Copying his father's approach of focusing on the most important officers of the two armies (GeneralRobert E. Lee, Major GeneralWinfield Scott Hancock, Lt. Gen.Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, and Lieutenant ColonelJoshua Chamberlain), Shaara depicted the emotional drama of soldiers fighting old friends while accurately detailing historical details including troop movements, strategies, and tactical combat situations. General Hancock, for instance, spends much of the novel dreading the day he will have to fire on his friend in the Confederate Army, Lewis "Lo" Armistead. The novel also deals with General Lee's disillusionment with the Confederate bureaucracy and General Jackson's religious fervor.
In addition to covering events leading up to the war, the book includes the battles of First Bull Run, covered only from the perspective of Robert E. Lee, who was in Richmond at the time and thus not at the battle, Williamsburg, Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. The film version provides only cursory coverage of immediate pre-war events, focusing primarily on Jackson and the secession of Virginia, and omits Antietam (included in the Director's Cut) along with Williamsburg and Second Bull Run. It spends a considerable amount of time on First Bull Run, which played only a minor role in the book.
Gods and Generals is also the title of the second album recorded by Swedish power metal band Civil War. All three of this band's albums share titles with each book in this trilogy: The Killer Angels, Gods and Generals, The Last Full Measure.