The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War
The busy skirmishers were still popping. Through the aisles of the wood
could be seen the floating smoke from their rifles. Sometimes it went
up in little balls, white and compact.
During this halt many men in the regiment began erecting tiny hills in
front of them. They used stones, sticks, earth, and anything they
thought might turn a bullet. Some built comparatively large ones, while
others seemed content with little ones.
This procedure caused a discussion among the men. Some wished to fight
like duelists, believing it to be correct to stand erect and be, from
their feet to their foreheads, a mark. They said they scorned the
devices of the cautious. But the others scoffed in reply, and pointed
to the veterans on the flanks who were digging at the ground like
terriers. In a short time there was quite a barricade along the
regimental fronts. Directly, however, they were ordered to withdraw
from that place.
This astounded the youth. He forgot his stewing over the advance
movement. “Well, then, what did they march us out here for?” he
demanded of the tall soldier. The latter with calm faith began a heavy
explanation, although he had been compelled to leave a little
protection of stones and dirt to which he had devoted much care and
skill.
When the regiment was aligned in another position each man’s regard for
his safety caused another line of small intrenchments. They ate their
noon meal behind a third one. They were moved from this one also. They
were marched from place to place with apparent aimlessness.
The youth had been taught that a man became another thing in battle. He
saw his salvation in such a change. Hence this waiting was an ordeal to
him. He was in a fever of impatience. He considered that there was
denoted a lack of purpose on the part of the generals. He began to
complain to the tall soldier. “I can’t stand this much longer,” he
cried. “I don’t see what good it does to make us wear out our legs for
nothin’.” He wished to return to camp, knowing that this affair was a
blue demonstration; or else to go into a battle and discover that he
had been a fool in his doubts, and was, in truth, a man of traditional
courage. The strain of present circumstances he felt to be intolerable.
The philosophical tall soldier measured a sandwich of cracker and pork
and swallowed it in a nonchalant manner. “Oh, I suppose we must go
reconnoitering around the country jest to keep ’em from getting too
close, or to develop ’em, or something.”
“Huh!” said the loud soldier.
“Well,” cried the youth, still fidgeting, “I’d rather do anything ’most
than go tramping ’round the country all day doing no good to nobody and
jest tiring ourselves out.”
“So would I,” said the loud soldier. “It ain’t right. I tell you if
anybody with any sense was a-runnin’ this army it—”
“Oh, shut up!” roared the tall private. “You little fool. You little
damn’ cuss. You ain’t had that there coat and them pants on for six
months, and yet you talk as if—”
“Well, I wanta do some fighting anyway,” interrupted the other. “I
didn’t come here to walk. I could ’ave walked to home—’round an’ ’round
the barn, if I jest wanted to walk.”
The tall one, red-faced, swallowed another sandwich as if taking poison
in despair.
But gradually, as he chewed, his face became again quiet and contented.
He could not rage in fierce argument in the presence of such
sandwiches. During his meals he always wore an air of blissful
contemplation of the food he had swallowed. His spirit seemed then to
be communing with the viands.
He accepted new environment and circumstance with great coolness,
eating from his haversack at every opportunity. On the march he went
along with the stride of a hunter, objecting to neither gait nor
distance. And he had not raised his voice when he had been ordered away
from three little protective piles of earth and stone, each of which
had been an engineering feat worthy of being made sacred to the name of
his grandmother.
In the afternoon, the regiment went out over the same ground it had
taken in the morning. The landscape then ceased to threaten the youth.
He had been close to it and become familiar with it.
When, however, they began to pass into a new region, his old fears of
stupidity and incompetence reassailed him, but this time he doggedly
let them babble. He was occupied with his problem, and in his
desperation he concluded that the stupidity did not greatly matter.
Once he thought he had concluded that it would be better to get killed
directly and end his troubles. Regarding death thus out of the corner
of his eye, he conceived it to be nothing but rest, and he was filled
with a momentary astonishment that he should have made an extraordinary
commotion over the mere matter of getting killed. He would die; he
would go to some place where he would be understood. It was useless to
expect appreciation of his profound and fine sense from such men as the
lieutenant. He must look to the grave for comprehension.
The skirmish fire increased to a long clattering sound. With it was
mingled far-away cheering. A battery spoke.
Directly the youth could see the skirmishers running. They were pursued
by the sound of musketry fire. After a time the hot, dangerous flashes
of the rifles were visible. Smoke clouds went slowly and insolently
across the fields like observant phantoms. The din became crescendo,
like the roar of an oncoming train.
A brigade ahead of them and on the right went into action with a
rending roar. It was as if it had exploded. And thereafter it lay
stretched in the distance behind a long gray wall, that one was obliged
to look twice at to make sure that it was smoke.
The youth, forgetting his neat plan of getting killed, gazed spell
bound. His eyes grew wide and busy with the action of the scene. His
mouth was a little ways open.
Of a sudden he felt a heavy and sad hand laid upon his shoulder.
Awakening from his trance of observation he turned and beheld the loud
soldier.
“It’s my first and last battle, old boy,” said the latter, with intense
gloom. He was quite pale and his girlish lip was trembling.
“Eh?” murmured the youth in great astonishment.
