Jeff Shaara was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey on February 21, 1952. He received a degree in criminology from Florida State University in 1974. He was a professional dealer in rare coins for many years and operated his own business in Tampa until the death of his father, Michael Shaara, in 1988, when he became actively involved in the elder Shaara's literary estate. He continued his father's work by researching the history of the characters his father had brought to life in The Killer Angels, and in 1996 his prequel, Gods and Generals, was published. The book was awarded the American Library Association's Boyd Award for Excellence in Military Fiction and was adapted into a motion picture… in 2003. His other works include The Last Full Measure, Rise to Rebellion, The Glorious Cause, The Steel Wave, No Less Than Victory, and The Final Storm. He received another Boyd Award for To the Last Man. He began a new series dealing with the "Western" theater of the Civil War, with the release of A Blaze of Glory and A Chain of Thunder. In 2014, he made The New York Times Best Seller List with his title The Smoke at Dawn.
Michael Shaara was a novelist, short story writer, and educator. He was born in Jersey City, New Jersey on June 23, 1928. Shaara earned a B.S. from Rutgers University and did graduate work at Columbia University and the University of Vermont. Shaara spent two years in the service, worked as a policeman and a sailor, and became associate professor at Florida State University in 1961. From 1961 to 1965 he wrote, produced, and performed in a show for educational television. Shaara published a novel in 1974 titled, The Killer Angels. The novel told the story of the Battle of Gettysburg from the point of view of the men fighting it. It received the Pulitzer Prize in 1975. In 1993, the novel was… the basis for the motion picture Gettysburg. Shaara also published more than 70 short stories that appeared in several U.S. and foreign publications and wrote several more novels. Shaara died on May 5, 1988.