Private Henry Norwest

As he is walking, a few soldiers that seems to be fleeing run into him. As Henry tries to stop them to ask what’s been happening, one of the soldiers swings at him with a rifle, opening a bloody gash on the top of his head. After a long while of waiting, a friendly soldier finds him and leads him back to camp, where a friend tends to his wound. After a few days of waiting, they come across another battle. This time Henry doesn’t flee, instead he thinks about all the people who have fought and died in the war, and decides to do the same: fight. Not only for the glory this time, but for the people he was

First, Henry might have been scared. He saw what happened in the first battle and it affected him in a way it didn't the others. This was the first time he fought in a war or battle with other men. He made friends with some of the soldiers in his regiment. If he stuck

But in the second battle Henry flees from his comrades while they held the line as the rebels tried to push them out. The regiment ended up being the victors of the second battle too. But Henry was worried about what the other soldiers would say to him since he ran away from the battle. I believe Henry was always afraid of battle even before it started and when the enemy came sprinting towards him he was shocked and started to flee.

A few days later they started marching and they attacked. This is Henry's and many of the men's first battle, so he and a few others flee from the battle. Then Henry finds Jim after the battle. They talk for a while, then Jim dies. Henry feels guilty so he starts looking for the regiment. He comes across another Union soldier and they get in a fight, the soldier hits Henry on the head with his rifle. Henry makes it back to the regiment and tells them that the wound is from the battle so they won't think that he ran off. Henry is then nursed bye a soldier named Wilson. By morning Henry is ready to fight. He fights several battles and stays on the front lines, in that same day.

When the men regroup for the second attack, many of the Union soldiers around henry begin to run away. Henry gives into the pressure and joins in the retreat, he wasn’t prepared for the horror that war brings. As he’s running, he seems to observe everyone else around him. He sees his captain lying stretched on the ground, dead, the babbling man was grazed by a shot to the head, and another man grunted as he was struck in the stomach, along with many others that just started dropping to the ground. As Henry ran, he feared for his life that he was going to be struck in the back, but he continued running. The thought of self-preservation seemed more important to him than fighting with selflessness and bravery along with the other

In this skirmish, Henry did the exact opposite of what he did before, and fought with a war crazed vigor. He shot, reloaded, and shot again, never stopping to rest and continued firing like this well after the battle, shooting at nothing. This earned him the nickname “war devil” for his fighting vigor. When the battle ended, Henry was giving permission to go find a stream to fetch some water, but as he was searching, he overheard the generals discussing the battle tactics and learned that his regiment was to charge the enemy, which he told to his regiment. When the time finally came, the regiment surged forward toward the treeline, where gunfire tore at them and brought many to the ground. Despite the heavy losses, Henry managed to wrestle the flag from the fallen flag bearer, only to realize that some of the regiment was fleeing. Suddenly, a renewed and fresh wave of enemy soldiers burst out of the forest, running toward them. Even in this difficult and deadly situation, the regiment slowly encircled the Confederate troops, firing upon them and moving in, finally causing the enemy to retreat. Still the enemy was not vanquished. New soldiers bearing a flag poured from the trees, this time taking cover behind a fence, destroying Henry’s regiment. Their only choice was to charge them yet again, and with words of

In the first battle, Henry fights along side the other soldiers. At this time, Henry is feeling confidant in his fighting skills and counted on his fellow soldiers to do their job. The narrator says, "He became not a man but a member. He felt that something of which he was apart- a regiment, an army, a cause, or a country - was in a crisis. He was welded into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire". In this quote, it talks about how he feels that he believes in his regiment. He isn't so selfish, he believes he is no longer an individual with regiments, they work as a whole person. In the second battle, it's different, he flees with the regiment.

Henry’s impetus action foregrounds his immaturity as he ‘didn’t consider’ the decision fully, not acknowledging the risk involved. This immaturity is in stark contrast to the steadfast, resolute behaviour exhibited by the soldiers through the novel on countless occasions. Henry showed a careless and unnecessary disregard for his own safety, unlike that of the soldiers where their risk-taking was

On October 3rd, 1918, Major Charles White Whittlesey, along with 500 soldiers of the 77th division, was trapped behind enemy lines without much food or water. Surrounded by hundreds of thousands of German soldiers, many of his men were killed or wounded.2 Within 24 hours, roughly 200 of the Allied

Private George Washington Elmer Lofgren served as an infantryman in Company E, 117th Regiment, 30th Division of the American Expeditionary Forces. He went into action on September 20, 1918 on the Somme Front in the Battle of the Hindenburg Line.9 As significant reinforcements from the United States reached Europe; they joined the Allies’ 1918 offensive. By the time Elmer arrived on the battlefield, the Allies had already pushed the Germans back to their last stronghold, the Siegfried Stellung, which the Allies called the Hindenburg Line.10 The fresh troops from America joined the attack on these fortifications and sustained extremely high casualty rates as they crossed no man’s land through devastating machine gun and small arms fire. Elmer, however, survived the slaughter.

After the first battle in "The Red Badge of Courage", we see how many of the soldiers feel courageous and confident in their fighting abilities. However, this spirit doesn't last long, as the following battle in chapter 6 shakes up their regiment, eventually separating most of the soldiers in the confusion. In the above excerpt, we see how Henry is scared and confused in the face of this persistent enemy. It is hard for him to make out the battle in front of him, which causes further panic and confusion among the regiment. After all, it is scary enough to fight an enemy seen – even scarier to fight an enemy that is invisible. Adding to the confusion of this battle, many of the men in Henry's regiment, including Henry, let their fear overwhelm them, and flee from the battleground.

Many soldiers lost their lives, but they were few soldiers that fought with the valor of Audie Murphy. In January 1945, German forces attacked Company B, 15th Regiment, 3rd infantry division in Holtzwihr. Approximately 250 German soldiers were heading towards the Bois de Reidwihr which they had planned to seize. The Americans felt unprepared when they discovered the presence of the German forces, so they decided to fall back. However, Audie Murphy decided to move forward and fight. He drew a .50 caliber and started shooting Germans as he believed that German advancements in this area needed to be stopped at all costs. This German infantryman were as close as 10 yards from Lieutenant Murphy, but he kept shooting at German infantry bodies. The bravery Murphy presented at Holtzwihr earned him the medal of honor.

Once he arrived in France it was a unique experience for him, life at the front was a new lifestyle that he was not used to, but he adjusted to his new environment and was able to thrive. Life in the trenches was different from anything Henry had ever experienced, it was not a pleasant lifestyle. The trenches were filled with water and mud that usually went past the soldiers knees due to the heavy rainfall. This lead to many soldiers getting “trench foot” a condition that occurs with extended exposure of the foot to wet, unsanitary, and cold conditions. This was just one of the many diseases that were contracted by soldiers in the trenches. Henry Norwest was one of the soldiers who was lucky enough to not get any of these ailments. Henry’s

Henry eventually gets his red badge of courage by getting hit in the head with a rifle.

He described that he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to. Through this analogy, the reader can see that Henry is reducing the soldiers to unthinking, unfeeling machines, performing their duty without taking into account the threat of injury or death. As he looks around at the faces of the rest of the soldiers in his regiment, he notices their focused commitment to the firing of their rifles. He wonders if he is the only one faced with questions of morality. While the regiment began to advance, Henry was shocked to receive a packet of letters from Wilson, who feared he would die in battle. After the battle, he is glad that he made it through the first day. He begins to lose the romantic vision of war by seeing the realities, but he starts lying to himself about who is really is.