The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War
steadfastly, and he thought she grew demure and sad at sight of his
blue and brass. As he had walked down the path between the rows of
oaks, he had turned his head and detected her at a window watching his
departure. As he perceived her, she had immediately begun to stare up
through the high tree branches at the sky. He had seen a good deal of
flurry and haste in her movement as she changed her attitude. He often
thought of it.
On the way to Washington his spirit had soared. The regiment was fed
and caressed at station after station until the youth had believed that
he must be a hero. There was a lavish expenditure of bread and cold
meats, coffee, and pickles and cheese. As he basked in the smiles of
the girls and was patted and complimented by the old men, he had felt
growing within him the strength to do mighty deeds of arms.
After complicated journeyings with many pauses, there had come months
of monotonous life in a camp. He had had the belief that real war was a
series of death struggles with small time in between for sleep and
meals; but since his regiment had come to the field the army had done
little but sit still and try to keep warm.
He was brought then gradually back to his old ideas. Greeklike
struggles would be no more. 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 grown to regard himself merely as a part of a vast blue
demonstration. His province was to look out, as far as he could, for
his personal comfort. For recreation he could twiddle his thumbs and
speculate on the thoughts which must agitate the minds of the generals.
Also, he was drilled and drilled and reviewed, and drilled and drilled
and reviewed.
The only foes he had seen were some pickets along the river bank. They
were a sun-tanned, philosophical lot, who sometimes shot reflectively
at the blue pickets. When reproached for this afterward, they usually
expressed sorrow, and swore by their gods that the guns had exploded
without their permission. The youth, on guard duty one night, conversed
across the stream with one of them. He was a slightly ragged man, who
spat skillfully between his shoes and possessed a great fund of bland
and infantile assurance. The youth liked him personally.
“Yank,” the other had informed him, “yer a right dum good feller.” This
sentiment, floating to him upon the still air, had made him temporarily
regret war.
Various veterans had told him tales. Some talked of gray, bewhiskered
hordes who were advancing with relentless curses and chewing tobacco
with unspeakable valor; tremendous bodies of fierce soldiery who were
sweeping along like the Huns. Others spoke of tattered and eternally
hungry men who fired despondent powders. “They’ll charge through hell’s
fire an’ brimstone t’ git a holt on a haversack, an’ sech stomachs
ain’t a’lastin’ long,” he was told. From the stories, the youth
imagined the red, live bones sticking out through slits in the faded
uniforms.
Still, he could not put a whole faith in veteran’s tales, for recruits
were their prey. They talked much of smoke, fire, and blood, but he
could not tell how much might be lies. They persistently yelled “Fresh
fish!” at him, and were in no wise to be trusted.
However, he perceived now that it did not greatly matter what kind of
soldiers he was going to fight, so long as they fought, which fact no
one disputed. There was a more serious problem. He lay in his bunk
pondering upon it. He tried to mathematically prove to himself that he
would not run from a battle.
Previously he had never felt obliged to wrestle too seriously with this
question. In his life he had taken certain things for granted, never
challenging his belief in ultimate success, and bothering little about
means and roads. But here he was confronted with a thing of moment. It
had suddenly appeared to him that perhaps in a battle he might run. He
was forced to admit that as far as war was concerned he knew nothing of
himself.
A sufficient time before he would have allowed the problem to kick its
heels at the outer portals of his mind, but now he felt compelled to
give serious attention to it.
A little panic-fear grew in his mind. As his imagination went forward
to a fight, he saw hideous possibilities. He contemplated the lurking
menaces of the future, and failed in an effort to see himself standing
stoutly in the midst of them. He recalled his visions of broken-bladed
glory, but in the shadow of the impending tumult he suspected them to
be impossible pictures.
He sprang from the bunk and began to pace nervously to and fro. “Good
Lord, what’s th’ matter with me?” he said aloud.
He felt that in this crisis his laws of life were useless. Whatever he
had learned of himself was here of no avail. He was an unknown
quantity. He saw that he would again be obliged to experiment as he had
in early youth. He must accumulate information of himself, and
meanwhile he resolved to remain close upon his guard lest those
qualities of which he knew nothing should everlastingly disgrace him.
“Good Lord!” he repeated in dismay.
After a time the tall soldier slid dexterously through the hole. The
loud private followed. They were wrangling.
“That’s all right,” said the tall soldier as he entered. He waved his
hand expressively. “You can believe me or not, jest as you like. All
you got to do is sit down and wait as quiet as you can. Then pretty
soon you’ll find out I was right.”
His comrade grunted stubbornly. For a moment he seemed to be searching
for a formidable reply. Finally he said: “Well, you don’t know
everything in the world, do you?”
“Didn’t say I knew everything in the world,” retorted the other
sharply. He began to stow various articles snugly into his knapsack.
The youth, pausing in his nervous walk, looked down at the busy figure.
“Going to be a battle, sure, is there, Jim?” he asked.
“Of course there is,” replied the tall soldier. “Of course there is.
