| Title | : | The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1593081197 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781593081195 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 240 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1895 |
All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.
Young Henry Fleming dreams of finding glory and honor as a Union soldier in the American Civil War. Yet he also harbors a hidden fear about how he may react when the horror and bloodshed of battle begin. Fighting the enemy without and the terror within, Fleming must prove himself and find his own meaning of valor. Unbelievable as it may seem, Stephen Crane had never been a member of any army nor had taken part in any battle when he wrote The Red Badge of Courage. But upon its publication in 1895, when Crane was only twenty-four, Red Badge was heralded as a new kind of war novel, marked by astonishing insight into the true psychology of men under fire. Along with the seminal short stories included in this volume—“The Open Boat,” “The Veteran,” and “The Men in the Storm”—The Red Badge of Courage unleashed Crane’s deeply influential impressionistic style.
Richard Fusco has been an Assistant Professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia since 1997. A specialist in nineteenth-century American literature and in short-story narrative theory, he has published on a variety of American, British, and Continental literary figures.
The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction Reviews
-
Imagine No More Wars
My introduction to Civil War novels was “Cold Mountain” by Charles Frazier. After reading it I kept looking for another and found “Wilderness” by Lance Weller. Yet, neither of these books were really about the war. The first was a book about a man walking home from the war, the second was just a few flashbacks. It was the adventures in these two books that I loved, the walking away, and the walking of a man who was looking for his stolen dog. I never thought that I would actually read a book on the battle itself, but when a friend said that she was reading “The Red Badge of Courage” and that it was a Civil War novel,to t I thought to give it a try. After all, I had always heard of the book. I Just didn’t know what it was about.
The author was never in the Civil War but was born in 1871, after the war had ended, and he didn’t write this book until 1895, a few years before his death. I thought about that: Men were dying in the war at the young age of 18 or round. They never really had a life, and the author died at the age of 28 of tuberculosis. When I think of my living so far to be 77, I think that he never really had a life either.
This book was heart wrenching in so many ways. I wanted to say that this war was futile because so many young men had died, so many laid out in the fields wounded and in pain. So many felt fear in their hearts of what lay before them.
Was it futile? It felt senseless to me. I talked with my husband about this, and he explained to me how it had to be fought because the other side wasn’t going to back down. He is right. Then he said that in Nam, he had seen these words on a wall in an outhouse: “Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.” It stayed with him all these years, and he added that war seldom brings real peace because it leaves the losers feeling hostile.
I have always been confused about the Civil War, yes, it freed the slaves, and that was a good thing, a very good thing, but the south is still racist, and after that war they still murdered the freed slaves, they became sharecroppers and were really not free. Nor are they totally freed today. And some in the south desire to have another Civil War, and some out of stupidity still play Civil War games. Blacks are being murdered in the streets by the police, and it just goes on and on. Yet, I know that the Civil War was fought for other reasons as well.
When reading this book, I thought of the young boys being given guns, having to wear their own clothes, and having those clothes fall apart on them. I thought of their being shot and lying on the fields with no medical help. I thought of their dying and having no real life. I thought of their fear, and how some ran away, leaving them with guilt in their hearts. And in time, my mind became numb, and I hardly knew what I was reading anymore. And then I thought of what Jesus had said, if he really said it, and it is as true today as it ever was, “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.” Last of all I thought of the antiwar songs that were sung in the 60s:
Imagine
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today.
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace.
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world.
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
written by John Lennon -
Normally I reserve one star ratings for books I DNF'd.
This, being a school book, is an exception. However, I cannot tell you how much I hated it.
The writing style is atrocious. I have never seen such overuse of the past participle in all my life. Everything was "were hanging, was running, was looking, was talking." EVERYTHING. It got so old so fast. The similes are awful (I found only one that made me say "Wow, that's a good simile!") and the rest of it...ugh. Ugh. Ugh.
The one thing that made this book at all enjoyable was the young lieutenant. All he did was swear (the words weren't written out) but he was hilarious and stupid while still being brave on the battlefield.
But that guy isn't enough to take this book up to two stars for me. No, my biggest problem is with the protagonist and the representation.
