by Bea Peterson
Former HFCS teacher Michael Russert captivated his audience of forty at the Cheney Library on Tuesday evening, July 9. There was not a sound as he told of the life of author Michael Shaara and his famous book, Killer Angels, about the Battle of Gettysburg. He followed it up with interesting facts on that Battle and information on Hoosick Falls’ Company A of the 125th NY Volunteer Infantry Regiment that fought there as well.
Russert described Shaara as a wordsmith and Killer Angels as the best fictional account of the battle ever written. In his lifetime, which included a massive heart attack at 36 and a devastating motorcycle accident years later that left him impaired, Shaara accomplished a great deal. He was a well respected college professor, a family man and a writer of more than 70 published short stories. In the 1950s he received awards for his science fiction, and two of those stories became television dramas. His first novel, The Broken Place, about a Korean War veteran, was published but was not a commercial success.
A visit to Gettysburg with his family inspired him to tell a story through the eyes of those who were there. It took him seven years to write the novel; it was rejected by 15 publishers. It was finally purchased by an independent publisher in 1973 and 3,000 copies were printed. It was not financially successful and astounded everyone when it won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Shaara also wrote For Love of the Game. The success of those books came after his death when the two books were turned into movies. After the movie Gettysburg hit the big screen, 19 years after the book was first published, it skyrocketed to #1 on the NY Times Bestseller List. To date, three and a half million copies have been sold. First editions of the book now sell for $3,500.
In 1999 Kevin Costner and Kelly Preston played in the movie The Love of the Game. Russert said in one airport scene Costner is carrying the book Killer Angels under his arm.
Local History
Russert said that at the start of the Civil War Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers. After Shiloh he called for 300,000 more. Each state had a quota. Rensselaer County had to raise a Regiment of 800 to 1,000 men in ten companies, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K. Russet said there was no “j” because of its similarity to “i.” Hoosick Falls was Company A, the first company to fill its quota. Russert said the men were sent to Troy with no basic training and no indoctrination. They were part of the Brigade that was sent to Harper’s Ferry, a group of farm boys mixed with the Garibaldi Guard out of New York City. Those companies consisted of Germans, Hungarians, Swiss, Italians, Frenchmen, Spaniards and Portuguese. Many of them could not speak English. In any event, the Union surrendered at Harper’s Ferry, and they were sent to Chicago and held until they were swapped for Confederate soldiers and sent back into battle. Unfortunately, because of their capture they were tagged as the Harper Ferry cowards.
The 125th was part of the offensive in day one of the Battle of Gettysburg. After the battle the men were told to go back into the field and pick up as many firearms as they could find and load them. On July 3 many of the 125th were on a fence line for Pickett’s charge. They rested their guns on the fence and fired at will chanting Harper’s Ferry, Harper’s Ferry and thus they redeemed themselves. Of the 1,500 men of the 125th, 47.3 percent died in the war from disease, in prison camps or on the battlefields.
Only days ago the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg was celebrated, and, for an evening, Russert brought it to life for a group of interested individuals.
Russert has a Master’s Degree plus sixty hours in Nineteenth Century American Studies. He is a member of the Company of Military Historians, a book reviewer on the staff of The Civil War News and has served as Coordinator of the New York State Veterans Oral History Program.
The program was offered as part of the Friends of the Cheney Library Love Your Library Series.