The story starts out with a heated debate between the soldiers. One boy had heard a rumor that the regiment would be moving on to fight a battle the next day. Some of the soldiers agree with this boy, while others think that their regiment will never partake in a real battle. While watching this argument, Henry, the protagonist, decides that he would rather go lay down and think rather then take part in the heated argument between the soldiers. Henry, a simple farm boy, is rather excited when he hears the rumor that they will be fighting soon. It had always been a dream of his to fight in a war, and become a hero, and now his dream was coming true. Henry begins to think about what life was like before he entered the army, and reme

Henry deals with his fear of battle by acting arrogant. He acts as if he has been in a thousand battles, and complains about the walking, even though the reader knows that he would rather be walking forever then go to battle at this point in time. It shows one of Henry's defense mechanisms, how he uses his arrogance to hide his innocence.

All of a sudden, Henry sees the soldiers' frantically running. One grabs him, and Henry asks him why they are running so frantically. The only response he gets is a whack in the head with the soldiers' gun. A few moments later, when Henry is able to get up, he begins to march with passer by soldiers. A soldier walking next to him notices the wound on his head, and automatically assumes it to be a bullet wound. The kind-hearted soldier leads Henry back to his regiment. The first person Henry sees when he gets to the group is his friend Tom. In order to save face, Henry makes up a big story about how he got shot in the head, and then got separated from the regiment. Tom takes great care of Henry, cleans him up and makes sure that he gets enough food, and a good night's sleep.

When Henry meets up his regiment and older tattered man begins to have a discussion with him. The old man asks Henry "where yeh hit, ol' boy?" meaning, where he got shot. With massive feelings of guilt, Henry shrugs away from the man and runs back into the woods. From behind a tree, he looks at all the wounded soldiers. "At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be particularly happy. He wished that he, too had a wound, a red badge of courage" This shows Henrys desire to be a wounded war hero. He does not want to be set apart from the other boys as a coward. As soon as the old soldier passed him, he went back to the lines and continued on with the boys. He starts walking next to Jim Conklin, a soldier that he knew pretty well. They are talking, when all of a sudden Jim runs away. He falls onto the ground and dies. This death has a very big affect on Henry. Jim was his first friend to be killed in battle. He feels guilty that Jim was put through so much pain, and he just ra

Some common words found in the essay are:
Tom Henry, Henry Fleming, Henry Jim, Henry Tom, Jim Conklin, Steven Crane, tom henry, red badge courage, badge courage, red badge, henry tom, battle henry, innocence experience, war hero, Civil War, Red Badge, Badge Courage, henry tom hear, movement innocence, fight war, tom hear, movement innocence experience,
Approximate Word count = 1455
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)