The Red Badge of Courage
by Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
An Episode of the American Civil War
Contents
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Chapter I.
The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs
revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. As the landscape
changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble
with eagerness at the noise of rumors. It cast its eyes upon the roads,
which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper
thoroughfares. A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled
at the army’s feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a
sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of
hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.
Once a certain tall soldier developed virtues and went resolutely to
wash a shirt. He came flying back from a brook waving his garment
bannerlike. He was swelled with a tale he had heard from a reliable
friend, who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman, who had heard it
from his trustworthy brother, one of the orderlies at division
headquarters. He adopted the important air of a herald in red and gold.
“We’re goin’ t’ move t’morrah—sure,” he said pompously to a group in
the company street. “We’re goin’ ’way up the river, cut across, an’
come around in behint ’em.”
To his attentive audience he drew a loud and elaborate plan of a very
brilliant campaign. When he had finished, the blue-clothed men
scattered into small arguing groups between the rows of squat brown
huts. A negro teamster who had been dancing upon a cracker box with the
hilarious encouragement of twoscore soldiers was deserted. He sat
mournfully down. Smoke drifted lazily from a multitude of quaint
chimneys.
“It’s a lie! that’s all it is—a thunderin’ lie!” said another private
loudly. His smooth face was flushed, and his hands were thrust sulkily
into his trouser’s pockets. He took the matter as an affront to him. “I
don’t believe the derned old army’s ever going to move. We’re set. I’ve
got ready to move eight times in the last two weeks, and we ain’t moved
yet.”
The tall soldier felt called upon to defend the truth of a rumor he
himself had introduced. He and the loud one came near to fighting over
it.
A corporal began to swear before the assemblage. He had just put a
costly board floor in his house, he said. During the early spring he
had refrained from adding extensively to the comfort of his environment
because he had felt that the army might start on the march at any
moment. Of late, however, he had been impressed that they were in a
sort of eternal camp.
Many of the men engaged in a spirited debate. One outlined in a
peculiarly lucid manner all the plans of the commanding general. He was
opposed by men who advocated that there were other plans of campaign.
They clamored at each other, numbers making futile bids for the popular
attention. Meanwhile, the soldier who had fetched the rumor bustled
about with much importance. He was continually assailed by questions.
“What’s up, Jim?”
“Th’army’s goin’ t’ move.”
“Ah, what yeh talkin’ about? How yeh know it is?”
“Well, yeh kin b’lieve me er not, jest as yeh like. I don’t care a
hang.”
There was much food for thought in the manner in which he replied. He
came near to convincing them by disdaining to produce proofs. They grew
much excited over it.
There was a youthful private who listened with eager ears to the words
of the tall soldier and to the varied comments of his comrades. After
receiving a fill of discussions concerning marches and attacks, he went
to his hut and crawled through an intricate hole that served it as a
door. He wished to be alone with some new thoughts that had lately come
to him.
He lay down on a wide bunk that stretched across the end of the room.
In the other end, cracker boxes were made to serve as furniture. They
were grouped about the fireplace. A picture from an illustrated weekly
was upon the log walls, and three rifles were paralleled on pegs.
Equipments hung on handy projections, and some tin dishes lay upon a
small pile of firewood. A folded tent was serving as a roof. The
sunlight, without, beating upon it, made it glow a light yellow shade.
A small window shot an oblique square of whiter light upon the
cluttered floor. The smoke from the fire at times neglected the clay
chimney and wreathed into the room, and this flimsy chimney of clay and
sticks made endless threats to set ablaze the whole establishment.
The youth was in a little trance of astonishment. So they were at last
going to fight. On the morrow, perhaps, there would be a battle, and he
would be in it. For a time he was obliged to labor to make himself
believe. He could not accept with assurance an omen that he was about
to mingle in one of those great affairs of the earth.
He had, of course, dreamed of battles all his life—of vague and bloody
conflicts that had thrilled him with their sweep and fire. In visions
he had seen himself in many struggles. He had imagined peoples secure
in the shadow of his eagle-eyed prowess. But awake he had regarded
battles as crimson blotches on the pages of the past. He had put them
as things of the bygone with his thought-images of heavy crowns and
high castles. There was a portion of the world’s history which he had
regarded as the time of wars, but it, he thought, had been long gone
over the horizon and had disappeared forever.
From his home his youthful eyes had looked upon the war in his own
country with distrust. It must be some sort of a play affair. He had
long despaired of witnessing a Greeklike struggle. Such would be no
more, he had said. Men were better, or more timid. Secular and
religious education had effaced the throat-grappling instinct, or else
firm finance held in check the passions.
He had burned several times to enlist. Tales of great movements shook
the land. They might not be distinctly Homeric, but there seemed to be
much glory in them. He had read of marches, sieges, conflicts, and he
had longed to see it all. His busy mind had drawn for him large
pictures extravagant in color, lurid with breathless deeds.
