Gods and Generals
Jeffrey Shaara
 Copying his father's approach of focusing on the most important officers of the two armies (General Robert E. Lee, Major General Winfield Scott Hancock, Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, and Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Chamberlain), Shaara depicted the emotional drama of soldiers fighting old friends while accurately detailing historical details including troop movements, strategies, and tactical combat situations. General Hancock, for instance, spends much of the novel dreading the day he will have to fire on his friend in the Confederate Army, Lewis "Lo" Armistead. The novel also deals with General Lee's disillusionment with the Confederate bureaucracy and General Jackson's religious fervor. In addition to covering events leading up to the war, the book details the events of First Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. The film version provides only cursory coverage of immediate pre-war events, focusing primarily on Lee and the secession of Virginia, and omits the Battle of Antietam.