The Red Badge of Courage | Page 3

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18 3 3 estabiish establish 40 3 2 skirmish skirmish- 78 4 4 a air an air
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The Red Badge of Courage
by Stephen Crane
An Episode of the American Civil War
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 awak- ened, 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 order- lies 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
chim- neys.
"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
trousers' 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 intro- duced. He and the loud one came near to fight- ing
over it.
A corporal began to swear before the assem- blage. 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 im- pressed 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 op- posed by men who advocated that there were other plans of
campaign. They clamored at each other, numbers making futile bids for
the pop- ular 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 man- ner in which he replied.
He came near to con- vincing them by disdaining to produce proofs.
They grew excited over it.
There was a youthful private who