Henry Fleming, our "hero," is the most irritating jerk of a protagonist I have ever read. I have never in my life wished that an MC would die more. I still can't believe he came through the book completely unscathed. He lied, he mistreated his mother, he didn't care about his fellows, he ran away from the fight, he let himself get hit over the head by one of his OWN men and told his regiment he was valiantly shot by a rebel, he schemes to use a package given to him by his friend (who trusts him and likes him) as leverage AGAINST said friend, despite the fact that this friend is one of the only likeable characters in the book. And then about halfway through he has a sudden change in heart and suddenly thinks of himself as a hero. He leads the charges. He carries the colors. He holds his regiment. AND I DON'T GET IT!
This doesn't even start to deal with how problematic this soldier representation is. Stephen Crane, when I looked it up, was out to write a "psychological picture of fear", but he went overboard. So, so overboard. The soldiers in this book are cowards and fearful, running away when it gets to be too hard and so often refusing to fight. They make fun of each other. They stab each other in the back. And sure, maybe some soldiers are like that, but I've seen enough Civil War movies and read enough books about it (as well as any other war, come on) to know that soldiers are more often than not heroes. They're not perfect, they're not superhuman, but they're selfless and brave. And this book made me angry because it portrayed the entire Union army as a bunch of useless, cowardly idiots.
I don't recommend this book to anyone. I'm not really sure why it became a classic. But oh well. Now I've read it, and hopefully I never have to think about it again. -
4 1/2
The edition I have is a Signet Classic, published in 1960. My incoming freshman class in college (1962) was assigned to read The Red Badge of Courage prior to matriculating. I did read it, but have no recollection that there was any discussion of the novel that I participated in.
Anyway, this review is about the Selected Stories part of the book, which I never read until recently.
Four stories are included: “The Upturned Face” (5 pp, mildly interesting); The Open Boat (24 pp, hard to forget – unless you have my leaky memory); The Blue Hotel (29 pp, great); and The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (11 pp, even better).
There’s a little summary of Stephen Crane (some is from Wiki).Intense, volatile, spontaneous, Stephan Crane lived violently, expending himself in a frenzied search for experiences about which to write. Born in Newark NJ in 1871, 14th child of an itinerant Methodist minister. Attended Hudson River Institute, Lafayette College, and one semester by Syracuse Univ. Wrote first draft of “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets” in college. In 1895 published the work he’s famous for (Red Badge …), never having experienced battle. The book made him famous, and established his reputation as a “war correspondent” (??) In 1896 he received an assignment from the Bacheller-Johnson syndicate to cover the impending Spanish American war in Cuba. While waiting for passage in Jacksonville, he met his future common-law wife, the 31-year old Cora Howorth, who was a nightclub and bordello owner in the town, already married twice still married to her second husband. On New Year’s day, 1897, Crane was shipwrecked en route to Cuba, an experience that inspired Crane to write The Open Boat.
Writing over. Age 29.
Later assignments took him to Greece (Turkish war) and back to Cuba in April 1898. In January 1899, having returned to England where he and Cora were living, found himself threatened with bankruptcy. He never got out of debt, and plagued by tuberculosis, collapsed and died at Badenweiler Germany in June of 1900.
Alfred Kazin (
On Native Grounds) has this to say about Crane.… there emerged at the end of the century the one creative artist who sounded the possibilities open to his generation, though he fulfilled so few of them himself … in the tradition of Chatterton, Keats, and Beardsley – the fever ridden, rigidly intense type of genius that dies young, unhappy, and the prey of biographers. Everything that he wrote in his twenty-nine years seemed without precedent.
Of course the plot lines and the characterization in these stories partake of that unprecedentness. But so also does the narrative style, the materials he selected and arranged to make his strange sentences.
Some examples.
The Open Boat. A story about four shipwrecked men rowing for a distant unseen shore.
As for himself, he was too tired to grapple fundamentally with the fact. He tried to coerce his mind into thinking of it, but the mind was dominated at this time by the muscles, and the muscles said they did not care. It merely occurred to him that if he should drown it would be a shame.
