Existing comment:
Some veterans objected to Crane's The Red Badge of Courage because it included descriptions of abject fear among soldiers. Many of Crane's passages have vivid parallels in the memoirs of men who were here.
From a Pennsylvania soldier, describing May 3, 1863:
Something had gone wrong. The men began to feel it... I noticed a foreboding disorder on our right. Then a feeling of suspense and doubt seemed to trill along the line... The disorder, changing into tumult, drew nearer and nearer. At last it swept upon the company next to mine. Then it struck my own company's right... The men with questioning looks at one another, started at first slowly and then rapidly backward. It was not a panic. It was rather a disorderly falling back of almost helpless men. They were good soldiers... but what can men do when without ammunition?
From The Red Badge of Courage:
He became like the man who lost his legs at the approach of the red and green monster. He waited in a sort of horrified, listening attitude. He seemed to shut his eyes and wait to be gobbled... Others began to scamper away through the smoke. The youth turned his head, shaken from the trance by this movement as if the regiment was leaving him behind.... He yelled then with fright and swung about. For a moment, in the great clamor, he was like a proverbial chicken. He lost the direction of safety. Destruction threatened him from all points.
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