The award was started by Jeffrey ("Jeff") Shaara, (b.
1952), and named for his father, the writer of historical fiction Michael Shaara, (1928–1988), who won the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for the 1974 novel of the American Civil War, The Killer Angels, about the Battle of Gettysburg, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and later made into the Ted Turner-produced movie in 1993, Gettysburg, by director Ronald Maxwell.
The original novel and movie later became the inspiration for son Jeff's prequel Gods and Generals, (1996), and sequel The Last Full Measure, (1998), set of novels of which Gods and Generals was also made into a film in 2003 by Turner and Maxwell focusing on the earlier part of the war with Confederate General Thomas J.
He later returned to the theme of the Civil War with a set of works focusing on the western theatre of the war, (Trans-Mississippi Theatre).
[1] The $5,000 was first awarded in 1997, at the United States Civil War Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.