Gods and Generals is a novel which serves as a prequel to Michael Shaara's 1974 Pulitzer Prize–winning work about the Battle of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels.

Written by Jeffrey Shaara after his father Michael's death in 1988, the novel relates events from 1858 through 1863, during the American Civil War, ending just as the two armies march toward Gettysburg.

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 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.

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.