The Blue Hotel. Three men disembark from a train to stay overnight in Fort Romper Nebraska. They enter the Palace Hotel, which “then, was always screaming and howling in a way that made the dazzling winter landscape seem only a gray swampish hush. It stood alone on the prairie, and when the snow was falling the town two hundred yards away was not visible.”
Five characters, not needing an author. The three (a cowboy, an Easterner, and a Swede), the hotel’s proprietor Scully, and his son Johnnie. A card game played for no stakes, paranoia, irrational outbursts, shouts and murmurs; and a blizzard howling outside.
At six-o’clock supper, the Swede fizzed like a fire-wheel. He sometimes seemed on the point of bursting into riotous song, and in all his madness he was encouraged by old Scully. The Easterner was encased in reserve; the cowboy sat in wide-mouthed amazement, forgetting to eat, while Johnnie wrathily demolished great plates of food. The daughters of the house, when they were obliged to replenish the biscuits, approached as warily as Indians, and, having succeeded in their purpose, fled with ill-concealed trepidation.
The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky. Potter, the town marshal of Yellow Sky, having married a woman in San Antonio, brings her back to his home in west Texas. He has not consulted the townsfolk on his choice of partner, and feels uncomfortable. Having arrived, he and his new partner suddenly confront Scratchy Wilson, a town ne’er-do-well, shooter, who becomes dangerous only when inebriated – as he now is.
Potter was about to raise a finger to point the first appearance of the new home when, as they circled the corner, they came face to face with a man in a maroon-colored shirt, who was feverishly pushing cartridges into a large revolver. Upon the instant the man dropped his revolver to the ground and, like lightning, whipped another from its holster. The second weapon was aimed at the bridegroom’s chest.
There was a silence. Potter’s mouth seemed to be merely a grave for his tongue … As for the bride, her face had gone as yellow as old cloth. She was a slave to hideous rites, gazing at the apparitional snake.
The two men faced each other at a distance of three paces.
I’m not really a great lover of short stories. Though I do read some on occasion.
Crane is odd enough to recommend himself to me. I’ll pass along that recommendation to others who enjoy the genre.
-
Surprise, surprise... I disagree with what the masses have told me about this book. Although, I don't actually know too many of my peers who have read this (it seems the schools near me skipped this classic), the adults I've known have always told me that this was very "DRY" book, hence making it not high on my priority list. I've read Stephen Crane's poetry for many years now and never understood how someone could write such beautiful, bittersweet poetry but boring, dry historical novels. Well, the answer is that his book was not boring or dry. "The Red Badge of Courage" is a short novel, perhaps a novella, brimming with poetic prose and haunting effigies of men at war. It follows the main character of Henry Fleming as the youth experiences the many shifting psychological developments of one at war. It was shocking for me that Stephen Crane published this book when he was 24 years old and especially that he had no experience of war, the military, or anything which could substantiate the very powerful depiction of war and human psychology which this book delivers. Although, I admit to finding many war stories a bit dry at times (because battle movements and war stories are not of interest to me) I feel compelled to share that I found the writing beautiful and devastating. I think overall, this is a war story I would recommend to others; and I will add that it is more than a war story, it is also a coming of age story as well (for both the protagonist and the country).
-
Classics Book Club video coming Sunday.
-
"Within him, as he hurled himself forward, was born a love, a despairing fondness for his flag which was near him. It was a creation of beauty and invulnerability. It was a goddess, radiant, that bended its form with an imperious gesture to him. It was a woman, red and white, hating and loving, that called him with the voice of his hopes."
When I think about reading The Red Badge of Courage in High School, I think about being incredibly bored. I wanted to reread it as an adult, because it wouldn't be the first time I read a book when I was younger, but didn't appreciate it until I reread it when I was older.
That was not the case here.
I was just as bored now as I remember being then. It could possibly be because war stories are not my thing (this being the first war story I've read since TRBOF and
All Quiet on the Western Front - both read in High School to tears of apathy and then immediately forgotten upon graduation). Or it could be because the characters, to me, are all so forgettable. I don't relate to them in any way. And not because I'm not a soldier. I'm not a witch. Or a cancer patient. Or a millionaire. Or an animal. But I relate to a lot of characters in books and stories who are those things, because there's backstory that's relatable, or you empathize with some aspect of them. I felt none of that here. -
Yet another book I loved in high school. I enjoyed it just as much here and found Muller's narration to be perfect (aside from the mic sounds but that's not his fault, it's 1981's). The wild swings of emotion felt by the Youth were a bit extreme until you think of an 18 year old (enough said right there) who's seeing the grim and frightening realities of a war that he has no means of preparing for. A wonderful read and I'll read it again.
