“ ‘The truth is, Colonel, that there's no divine
spark, bless you. There's many a man alive no more value than a dead dog.
Believe me, when you've seen them hang each other...Equality? Christ in Heaven.
What I'm fighting for is the right to prove I'm a better man than many. Where
have you seen this divine spark in operation, Colonel? Where have you noted
this magnificent equality? The Great White Joker in the Sky dooms us all to stupidity
or poverty from birth. No two things on earth are equal or have an equal chance,
not a leaf nor a tree. There's many a man worse than me, and some better, but I
don't think race or country matters a damn. What matters is justice. 'Tis why
I'm here. I'll be treated as I deserve, not as my father deserved. I'm Kilrain,
and I God damn all gentlemen. I don't know who me father was and I don't give a
damn. There's only one aristocracy, and that's right here’—he tapped his white
skull with a thick finger –‘and YOU, Colonel laddie, are a member of it and
don't even know it. You are damned good at everything I've seen you do, a
lovely soldier, an honest man, and you got a good heart on you too, which is
rare in clever men. Strange thing. I'm not a clever man meself, but I know it
when I run across it. The strange and marvelous thing about you, Colonel
darlin', is that you believe in mankind, even preachers, whereas when you've
got my great experience of the world you will have learned that good men are
rare, much rarer than you think.’”— Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels (1974)
Forty years ago today, the Pulitzer Prize for
Fiction was awarded to one of the classic works of historical fiction published
in this country, on the turning point in the conflict that redefined America: The Killer Angels, on the Battle of
Gettysburg.
The manuscript by Michael Shaara had been rejected by 15 different publishers before
finally being accepted by a small house. Even after winning the Pulitzer, it
would take nearly another two decades before it gained the mass readership it
deserved, after release of the epic
film adapted from it, Gettysburg, in theaters and on
TNT (whose head, Ted Turner, was a Civil War buff) and after such historians as
James McPherson hailed it for its accuracy.
There are many reasons, historical and literary, to
embrace this novel: for its insistence on slavery as the ultimate cause of the
Civil War; for its penetration into the minds of commanders; for its realism
about the awful price of war; for redeeming the reputation of a brave
Confederate general, James Longstreet, unjustly maligned by Southern historians
and postwar advocates of the “Lost Cause” for not vigorously pursuing an
assault on the Federal lines that he had correctly warned Robert E. Lee would
be suicidal; and for spotlighting the colonel addressed in this passage, Joshua
Chamberlain of Maine, responsible for holding the critical Little Round Top against a furious
Confederate assault.
But I especially like its depiction of the warmth
between Chamberlain and the sergeant addressing him here, Buster
Kilrain, a stand-in for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants (very much
including, as this passage indicates, Irish ones) who fought for the Union.
Shaara rendered him so vividly that tourists to Gettysburg have left disappointed to discover that he was a fictional character. They shouldn't be: Kilrain lives as surely as another person with Ireland in the veins, Scarlett O'Hara.
Kilrain doesn’t have the soaring ideals that animate Chamberlain, but his
motive for fighting is noble enough: the determination to show that he is not
only as good as any other man, but can even be better.
Aging, out of shape, Kilrain is walking cannon
fodder, and his hand-to-mouth existence in his native land has left him utterly
without illusions about human nature. But his experience with the unfair
advantages of a landed gentry in Ireland (he comes from the west of that country,
County Clare, from where my father and his ancestors hailed) have led him to
realize that the other side in this fight will perpetuate a system of encrusted
privilege very much like it, and he will fight it in favor of “justice” and an
aristocracy based on natural decency in its stead. By the battle’s end, Kilrain
will prove that he belongs to the elite group of “good men” that he believes is
rare.
Evidently, I’m not the only reader and viewer
enthralled by the story of Kilrain within the larger canvass of The Killer Angels. So is musician Steve
Earle, according to this post by Chris Mackowski on the blog “Emerging Civil War.” Earle has gone as far, in
“Dixieland,” as to sing from the point of view of Kilrain: “I damn all
gentlemen/Whose only worth is their father’s name and the sweat of a workin’
man.”
(The image
accompanying this post is from the stirring film Gettysburg, faithfully adapted
from Shaara’s novel, with Jeff Daniels, on the left, playing Col. Chamberlain
and the marvelous character actor Kevin Conway, on the right, embodying unillusioned,
decent, heroic Kilrain.)
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