The Red Badge of Courage - Larger Print Author:Stephen Crane War is many things. It is waiting and boredom and rumor, as well as shot and shell and the Flag flying in a brave charge. It is men against the many minor enemies of sodden discomfort, fatigue, fear, and uncertainty, as well as the human enemy with a gun. — When Stephen Crane wrote The Red Badge of Courage in 1895, it met immediate wide popularit... more »y. Others had written of gallantry, of glory, and of grand strategy; but what Crane's readers found was the simple human tale of a young recruit, bewildered by the mad pattern of battle, often weary, and frequently afraid. It was in effect a truth about war-and about men-which old soldiers might tell, but which was seldom set down in books.« less