-
I don't think this book was written with people like me in mind. Not that I want to crap on an old story just because it is old, but there is a reason this was so hated in many high schools.
My main issue was the hero of our main story. he is not likeable at all. Not only does he embellish the truth but he is also in a way a coward. Now you might be saying, "Of course he is a coward. It's war, the horrors he has seen are uncomprehending". I am inclined to agree but war is war. You fight for your friends and country, not for yourself. I was never a soldier, so maybe I have no right to say anything but our hero was not a hero. He scraped by and somehow things turned out OK.
Also, while it didn't bother me, the dialogue was written almost as a slang or was shortened. Some people might find this annoying.
Anyway, I didn't have fun reading this book. I am going through some things work wise and this book did not help me feel any better. At least it was short.
R.S -
Crane’s novel certainly isn’t for everyone. It doesn’t have a compelling plot with lots of action or character development. But his accuracy in capturing man’s complex and conflicting thoughts is unmatched. I was amazed to discover how young Crane was when he wrote this book. Equally astounding is that he did not serve in the war.
“...wild and desperate rushes of men perpetually backward and forward in riotous surges”.
“Further off there was a group of four or five corpses keeping mournful company”
Cowardice, pride, shame, empathy and death are poetically revealed through “the youth’s” eyes. -
The Red Badge of Courage just wasn't my cup of tea. While I did appreciate the disorientation the protagonist felt, and how he never knew weather his side was winning or losing, the constant attacks seemed to lose their effect after a while.
I did enjoy the short stories, at the end, however. Particularly The Open Boat. These we're well written and engrossing. -
After many decades I figured I’d try to rescue The Red Badge of Courage from my memories of torturous required reading in junior high school. Today I much better appreciate this book’s importance in literature and American Realism, seeing it now as a young man’s two-day psychological journey rather than the story-driven war tale I wanted it to be back when I first read it.
-
This wasn't the worst book I've ever read, but it just didn't move the needle for me. I felt that the author did a good job of exploring the mental/psychological journey of the main character, but that was about it. Nothing too exciting.
-
This book started really good but as story goes get kinda boring for me, it wasn't bad book but I could've read sth better.
-
Onvan : The Red Badge of Courage and Selected Short Fiction - Nevisande : Stephen Crane - ISBN : 1593081197 - ISBN13 : 9781593081195 - Dar 240 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 1895
-
War is not a topic I usually choose to read about, but the past several months seem to have thrown a lot of war books my way. Code Name Verity, Rose Under Fire, Ender's Game and now, The Red Badge of Courage have all discussed different military actions. It's a different kind of genre for me, but that's a good thing, right? Good readers should challenge themselves with a variety of texts. While I have generally liked the war books I have read recently, The Red Badge of Courage wasn't a favorite of mine. I feel immature saying this, but I found it to be . . . boring.
The plot follows Henry Flemming, a young soldier in the Civil War. He is fighting for the Union in the battle of Chancellorsville. The novel opens with a brief explanation of why Henry chose to enlist in the army, then focuses exclusively on what happens in the battle for the rest of the book. We read the story through Henry's perspective, which means that we don't get a lot of specifics about what is going on in the battle because Henry doesn't know. What we do get to read about are Henry's feelings throughout the fighting, which range from fear to shame to bravery to pride to anger and back again. This story is a look at the psychological effects of war on a soldier. It is not a plot-driven narrative.
I didn't exactly enjoy reading this novel, but I do fully acknowledge its literary merit. This book has received an abundant amount of praise for its beautiful writing and level of accuracy. It is generally considered to be one of the best examinations of the psychology of a soldier ever written. That becomes even more impressive once you consider that Stephen Crane was only 24 when he wrote The Red Badge of Courage and had never been in any kind of war before. He wasn't even alive during the Civil War. To achieve such acclaim at such a young age is an amazing thing.
