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Introduction

• Shaara offers biographies briefly on Robert Edward Lee, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, and Ulysses Simpson Grant.

• The book starts just ten days after the major defeat of Lee's army at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863.

• From 1861 to 1863, terribly bloody battles follow one another.

• As the novel starts on July 13, 1863, Lee, Chamberlain, and Grant are the primary commanders.

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Part 1, Lee (July 13, 1863): Chapter 1

• General Robert E. Lee, on his horse Traveler, sees his army retreating from the Battle of Gettysburg.

• It is raining hard and the river is swollen.

• Lee's engineers make a makeshift bridge.

• By August of 1863, Lee brings his army into Virginia near Orange just south of the Rapidan River.

Part 1, Chamberlain (August-October 1863): Chapters 2-4

• Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain returns by train to Brunswick, Maine and his met by his wife Fannie.

• He almost faints in his wife's arms from malaria.

• They ride away in a carriage and while he...

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