“Bullets began to whistle among the branches and nip at the trees…it was as if a thousand axes, wee and invisible, were being wielded.” Henry Fleming says as he describes the terrible ordeals of war in The Red Badge of Courage. Stephen Crane, the author of this novel, hadn’t been an actual soldier in any war, but he was able to accurately portray battle scenes of war. Crane was also able to thoroughly develop his protagonist, Henry Fleming, in the novel from first hand accounts of actual Civil War veteran’s stories in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War. Crane developed Fleming from a coward to a courageous solder of war.Henry Fleming, referred to as simply “the youth”, enlists on the Union side of the Civil War, because of stories of adventures and heroisms. Fleming lives on a farm with his mother in the rural North of the United States. She discourages him from enlisting in the army, and it takes him a whole night to build up the courage to tell his mom that he wants to enlist in the. When he enlists he travels to where his regiment is forming, and he meets a tall soldier named Jim Conklin, who is in his regiment. They become friends during the days before the battles start. They both hope to earn a place among the war heroes they both admire. The days before the battles began, Fleming is plagued by doubts about his own bravery. He begins to ask questions to other solders in his regiment to ascertain if anybody other than him has had thoughts of running away during the battle. Fleming becomes very anxious to go into battle and he states, “I don’t mind marching, if there’s going to be fighting at the end of it.”The plot centers on a few days of battle. Fleming’s first day of battle is incredibly overwhelming. His first battle is on the edge of a field on the left flank of the army. Once the great battle begins and the youth increasingly realizes to his horror th...