While I did appreciate the language and could recognize that I was reading something that was very sophisticated and true, I struggled with the pace of the book. Henry drifts from one part of the battle to the next, experiencing a jumble of emotions each step of the way, but not a whole lot actually happens. It all started to sound the same after a while. Since military fiction isn't exactly one of my interests, I struggled to stay engaged with the text. This was a book I had to make myself finish. I didn't hate it, but I wasn't excited to read it either.
On a positive note, I did learn some very interesting things about the Civil War. For example, I learned that most of the soldiers doing the fighting could barely see what they were shooting at, due to the amount of musket smoke filling the battlefield. Crane describes a lot of the action as appearing faintly through a haze. I also learned that communication was so poor during the battles that most soldiers had no idea how the battle was going, what the plan was, or even if they had won or lost when the fighting was over. It makes sense when you think about it. A lot of the battlefields were vast and they had no radios at that time. People were literally passing orders around by riding horses from regiment to regiment. I had to look up the Battle of Chancellorsville after I finished reading, because at the end of the story, Henry isn't entirely sure how it turned out (and my history was rusty). Not only did Henry's side (the Union) lose, they suffered an astounding defeat. The Union Army lost over 17,000 soldiers in that battle. The talk around Henry at the novel's conclusion indicates that many men felt like they lost, but no one was sure.
The Red Badge of Courage didn't end up being a favorite of mine, but I can still say that I'm glad I read it. The explanation of the psychology of a soldier was interesting and I gained a new perspective on what the fighting was actually like in the Civil War. Anything that broadens your literary horizons is time well spent, in my opinion. -
I enjoyed reading this book again (first time was in college.) I think it is an outstanding anti war book without being political and “in-your-face.” Viewed through the thoughts and feelings of an ordinary soldier, the conflict seems random and confused and futile. Crane’s descriptions of battle were so accurate that many Civil War veterans could not believe that he hadn’t been there. Actually, he was born in 1871, six years after the end of the war. The accompanying short stories are vignettes of how war events touch regular folks. One tells of Henry Fleming, the “youth” of Red Badge, as an old veteran. Very interesting.
-
I did not care for this book. Surprised? I am not. A young man named Henry enlists in the Union army to become a hero with no thought of the consequences awaiting him.
He runs from his first battle. Throws himself into the second. And goes into the third as a flag bearer, so with no weapon at all.
He constantly talks of red, it’s like the author tried to put into words bloodlust (not the right word but we’ll go with it) or the desire to prove your worth in battle. Lots of images of Blood, death, and if I hear the word corpse tossed around in a nonchalant fashion again so help me I am going to explode.
And the red badge of courage is a wound. You need it to prove you’ve fought. This is a play on Henry’s guilty conscience. He didn’t fight but ran, he didn’t get wounded, so he is obviously a coward. To prove he is courageous he needs a wound to leave the field of battle. How about a good kick in the pants Henry? Would that suffice?
And in the end, Henry still “glorifies” this experience, claiming that he became a man. I am sorry, battle, needless death, destruction, the loss of this much human life is not what being a man is. It’s just not.
And Henry is so self consumed, he cares about how he is viewed. He wants to be a hero. And in instances his only concern is of how he will be treated should he have to return a failure. During impossible battles he just wants the general who called him a “mule” to be proven wrong. What about the men who died like Jim Conklin? He’s so concerned about himself he can’t see others.
I don’t know why I am so passionately against this book. Maybe because I thought going into it the fear and imagery surrounding the oncoming battle would prove Henry wrong. The dragons and devils of war would make this boy have an unpopular stance on war. That it is unnecessarily death, that there must be another way. But it didn’t, he just solidified his feelings of accomplishing manhood. I honestly wish it had ended with his death and remorse, at least this book could be used to show the price of battle rather than the hubris of a boy. -
As much as I want to love the work of a journalist-turned-author, I couldn't fall in love with this book. Its embrace of impressionism gives us the story only through Fleming's eyes and Fleming's mind, and god does he have annoying eyes and mind. It's a series of rationalizations and self-inflations that don't go anywhere. Maybe it was exciting to readers in 1900? For me, at least, I couldn't get into it. Only read about 80% of the main story, the Red Badge of Courage.
