When Jeff came into my office, he started out by saying 'Now one thing we can't do is cut this manuscript. It was actually easier than one might think, because Jeff had made a typical first-time novelist's mistake-he started his story too early. The biggest challenge of editing GODS AND GENERALS was cutting it down. Strangely enough, he was born exactly ten years to the day before my best friend, so perhaps it was in the stars that we would work well together. He and I hit it off right from the beginning. After beating out Turner Books (which has since gone out of business) for the right to publish GODS AND GENERALS, I met Jeff, and we began to get to work.

After about 400 pages, Jeff began to find a comfortable style and method of telling the story of Lee, Hancock, Armistead, Chamberlain, Longstreet, and Stonewall Jackson before the battle of Gettysburg. I quickly read THE KILLER ANGELS to get a feel for the subject, and then started plowing through G&G. This was the original version of GODS AND GENERALS by Jeff Shaara. I arrived at Ballantine shortly before then-publisher Clare Ferraro dropped a 1,200 page doorstop on my desk, practically causing it to bow in the middle. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. Profound in its insights into the minds and hearts of those who fought in the war, Gods and Generals creates a vivid portrait of the soldiers, the battlefields, and the tumultuous times that forever shaped the nation. Lee, never believing until too late that a civil war would ever truly come to pass. Here is Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, a hopelessly by-the-book military instructor and devout Christian who becomes the greatest commander of the Civil War Winfield Scott Hancock, a captain of quartermasters who quickly establishes himself as one of the finest leaders of the Union army Joshua Chamberlain, who gives up his promising academic career and goes on to become one of the most heroic soldiers in American history and Robert E. In this brilliantly written epic novel, Jeff Shaara traces the lives, passions, and careers of the great military leaders from the first gathering clouds of the Civil War. The New York Times bestselling prequel to the Pulitzer Prize–winning classic The Killer Angels

Gods and generals shaara