He was associate professor at that university from 1961 to 1973. After this he began to teach English, literature, and creative writing at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Shaara married Helen Krumweide in 1950, and in 1954, he moved with his wife and young son to Florida, where Shaara was for a short time employed as a police officer in St. He also began to publish science fiction short stories in popular magazines.

Shaara graduated from Rutgers with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1951 and then pursued graduate study at Columbia University (1952-1953) and the University of Vermont (1953-1954). He wrote his first published story while he was still an undergraduate, even though his creative writing teacher was less than enthusiastic about his work and suggested he aim for a more literary style. He attended Rutgers University and it was there that he realized his goal was to become a writer. Michael Shaara was born on June 23, 1929, in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of Italian immigrants. The Killer Angels won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975 and was the basis for the film Gettysburg in 1993. In vivid prose that recreates the sights, sounds, and smells of battle, The Killer Angels makes readers feel that they are right there in the midst of the action. Through dialogue and inner monologue, the author explores the great issues of the day, including slavery, states' rights, and theories of war and how they are applied to the battle at hand, as well as religious and philosophical issues such as the role played by chance and destiny in the great battle. Shaara reveals the thoughts and feelings of these and other soldiers as they play out their parts in the historic battle: why they fight, what motivates them, what their beliefs are, what decisions they make and why. Lee, commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, and Lieutenant General James Longstreet, commander of the Confederate First Army Corps and Lee's second in command, and on the Union side, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, commander of the Twentieth Maine Infantry regiment. Shaara describes the battle from the points of view of several of the main participants, the most important being, on the Confederate side, General Robert E. Michael Shaara's novel The Killer Angels (1974) covers a four-day period (June 29, July 1-3, 1863) during which the Battle of Gettysburg, the turning point of the American Civil War, was fought in Pennsylvania.

The killer angels novel