writing and his writing, that we've somehow come together and all the bad is gone.

Not really.

The idea that now we're buddies and- and- no.

I- I- It's... The damage is too great, and I just don't think there could have ever have been healing.

I don't know that anybody can heal.

You can make a, you know, paint a good picture if you want to, but healing, that means all wounds, all the- all the- all the problems up here have to be gone, and I don't know if that ever happens.

The success would have been wonderful.

I mean he- he-, it's- it's confirmation.

It's confirmation of what he'd been doing since 1950, you know, I mean it's confirmation that he's good at what he does, something he always believed.

[Classical music] MICHAEL SHAARA: I liked what I had done.

I was proud of it.

The fact that other people feel that way too makes me feel very good.

You do this alone at the typewriter.

Alone in a library.

No, not quite alone.

JEFF SHAARA: It's really easy to look at how the stars had to line up and turn the book into a number one bestseller.

The final, you know, final star lining up was me and I owe a lot to my father because he opened the door.

My father deserved the accolades, you know.

He created something that will stand for all time.

I just wish he'd lived to see it.

VOICEOVER: "In the evening, Chamberlain found a bare rock where he could sit and look out across the battlefield at dusk.

He knew he had been present at one of the great moments in history.

He could see himself as an old man trying to describe it to his grandchildren.

A fine rain began to fall.

He lifted his face to the rain and licked his lips and could taste the dirt on his face, and knew he would remember that too, the last moment at Gettysburg.

It rained all that night.

The next day was Saturday, the Fourth of July."

[Classical music plays] ANNOUNCER: The Civil War Trilogy paperback set, including The Killer Angels, Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure, as well as Jeff Shaara's 2026 novel The Unfinished Work: A Novel of Abraham Lincoln , are available to purchase online at GettysburgBook.com.

Or call the phone number on your screen.

[Banjo music] ANNOUNCER: This film was made possible by the generous support of: David and Sherri Malgee.

Committed to sharing Gettysburg's history... And also... Thank you.