It may well have been an honest mistake, but it's pretty hard to see how he derived "Shakespearean actor" from this snippet.

I have no problem with poetic license, although I will admit to a major disappointment when I scoured the 20th Maine monument on Little Round Top and didn't see Buster Kilrain's name.

Don't recall, but was John Chamberlain's name on that monument? Didn't know til years later that there were 3 Chamberlains on LRT that day. Apparently John got killed, and Tom eventually married her.

Wonder why Shaara omitted that interesting factoid?