“It’s my first and last battle, old boy,” continued the loud soldier.
“Something tells me—”
“What?”
“I’m a gone coon this first time and—and I w-want you to take these
here things—to—my—folks.” He ended in a quavering sob of pity for
himself. He handed the youth a little packet done up in a yellow
envelope.
“Why, what the devil—” began the youth again.
But the other gave him a glance as from the depths of a tomb, and
raised his limp hand in a prophetic manner and turned away.
Chapter IV.
The brigade was halted in the fringe of a grove. The men crouched among
the trees and pointed their restless guns out at the fields. They tried
to look beyond the smoke.
Out of this haze they could see running men. Some shouted information
and gestured as they hurried.
The men of the new regiment watched and listened eagerly, while their
tongues ran on in gossip of the battle. They mouthed rumors that had
flown like birds out of the unknown.
“They say Perry has been driven in with big loss.”
“Yes, Carrott went t’ th’ hospital. He said he was sick. That smart
lieutenant is commanding ‘G’ Company. Th’ boys say they won’t be under
Carrott no more if they all have t’ desert. They allus knew he was a—”
“Hannises’ batt’ry is took.”
“It ain’t either. I saw Hannises’ batt’ry off on th’ left not more’n
fifteen minutes ago.”
“Well—”
“Th’ general, he ses he is goin’ t’ take th’ hull command of th’ 304th
when we go inteh action, an’ then he ses we’ll do sech fightin’ as
never another one reg’ment done.”
“They say we’re catchin’ it over on th’ left. They say th’ enemy driv’
our line inteh a devil of a swamp an’ took Hannises’ batt’ry.”
“No sech thing. Hannises’ batt’ry was ’long here ’bout a minute ago.”
“That young Hasbrouck, he makes a good off’cer. He ain’t afraid ’a
nothin’.”
“I met one of th’ 148th Maine boys an’ he ses his brigade fit th’ hull
rebel army fer four hours over on th’ turnpike road an’ killed about
five thousand of ’em. He ses one more sech fight as that an’ th’ war
’ll be over.”
“Bill wasn’t scared either. No, sir! It wasn’t that. Bill ain’t
a-gittin’ scared easy. He was jest mad, that’s what he was. When that
feller trod on his hand, he up an’ sed that he was willin’ t’ give his
hand t’ his country, but he be dumbed if he was goin’ t’ have every
dumb bushwhacker in th’ kentry walkin’ ’round on it. So he went t’ th’
hospital disregardless of th’ fight. Three fingers was crunched. Th’
dern doctor wanted t’ amputate ’m, an’ Bill, he raised a heluva row, I
hear. He’s a funny feller.”
The din in front swelled to a tremendous chorus. The youth and his
fellows were frozen to silence. They could see a flag that tossed in
the smoke angrily. Near it were the blurred and agitated forms of
troops. There came a turbulent stream of men across the fields. A
battery changing position at a frantic gallop scattered the stragglers
right and left.
A shell screaming like a storm banshee went over the huddled heads of
the reserves. It landed in the grove, and exploding redly flung the
brown earth. There was a little shower of pine needles.
Bullets began to whistle among the branches and nip at the trees. Twigs
and leaves came sailing down. It was as if a thousand axes, wee and
invisible, were being wielded. Many of the men were constantly dodging
and ducking their heads.
The lieutenant of the youth’s company was shot in the hand. He began to
swear so wondrously that a nervous laugh went along the regimental
line. The officer’s profanity sounded conventional. It relieved the
tightened senses of the new men. It was as if he had hit his fingers
with a tack hammer at home.
He held the wounded member carefully away from his side so that the
blood would not drip upon his trousers.
The captain of the company, tucking his sword under his arm, produced a
handkerchief and began to bind with it the lieutenant’s wound. And they
disputed as to how the binding should be done.
The battle flag in the distance jerked about madly. It seemed to be
struggling to free itself from an agony. The billowing smoke was filled
with horizontal flashes.
Men rushing swiftly emerged from it. They grew in numbers until it was
seen that the whole command was fleeing. The flag suddenly sank down as
if dying. Its motion as it fell was a gesture of despair.
Wild yells came from behind the walls of smoke. A sketch in gray and
red dissolved into a moblike body of men who galloped like wild horses.
The veteran regiments on the right and left of the 304th immediately
began to jeer. With the passionate song of the bullets and the banshee
shrieks of shells were mingled loud catcalls and bits of facetious
advice concerning places of safety.
But the new regiment was breathless with horror. “Gawd! Saunders’s got
crushed!” whispered the man at the youth’s elbow. They shrank back and
crouched as if compelled to await a flood.
The youth shot a swift glance along the blue ranks of the regiment. The
profiles were motionless, carven; and afterward he remembered that the
color sergeant was standing with his legs apart, as if he expected to
be pushed to the ground.
The following throng went whirling around the flank. Here and there
were officers carried along on the stream like exasperated chips. They
were striking about them with their swords and with their left fists,
punching every head they could reach. They cursed like highwaymen.
A mounted officer displayed the furious anger of a spoiled child. He
raged with his head, his arms, and his legs.
Another, the commander of the brigade, was galloping about bawling. His