A Blaze of Glory, Jeff Shaara
A Blaze of Glory, Jeff Shaara
6 Rating(s)
List: $27.50 | Sale: $19.25
Club: $13.75

A Blaze of Glory
A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh

Author: Jeff Shaara

Narrator: Paul Michael

Unabridged: 18 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/29/2012


Synopsis

In the first novel of a spellbinding new trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Jeff Shaara returns to the Civil War terrain he knows best. A Blaze of Glory takes us to the action-packed Western Theater for a vivid re-creation of one of the war’s bloodiest and most iconic engagements—the Battle of Shiloh.
 
It’s the spring of 1862. The Confederate Army in the West teeters on the brink of collapse following the catastrophic loss of Fort Donelson. Commanding general Albert Sidney Johnston is forced to pull up stakes, abandon the critical city of Nashville, and rally his troops in defense of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. Hot on Johnston’s trail are two of the Union’s best generals: the relentless Ulysses Grant, fresh off his career-making victory at Fort Donelson, and Don Carlos Buell. If their combined forces can crush Johnston’s army and capture the railroad, the war in the West likely will be over. There’s just one problem: Johnston knows of the Union plans, and is poised to launch an audacious surprise attack on Grant’s encampment—a small settlement in southwestern Tennessee anchored by a humble church named Shiloh.
 
With stunning you-are-there immediacy, Shaara takes us inside the maelstrom of Shiloh as no novelist has before. Drawing on meticulous research, he dramatizes the key actions and decisions of the commanders on both sides: Johnston, Grant, Sherman, Beauregard, and the illustrious Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest. Here too are the thoughts and voices of the junior officers, conscripts, and enlisted men who gave their all for the cause, among them Confederate cavalry lieutenant James Seeley and Private Fritz “Dutchie” Bauer of the 16th Wisconsin Regiment—brave participants in a pitched back-and-forth battle whose casualty count would far surpass anything the American public had yet seen in this war. By the end of the first day of fighting, as Grant’s bedraggled forces regroup for could be their last stand, two major events—both totally unexpected—will turn the tide of the battle and perhaps the war itself.

About The Author

Jeff Shaara is the New York Times bestselling author of A Chain of Thunder, A Blaze of Glory, The Final Storm, No Less Than Victory, The Steel Wave, The Rising Tide, To the Last Man, The Glorious Cause, Rise to Rebellion, and Gone for Soldiers, as well as Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure—two novels that complete the Civil War trilogy that began with his father’s Pulitzer Prize–winning classic, The Killer Angels. Shaara was born into a family of Italian immigrants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, and graduated from Florida State University. He lives again in Tallahassee.


Reviews

Goodreads review by robin on April 05, 2025

Jeff Shaara's Novel Of Shiloh I read "A Chain of Thunder" (2013), Jeff Shaara's novel of the siege of Vicksburg, and then worked back to Sharra's novel of last year "A Blaze of Glory", (2012), a historical novel of the Battle of Shiloh. The two books form part of a projected trilogy of historical nov......more

Goodreads review by Steven on May 18, 2012

This is another in a series of works by Jeff Shaara, whose father authored the well acclaimed work "The Killer Angels" (a novel of the battle at Gettysburg). Shaara has military historical novels on the American Civil War, World War II and so on. The mode of operation is the same, between both pere......more

Goodreads review by Stephen on January 30, 2016

Come all you gallant soldiers, a story I will tell About the bloody battle on top of Shiloh's hill It was an awful struggle; it'll cause your heart to chill All from the bloody battle on top of Shiloh's hill. In 1974, Michael Shaara wrote an unparalleled novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, eschewing......more

Goodreads review by Donna on August 19, 2015

To clarify: this is a five-star review. It was erroneously entered as four stars at some point, and the system is resisting my effort to correct it. FIVE stars. Not four. FIVE! I am a longstanding fan of Jeff Shaara's. I see people write criticism of his work that sometimes approaches hysteria, and f......more

Goodreads review by Sam on July 25, 2012

A Blaze of Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Shiloh begins the new Jeff Shaara trilogy focusing on events of the Civil War’s Western Theater. As fans of Shaara’s The Last Full Measure and his father’s The Killer Angels will attest, his return to the Civil War era is a welcome one. I was particularly p......more


Quotes

PRAISE FOR JEFF SHAARA’S ACCLAIMED CIVIL WAR NOVELS
 
Gods and Generals
 
“Shaara’s beautifully sensitive novel delves deeply in the empathetic realm of psycho-history, where enemies do not exist—just mortal men forced to make crucial decisions and survive on the same battlefield.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“Powerful . . . Though the story of the Civil War has been told many times, this is the rare version that conveys what it must have felt like.”—Chicago Sun-Times
 
“Compelling . . . a work of vivid drama and skill.”—The Dallas Morning News
 
The Last Full Measure
 
The Last Full Measure is more than another historical novel. It is rooted in history, but its strength is the element of humanity flowing through its characters. . . . The book is compelling, easy to read, well researched and written, and thought-provoking. . . . In short, it is everything that a reader could ask for.”—Chicago Tribune
 
“[Shaara] writes with considerable sensitivity and skill, setting vivid scenes and adding drama and suspense to a familiar tale.”—The Seattle Times
 
“Masterful . . . These characters come alive as complex, heroic, and flawed men.”—Baltimore Sun