But his mother had discouraged him. She had affected to look with some
contempt upon the quality of his war ardor and patriotism. She could
calmly seat herself and with no apparent difficulty give him many
hundreds of reasons why he was of vastly more importance on the farm
than on the field of battle. She had had certain ways of expression
that told him that her statements on the subject came from a deep
conviction. Moreover, on her side, was his belief that her ethical
motive in the argument was impregnable.
At last, however, he had made firm rebellion against this yellow light
thrown upon the color of his ambitions. The newspapers, the gossip of
the village, his own picturings, had aroused him to an uncheckable
degree. They were in truth fighting finely down there. Almost every day
the newspaper printed accounts of a decisive victory.
One night, as he lay in bed, the winds had carried to him the
clangoring of the church bell as some enthusiast jerked the rope
frantically to tell the twisted news of a great battle. This voice of
the people rejoicing in the night had made him shiver in a prolonged
ecstasy of excitement. Later, he had gone down to his mother’s room and
had spoken thus: “Ma, I’m going to enlist.”
“Henry, don’t you be a fool,” his mother had replied. She had then
covered her face with the quilt. There was an end to the matter for
that night.
Nevertheless, the next morning he had gone to a town that was near his
mother’s farm and had enlisted in a company that was forming there.
When he had returned home his mother was milking the brindle cow. Four
others stood waiting. “Ma, I’ve enlisted,” he had said to her
diffidently. There was a short silence. “The Lord’s will be done,
Henry,” she had finally replied, and had then continued to milk the
brindle cow.
When he had stood in the doorway with his soldier’s clothes on his
back, and with the light of excitement and expectancy in his eyes
almost defeating the glow of regret for the home bonds, he had seen two
tears leaving their trails on his mother’s scarred cheeks.
Still, she had disappointed him by saying nothing whatever about
returning with his shield or on it. He had privately primed himself for
a beautiful scene. He had prepared certain sentences which he thought
could be used with touching effect. But her words destroyed his plans.
She had doggedly peeled potatoes and addressed him as follows: “You
watch out, Henry, an’ take good care of yerself in this here fighting
business—you watch, an’ take good care of yerself. Don’t go a-thinkin’
you can lick the hull rebel army at the start, because yeh can’t. Yer
jest one little feller amongst a hull lot of others, and yeh’ve got to
keep quiet an’ do what they tell yeh. I know how you are, Henry.
“I’ve knet yeh eight pair of socks, Henry, and I’ve put in all yer best
shirts, because I want my boy to be jest as warm and comf’able as
anybody in the army. Whenever they get holes in ’em, I want yeh to send
’em right-away back to me, so’s I kin dern ’em.
“An’ allus be careful an’ choose yer comp’ny. There’s lots of bad men
in the army, Henry. The army makes ’em wild, and they like nothing
better than the job of leading off a young feller like you, as ain’t
never been away from home much and has allus had a mother, an’
a-learning ’em to drink and swear. Keep clear of them folks, Henry. I
don’t want yeh to ever do anything, Henry, that yeh would be ’shamed to
let me know about. Jest think as if I was a-watchin’ yeh. If yeh keep
that in yer mind allus, I guess yeh’ll come out about right.
“Yeh must allus remember yer father, too, child, an’ remember he never
drunk a drop of licker in his life, and seldom swore a cross oath.
“I don’t know what else to tell yeh, Henry, excepting that yeh must
never do no shirking, child, on my account. If so be a time comes when
yeh have to be kilt or do a mean thing, why, Henry, don’t think of
anything ’cept what’s right, because there’s many a woman has to bear
up ’ginst sech things these times, and the Lord’ll take keer of us all.
“Don’t forgit about the socks and the shirts, child; and I’ve put a cup
of blackberry jam with yer bundle, because I know yeh like it above all
things. Good-by, Henry. Watch out, and be a good boy.”
He had, of course, been impatient under the ordeal of this speech. It
had not been quite what he expected, and he had borne it with an air of
irritation. He departed feeling vague relief.
Still, when he had looked back from the gate, he had seen his mother
kneeling among the potato parings. Her brown face, upraised, was
stained with tears, and her spare form was quivering. He bowed his head
and went on, feeling suddenly ashamed of his purposes.
From his home he had gone to the seminary to bid adieu to many
schoolmates. They had thronged about him with wonder and admiration. He
had felt the gulf now between them and had swelled with calm pride. He
and some of his fellows who had donned blue were quite overwhelmed with
privileges for all of one afternoon, and it had been a very delicious
thing. They had strutted.
A certain light-haired girl had made vivacious fun at his martial
spirit, but there was another and darker girl whom he had gazed at