You jest wait ’til to-morrow, and you’ll see one of the biggest battles
ever was. You jest wait.”
“Thunder!” said the youth.
“Oh, you’ll see fighting this time, my boy, what’ll be regular
out-and-out fighting,” added the tall soldier, with the air of a man
who is about to exhibit a battle for the benefit of his friends.
“Huh!” said the loud one from a corner.
“Well,” remarked the youth, “like as not this story’ll turn out jest
like them others did.”
“Not much it won’t,” replied the tall soldier, exasperated. “Not much
it won’t. Didn’t the cavalry all start this morning?” He glared about
him. No one denied his statement. “The cavalry started this morning,”
he continued. “They say there ain’t hardly any cavalry left in camp.
They’re going to Richmond, or some place, while we fight all the
Johnnies. It’s some dodge like that. The regiment’s got orders, too. A
feller what seen ’em go to headquarters told me a little while ago. And
they’re raising blazes all over camp—anybody can see that.”
“Shucks!” said the loud one.
The youth remained silent for a time. At last he spoke to the tall
soldier. “Jim!”
“What?”
“How do you think the reg’ment ’ll do?”
“Oh, they’ll fight all right, I guess, after they once get into it,”
said the other with cold judgment. He made a fine use of the third
person. “There’s been heaps of fun poked at ’em because they’re new, of
course, and all that; but they’ll fight all right, I guess.”
“Think any of the boys ’ll run?” persisted the youth.
“Oh, there may be a few of ’em run, but there’s them kind in every
regiment, ’specially when they first goes under fire,” said the other
in a tolerant way. “Of course it might happen that the hull
kit-and-boodle might start and run, if some big fighting came
first-off, and then again they might stay and fight like fun. But you
can’t bet on nothing. Of course they ain’t never been under fire yet,
and it ain’t likely they’ll lick the hull rebel army all-to-oncet the
first time; but I think they’ll fight better than some, if worse than
others. That’s the way I figger. They call the reg’ment ‘Fresh fish’
and everything; but the boys come of good stock, and most of ’em ’ll
fight like sin after they oncet git shootin’,” he added, with a mighty
emphasis on the last four words.
“Oh, you think you know—” began the loud soldier with scorn.
The other turned savagely upon him. They had a rapid altercation, in
which they fastened upon each other various strange epithets.
The youth at last interrupted them. “Did you ever think you might run
yourself, Jim?” he asked. On concluding the sentence he laughed as if
he had meant to aim a joke. The loud soldier also giggled.
The tall private waved his hand. “Well,” said he profoundly, “I’ve
thought it might get too hot for Jim Conklin in some of them
scrimmages, and if a whole lot of boys started and run, why, I s’pose
I’d start and run. And if I once started to run, I’d run like the
devil, and no mistake. But if everybody was a-standing and a-fighting,
why, I’d stand and fight. Be jiminey, I would. I’ll bet on it.”
“Huh!” said the loud one.
The youth of this tale felt gratitude for these words of his comrade.
He had feared that all of the untried men possessed great and correct
confidence. He now was in a measure reassured.
Chapter II.
The next morning the youth discovered that his tall comrade had been
the fast-flying messenger of a mistake. There was much scoffing at the
latter by those who had yesterday been firm adherents of his views, and
there was even a little sneering by men who had never believed the
rumor. The tall one fought with a man from Chatfield Corners and beat
him severely.
The youth felt, however, that his problem was in no wise lifted from
him. There was, on the contrary, an irritating prolongation. The tale
had created in him a great concern for himself. Now, with the newborn
question in his mind, he was compelled to sink back into his old place
as part of a blue demonstration.
For days he made ceaseless calculations, but they were all wondrously
unsatisfactory. He found that he could establish nothing. He finally
concluded that the only way to prove himself was to go into the blaze,
and then figuratively to watch his legs to discover their merits and
faults. He reluctantly admitted that he could not sit still and with a
mental slate and pencil derive an answer. To gain it, he must have
blaze, blood, and danger, even as a chemist requires this, that, and
the other. So he fretted for an opportunity.
Meanwhile, he continually tried to measure himself by his comrades. The
tall soldier, for one, gave him some assurance. This man’s serene
unconcern dealt him a measure of confidence, for he had known him since
childhood, and from his intimate knowledge he did not see how he could
be capable of anything that was beyond him, the youth. Still, he
thought that his comrade might be mistaken about himself. Or, on the
other hand, he might be a man heretofore doomed to peace and obscurity,
but, in reality, made to shine in war.
The youth would have liked to have discovered another who suspected
himself. A sympathetic comparison of mental notes would have been a joy
to him.
He occasionally tried to fathom a comrade with seductive sentences. He
looked about to find men in the proper mood. All attempts failed to
bring forth any statement which looked in any way like a confession to
those doubts which he privately acknowledged in himself. He was afraid
to make an open declaration of his concern, because he dreaded to place
some unscrupulous confidant upon the high plane of the unconfessed from
which elevation he could be derided.
In regard to his companions his mind wavered between two opinions,