The Killer Angels

Novelist Michael Shaara recreates the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 and the days just before it, as Union and Confederate troops converge on the Pennsylvania town. Each day is seen mostly through commanders, among them John Buford and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the Union, and the Confederates Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet. Lee has marched north, hoping to lure the Union army into a battle he can win, while Longstreet, loyal to him, argues stubbornly against the plan. The title comes from a schoolboy speech by Chamberlain, prompted by his father's remark on a line from Hamlet. Published in 1974, the novel won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was filmed as Gettysburg in 1993.

James Mattis included it on the list of favorite books in an appendix to Call Sign Chaos.