Certain monologues are kind of necessary.
Chamberlain's why-we-fight explanation to the mutineers was necessary.
Possibly necessary to tutor the uninformed, but not accurate. In actuality, the transfer of the mutineers to the 20th Maine occurred six weeks earlier in mid-May 1863, and Chamberlain's speech was much less along the lines of "why we fight" to a group of men who had seen more combat than he had, and much more along the lines of, "I know you think you got screwed, and you may be right. I'll do what I can for your case, but in the meantime you're still soldiers and will be treated as such."
Armstead's & Hancock's own soliloquys were too, if only to expound on the depth of their friendship.
And, of course, Longstreet's foreshadowing bit to Harrison after Harrison wishes to join in Pickett's Charge....
Same with Sam Elliot's character's bit about what would happen if their cavalry unit didn't take the high ground.
They were soliloquies because in the book they were the characters' stream-of-consciousness thoughts. Ron Maxwell rarely used voice-overs to reflect such thoughts (Chamberlain's "Hold to the last" thoughts on Little Round Top and Lee's quoting of the Psalms and contemplating withdrawal versus attack are the only instances I can think of) and he chose artistically to use monologue much more than voice-over.
The bit about Tom Chamberlain speaking to the Confederate POWs is borderline. It serves as expository dialogue to those viewers who don't know anything about the Civil War. That written, it could've served to make up for deleting the Confederate officers' talk w/ British Colonel Freemantle about secession.
Overall, for the un-initiated, the speeches are there to explain the 'whys'.
In the book, Tom Chamberlain's conversation with the POWs was presented as a paragraph of his dialogue telling Lawrence about the encounter. It might arguably have been redundant to the scenes with Freemantle, but Ron Maxwell decided, again for artistic purposes, to show the actual conversation with the POWs as a cute recreation of a famous painting,
Prisoners From the Front by Winslow Homer.
The Chamberlain & Kilrain bit about "killer angels" etc could've possibly been left out.
That scene was taken straight from the book, except for the actual "he damn well must be a killer angel" line which was from a flashback scene between Chamberlain and his father. It's obvious that Kilrain is something of a father figure to Chamberlain, so that was close enough.
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