The selected works of fiction in the back were almost uniformly duds as well, except for the one about the boat in the open sea. There are four men adrift in the ocean -- a cook, the captain, the oiler and the correspondent (a thin veil for Crane himself) -- and so much of the story's focus is on dialogue and actions. There's little room for existential ennui and inner turmoil when death is so close at hand. It's for that story alone that I'm giving this book two stars instead of one.
One last thought. There's a pretty widespread critique of Crane's depiction of the Civil War without having served himself (he was too young). But I'm not sure why that's a problem? Assuming he read contemporary texts and spoke with a veteran or two, I don't see why he isn't entitled to write about the topic. Unless there's more that I'm missing? -
The Red Badge of Courage tells of a soldier (often referred to as simply "the youth")and his experience in the Union army during the American Civil War. Crane not only leaves the main character relatively nameless, but most of the other characters as well. This style serves to make the story less of a story, and more of a universal experience.
The book follows the youth into his first few battels and does an amazing job of helping the reader see inside the character's head and experience the changing emotions and growth experienced by the soldier. In a few short days, he becomes a new person through the events of war. It feels very believable and personal.
It's an old book, so it reads kind of slow. It is, however, well paced enough to keep the reader engaged, and not so wordy as to get bogged down in detail. Young readers looking for action will likely be disappointed, but older readers looking human character will be satisfied.
There are a few great features about this edition of the book. One is that there are often definitions at the bottom of the page that explain any words that may be specific to that time period or geographical location. Also, there are several short stories included. These shorts are like tiny little glimpses into a single moment of time. With little prologue or conclusion, they are simply engaging snapshots without explanation. -
I’m very glad I read this for the first time as an adult, as it would have been wasted on me in my teens. I used to find History so boring, until I started holding it my hands for work. The U.S. Civil War holds a special interest with me (even though I still suck at remembering names and dates) because I spent years doing historic conservation on a large collection of Civil War artifacts. Thanks to that, I could clearly picture the tools and weapons they used and also how devastating being hit by those projectiles were. I found this American Classic quite enthralling, reading the supposed inner thoughts, failures, and triumphs of “the youth”. The “other stories” were also well done, like snapshots of life, but then the “endings” were so abrupt that I was like “what?!” and turned the pages back and forth like “so what happened next?!” The stories were very...”human”? in a complex sort of way. Not sure if that makes sense or not, but the author had a gift and insight.
-
The most striking aspect of Red Badge of Courage is the description of Henry Fleming's changing psychological condition throughout the story. These passages are universal. Anyone with an inkling of life's ups and downs, victories, failures, embarrassments and transformations immediately empathizes with the main character's internal turbulence. For example, his rationalization of cowardice, hate for those who "betrayed" his "genius" after abandoning his regiment, self-aggrandizement and self-immolation are felt by all - irrespective of participation in actual war.
For me, the story was about an individual. His transformation from adolescence to manhood. The war was just a vehicle used to convey that story. There was a three-way dialogue taking place as the transformation progressed: within the character himself, between him and his fellow men and lastly between him and the gods. The last was the most ephemeral dialogue, but played out in the accidents that helped his transformation - such as finding and rejoining his old regiment again.
In short, the story was a subtle and complex work or genius! Glad I finally read it! -
En plena guerra civil americana y como soldado de un regimiento de la Unión, Henry se enfrenta a sus dudas sobre su comportamiento antes durante y después de la batalla. Lucha, huye, le atormenta la culpa de la deserción temporal y busca todo tipo de justificaciones cara a su familia y a sus compañeros de regimiento. Todo sería más fácil de justificar si se perdiera la batalla, si resultara herido, si pudiera mostrar la "roja" insignia del valor.
Pero también experimenta la excitación del ataque mientras porta la bandera, y la serenidad de la victoria.
Al final tenemos que aprender a vivir llevando en nuestro interior lo que somos.
Escrito a los 24 años y sin haber participado en la guerra, muestra una gran madurez como escritor y como conocedor de la naturaleza, comportamiento y psicología de los soldados de la época durante la guerra civil americana.
