Gods and Generals is a 2003 American film based on the novel Gods and Generals by Jeffrey Shaara. It depicts events that take place prior to those shown in the 1993 film Gettysburg, which was based on The Killer Angels, a novel by Shaara's father, Michael. The film stars Stephen Lang as Stonewall Jackson, Jeff Daniels as Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and Robert Duvall as General Robert E. Lee.
It was written and directed by Ronald F. Maxwell, who had previously written and directed Gettysburg in 1993. Media mogul Ted Turner provided the entire $65 million budget.
The film centers mostly on the personal and professional life of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, the God-fearing and militarily brilliant yet acutely eccentric Confederate general, from the outbreak of the American Civil War until its halfway point when Jackson, while on a night ride with his staff to investigate the grounds of battle, is accidentally shot by his own soldiers in May 1863 while commanding at the Battle of Chancellorsville. It also follows Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a Maine college professor who is appointed a Lieutenant Colonel and becomes second-in-command of the 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry
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